HASS Research Data Commons Program Manager Announcement

The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) is delighted to announce the appointment of Jenny Fewster to the position of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) Research Data Commons Program Manager.

The HASS Research Data Commons (RDC) represents a $8.9-million investment by the Australian Government to help build a national HASS and Indigenous digital research infrastructure that will create new tools and platforms to extend researcher capacity.

The infrastructure will enhance research in a broad range of fields including education, cultural studies, linguistics, history, economics, commerce, tourism, law and legal studies, the creative arts and Indigenous HASS digital research infrastructure. Jenny will work in collaboration with the Indigenous HASS Research Program Coordinator to be appointed at the Indigenous Data Network (IDN) at the University of Melbourne, as part of the same Australian Government investment. Under these and similarly collaborative partnerships, the investment will help institutions share data more freely, ethically and cooperatively following the FAIR data principles and Indigenous data governance protocols maintained by the Indigenous Data Network.

Jenny brings to the role a wealth of experience in the collection, management and dissemination of research and cultural heritage data and resources through digital humanities platforms, most recently as Executive Officer and Program Manager of AusStage. Under her stewardship since 2003, AusStage has become the largest and most extensive national cultural dataset on live performance.

Jenny is acutely aware of the diverse infrastructure needs of the digital humanities, with expertise in database design, metadata schemas, interoperability factors, resource discovery protocols, content management systems, data visualisation techniques and digital literacy. Her in-depth knowledge of the Australian HASS research sector will be of great value to the delivery of the new HASS RDC program.

We would like to congratulate Jenny on her appointment and look forward to her commencement in her new role from Monday 7 June 2021.

Learn more about the HASS Research Data Commons.