Keynote speakers

Professor Holland is a renowned international scholar and is currently the Pro Vice-Chancellor Engagement at University of Western Sydney. In this role she serves as the senior executive for engagement and is implementing the University's strategic plan for engagement as well as a developing a system to monitor and assess engagement's impacts on faculty, students, and communities.

A frequent consultant, author, and speaker, she is well-known for her expertise in the areas of organizational change in higher education with a specific emphasis on the implementation and assessment of community-based learning, engaged scholarship, and community-campus partnerships. In 2006 she received the Research Achievement Award from the International Association for Research on Service-learning and Community Engagement.

Dean, Graduate Research School, Edith Cowan University

Professor Luca's research interests are focused on promoting research and research training quality, as well as e-learning, graduate attributes, project management and creating online learning environments that promote deep and meaningful learning. In these fields he has been actively involved in writing a number of refereed research articles, and currently has over 95 refereed journal, book chapters, book and conference publications. Before joining the university he worked extensively in the multimedia industry as a project manager in variety of multimedia development companies, and managed the development of many large commercial multimedia developments.

He has been recognised for his excellence in teaching, and has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor's Teaching Award of excellence in 2002 and 2007. He won a Carrick Citation Award for Teaching in 2007 for "For sustained contributions that inspire students and enhance learning and employment outcomes through the creative use of innovative technologies and authentic tasks", and in 2008 won an Australian Award for Teaching Excellence.