Sarah Maddison

Professor Sarah Maddison is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education & Student Experience) at the University of New South Wales. The Division includes Future Student, Registrar & Student Services, and Education & Student Experience.

Sarah has worked in Higher Education for 25 years, with 10 years of senior leadership experience, including Department Chair, School Dean, Faculty Executive Dean, Pro-Vice Chancellor, and most recently Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education, Experience & Employability) at Swinburne University of Technology. 

A champion of innovation in learning and teaching and research-informed practice, Sarah has led her team to win a prestigious Australian government Office of Learning & Teaching Citation and an Open Universities Australia NOVA award for innovation in online learning to build student agency and digital communities. She has been invited to numerous national and international panels on topics including the use of learning analytics to support student retention, learning ecosystems to support borderless education, and pedagogyand learning spaces.

Past roles have included chair of the Women in Astronomy Chapter of the Astronomical Society of Australia, the International Astronomical Union Working Group for Women in Astronomy, and the CSIRO Australia Telescope Time Assignment Committee, and member of the SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre’s Education College, Council of the Deans of Science, Square Kilometre Array Cradle of Life Working Group, Editorial Advisory Board of the Publications of the Astronomy Society of Australia, and Australian Research Council College of Experts.

Sarah’s research area of astrophysics focuses on planet formation, which she explores both observationally and numerically using the world’s largest radio telescopes and supercomputers.