Professor Julian Thomas FAHA

Julian is Director of the ADM+S Centre and a Distinguished Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.

Julian Thomas
Co-convenor of the 54th Annual Academy Symposium

Julian is also a Distinguished Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.

Prior to the commencement of the ADM+S Centre, he was Director of the Swinburne Institute for Social Research (2005-2016), and then Director of RMIT’s Social Change research platform. He has also led the team producing the Australian Digital Inclusion Index since 2015. His work ranges across the contemporary histories of new communications technologies, digital inequality and inclusion, and the internet and communication policy.

Recent publications include studies of automation in digital advertising, the history of mapping and navigation in autonomous vehicles, and recommendation systems in the book industry. His latest book is Wi-Fi (Polity 2021; with Ellie Rennie and Rowan Wilken). Other books include Internet on the Outstation: The Digital Divide and Remote Aboriginal Communities (INC, 2016), The Informal Media Economy (Polity, 2015), and Fashioning Intellectual Property (Cambridge UP, 2012).

Julian was elected to the Council of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2017, is a Board member of the Australian Communications Consumers Action Network (ACCAN), and an Advisory Board member of Humanitech, an initiative of the Australian Red Cross.

54th Annual Academy SymposiumJoin us on 16 and 17 November for our 54th Annual Academy Symposium — Between humans & machines: exploring the pasts and futures of automation as we explore the possibilities and hazards of automation, and the complexities of human-machine relations.

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Acknowledgement of Country

The Australian Academy of the Humanities recognises Australia’s First Nations Peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this land, and their continuous connection to country, community and culture.