Professor Sue Rowley is Emeritus Professor of the University of Technology Sydney and a consultant in the assessment, strategy and management of university research, and in the development of the creative arts and design. She is a member of the Boards of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Institute for Experimental Arts at UNSW, and Chair of the External Advisory Board of the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong. Her previous positions include Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Technology Sydney (2004-2009), Executive Director with the Australian Research Council (2001-2004) and Foundation Professor of Contemporary Australian Art and Head of the School of Art History and Theory at the University of New South Wales (1995-2000).
As Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) she was instrumental in winning the Federal Government’s Creative Industries Innovation Centre and the Australian Local Government Centre of Excellence. She has served on the Boards of companies and research institutes and centres including the Enterprise Connect Creative Industries Innovation Centre, ARC Centre of Excellence for Ultra-high Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), ATP Innovations, Capital Markets Co-operative Research Centre, Australasian Co-operative Research Centre for Interaction Design (ACID), INTERSECT, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, and Object Centre for Contemporary Craft and Design. Her expertise in research policy and assessment led to her appointment in 2008-2009 to the European Commission’s Expert Group on Assessment of University-Based Research.
As an Australian Research Council (ARC)'s Executive Director, Sue had responsibility for the Humanities and Creative Arts. In this role, she developed the ARC's inclusive approach to research in the creative arts, design and architecture. She was a member of the Federal Government’s National Research Priorities Standing Committee and was appointed Chair of the Research Quality Framework Assessment Panel for Creative Arts, Design and Built Environment in its developmental phase. Her academic expertise is in contemporary Australian visual arts and design. Complementing her written publications, she curated and managed national and international exhibitions of Australian craft and design, including multi-venue tours in the USA, Germany, Taiwan and Singapore. In the 1990s, she was President of Object: the Australian Centre for Craft and Design, and the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS) and served on the Australia Council's National Infrastructure Committee.