PRESIDENT (Aus)

Associate Professor in Film

The University of Adelaide

Peter is the author of four books on Asian Cinema, including Japanese High School Films (2022) and The Cinematic Influence: Interaction and Exchange Between the Cinemas of France and Japan (with Ben McCann, 2023). He teaches in the courses Asian Film Studies, Honours Film Theory, Contemporary Approaches to Cinema and Screenwriting. He has been on the SSAAANZ Executive Board since 2018 and has served as SSAAANZ President since 2021. He has published journal articles and book chapters on the cinemas of India, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan, and on Singaporean and Chinese TV.

VICE PRESIDENT (Aus)

Senior Lecturer in Cinema and Screen Studies and Chief Investigator for the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies

Swinburne University of Technology

Jessica’s research examines screen genres across film, television and digital media for and about children; horror and Gothic media; and the impact of technological and industrial change on entertainment cultures and aesthetics. Her books include The Uncanny Child in Transnational Cinema (Amsterdam UP, 2018) and edited collections published by Routledge, Iowa and Amsterdam UP. She is the founding editor of Amsterdam University Press’ book series, Horror and Gothic Media Cultures, and an editor of Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media.

GENERAL SECRETARY (Aus)

Associate Professor in Screen & Media

Flinders University

Julia Erhart is an internationally recognised feminist film scholar and expert in the fields of feminist, LGBTQ, and documentary media. She is author of three books, Gendering History on Screen: Women Filmmakers and Historical Films (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury 2018), Gillian Armstrong: popular, sensual & ethical cinema (Edinburgh UP 2020), and The Children’s Hour (McGill-Queens UP forthcoming 2023). Julia has a track record of data-driven research examining gender equity and the Australian screen industry and an established reputation for research on women’s media authorship and output. Her newest book on The Children’s Hour (2023), is on the first commercial American film to feature a lesbian character in a mainstream role.

TREASURER (Aus)

Associate Professor in English & Screen

James Cook University

Allison Craven lectures in English and Screen Studies. Her primary research interests are in: fairy tale and gothic narrative; film and cinema in Australia; Asia and Australia in cinema; intermediality of theatre and cinema. She teaches courses in Gothic Fiction, and Children's Literature, and she coordinates the first-year Arts core subject, Time, Truth and the Human Condition

ORDINARY MEMBER (NZ)

Senior Lecturer in Media Studies

Massey University

Pansy Duncan is a senior lecturer in the Media Studies programme at Massey University, Auckland, where she writes on the history and politics of film and media aesthetics. She is the author of three books: The Emotional Life of Postmodern Film (Routledge, 2016); Screening the Posthuman (Oxford University Press, 2023), with Missy Molloy and Claire Henry; and The Natural History of Film Form (Edinburgh University Press, 2025). Her current project concerns the minor aesthetic categories that mediated the construction and reception of woman film stars in studio-era Hollywood: the sultry, the charming, the dainty and the smart.

ORDINARY MEMBER (NZ)

Associate Professor in Communication Studies

Auckland University of Technology

Arezou Zalipour is a film writer, critic, researcher, educator, and practitioner who came to the film industry through teaching and researching screen practice. She's driven by the creative and social power of film for telling our own stories, and her work focuses on the ways in which migration, diaspora and socio-cultural diversity are shaping New Zealand society. Arezou's book Migrant and Diasporic Film and Filmmaking in New Zealand (published in 2019) expanded her research on Asian New Zealanders' films and filmmaking by engaging the screen production and practices of the Pacific communities in New Zealand. Arezou has conducted insightful critical interviews with New Zealand directors, writers, producers. Arezou was the director, curator and concept developer of the (In)Visible New Zealand Film Festival, the first of its kind to showcase New Zealand's multi-cultural films on the big screen.

ORDINARY MEMBER

ECR Representative (Aus)

Research Associate & Teaching Associate

Monash University

Simon has worked in various research and teaching roles, primarily in Monash University's School of Media, Film and Journalism, after receiving his PhD in 2019. His research mainly investigates representation and cultural politics related to the environment and climate crisis. He is the author of Cinematic Encounters with Disaster, published in Bloomsbury Academic's 'Thinking Cinema' series, as well as articles in Continuum Journal orMedia & Cultural Studies, NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Studies in Documentary Film, and elsewhere.

ORDINARY MEMBER

HDR Representative (Aus)

PhD Candidate

Flinders University

Kristen is a PhD candidate and casual academic in Screen at Flinders University. Her practice-based research examines new aesthetic experiences of action-based media and includes the development of SONNY, a short cinematic virtual reality film being produced with UNREAL Engine. Kristen also practices as a video installation artist and has exhibited nationally, including Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), SEVENTH Gallery Melbourne, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, SAWTOOTH ARI Launceston, the Sydney Underground Film Festival, Adelaide Festival Centre Moving Image Screen Program, and FELTspace Adelaide.