Rate My Professor Sue Bennett

Professor Sue Bennett serves as Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice President (Academic) at La Trobe University, a role she commenced in August 2025. With more than 30 years of experience in Australian universities, she has held numerous senior leadership positions, including at the University of Wollongong where she spent over two decades as Senior Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education, Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Student Life), Executive Dean of the Faculty of the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Head of the School of Education, and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. She chaired the University Education Committee, University Internationalisation Committee, and University Workload Committee, and served on the Academic Senate and Healing and Recognition Steering Committee. Her career encompasses strategic academic leadership, teaching from first-year undergraduate to postgraduate levels, curriculum design, program leadership, and directing interdisciplinary research projects and teams.

Bennett's academic background spans science and education. She earned a Bachelor of Science from Griffith University, an honours degree in Physics and a Master of Science in Scientific Communication from the Australian National University, a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education from the University of New South Wales, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Education from the University of Wollongong. Her research expertise focuses on technology in education and society, with particular emphasis on higher education and learning design. She has attracted $45 million in competitive research funding and produced over 250 research outputs, including 67 refereed journal articles. Key publications include 'The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence' (2008, British Journal of Educational Technology), 'Beyond the ‘digital natives’ debate: Towards a more nuanced understanding of students' technology experiences' (2010, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning), 'Digital divides? Student and staff perceptions of information and communication technologies' (2010, Computers & Education), and 'The process of designing for learning: Understanding university teachers’ design work' (2017, Educational Technology Research and Development). Her scholarship has garnered over 17,000 citations, influencing understandings of technology use in learning environments.