People

Academic Chief Investigators

Prof. Tony Moore
Monash University

Professor Tony Moore, the Lead Chief Investigator, is based at Monash University’s School of Media, Film and Journalism. He has a background in leading large-scale projects and is an experienced cultural and media historian focusing on the intersection of countercultures, popular culture and politics and the translation of research into digital media outputs. Tony’s books include Fringe to Famous – Australian Cultural Production After the Creative Industries (Bloomsbury, 2024), Dancing with Empty Pockets: Australia’s Bohemians Since 1860 (2012 Allen & Unwin), Death or Liberty:  Rebels and Radicals Transported to Australia 1788-1868 (adapted as major ABC screen documentary), and The Barry McKenzie Movies (Currency Press 2005). Tony has enjoyed previous careers in media and book publishing as a documentary maker and current affairs producer at ABC TV, and commissioning editor of Pluto Press and Cambridge University Press. Tony has extensive ARC Linkage leadership experience, including Conviction Politics: the convict routes of Australian democracy. Tony contributes to the archival research publications and media production, including Melbourne collections, audio-visual resources, interviews, content creation with Roar Film and supervision of Monash project support staff.

Prof. Steve Vizard
Monash University

Professor Steve Vizard is a researcher at Monash University’s School of Media, Film and Journalism and one of Australia’s best-known comedy creators, producers and innovators, with a strong track-record in scholarly research. Professor Vizard has enjoyed a successful career in the arts, media, communications and cultural policy in Australia. This includes the creation and production of critically-acclaimed television series such as “Fast Forward”, “Seachange”, and interview-based “Tonight Live”, serving in media businesses and major national cultural institutions such as the National Gallery Victoria, Victorian Major Events, Screen Producers Association, and Film Australia, as well as authoring critically–praised books and theatrical works. Steve’s publications include Graham Kennedy Treasures: Friends Remember the King and Best Australian Humorous Writing (both with Melbourne University Publishing, 2008), Australia's Population Challenge (Penguin, 2003), and Two Weeks in Lilliput (Penguin, 1998).

Prof. Anne Pender
University of Adelaide

Professor Anne Pender holds the Kidman Chair in Australian Studies at the University of Adelaide and is Director of the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice. She is a leading expert in the field of Australian comedy and the influence of comic actors on cultural life. Anne’s books include Seven Big Australians: Adventures with Comic Actors (2019), Players: Australian Actors on Stage, Television and Film (2016) and One Man Show: The Stages of Barry Humphries (2010). Anne's role is Archival and Industry Liaison Lead, Adelaide.

Prof. Mark Gibson
RMIT University

Mark Gibson is Professor of Media at RMIT University and has held positions previously at Monash, Murdoch and Central Queensland Universities. He has research interests in cultural and creative industries, the history of media and cultural studies, concepts of power, Australian cultural history and the relation between culture and economy. His publications include Fringe to Famous – Australian Cultural Production After the Creative Industries (Bloomsbury, 2024) and Culture and Power – A History of Cultural Studies (Berg, 2007). He was also editor for thirteen years of Continuum – Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.

Prof. Mark Carroll
University of Adelaide

Professor Mark Carroll is internationally recognised for his work on music and politics. He will be Exhibitions Curator and Coordinator in Adelaide, and his archive research will focus on the Adelaide Festival Centre’s extensive performance collections and the vibrant stream of ‘pub comedy’ in 1970s-90s rock and popular music in Australia. He will also work with the Centre of Democracy on industry and practice-based research focussed on Adelaide Fringe and contribute to scholarly outputs.

Research Fellows

Dr Kyle Harvey
Monash University

Dr Kyle Harvey is a researcher in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, where he examines the history, culture and lived experience of migration, mobility, and cultural and linguistic diversity in Australian comedy. Kyle is a historian with research interests encompassing media history, migration history, and the history of radicalism and social movements, oral history, intellectual history, memory, biography, and the history of education.

Dr Peter Beaglehole
University of Adelaide

Dr Peter Beaglehole writes plays and performance work. In 2022 he received the Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award for his performance text Calendar Days, which went onto development as part of Vitalstatistix's Adhocracy. With RUMPUS he has presented a work in progress reading as part of their Baby Plays’ program, and Strata in their 2020/2021 curated season. Strata was shortlisted in the Jill Blewett Playwright’s Award in 2018 and received the 2016 State Theatre Company of South Australia’s Young Playwrights’ Award. His work has also been staged and presented online in ATYP’s Intersection 2017, published by Currency press, the 2013 Come Out Festival (Now DreamBIG Children’s Festival), and in Critical Stages’ 2021 Come to Where I Am. He also researches Australian theatre history through the field of Memory Studies, and has published a monograph: Dorothy Hewett's Drama, Memory and Australian Theatre.

Dr Angelina Hurley
RMIT University

Dr Angelina Hurley is an Aboriginal writer from Brisbane, belonging to the Gooreng Gooreng and Mununjali nations on her father’s side (renowned artist Ron Hurley) and the Birriah and Gamilaraay nations on her mother’s. Her writing began with the short film Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun (2009), part of Screen Australia’s The New Black series. A 2011 Fulbright Indigenous Scholar, she brings over 35 years of experience in First Nations arts and education, contributing widely to journals and media. In 2024, she became the first Aboriginal PhD graduate from Griffith University Film School. Her thesis, Reconciliation Rescue, features scripts for a Blak comedy series, using humour and storytelling to amplify Aboriginal voices. Through both academic and creative writing, Angelina aims to amplify Aboriginal humour and arts, sharing First Nations stories with wider audiences.

Partner Investigators

Steve Thomas
Creative Director, Roar Film

Steve Thomas is a filmmaker with extensive expertise in documentary, multimedia, and interactive digital storytelling. He has contributed to over 30 award-winning film and television projects since 1995, including Death or Liberty and Looky, Looky Here Comes Cooky. Steve is Creative Director at Hobart-based production company Roar Film, and his work at Roar has been broadcast on ABC, SBS, NITV, ZDF Germany, TG4 Ireland, S4C Wales, and the Discovery Channel. He has also collaborated with institutions such as the Australian National Maritime Museum, the National Trust of Australia, and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. He has extensive ARC Linkage experience, including the Monash-led ARC Linkage Project Conviction Politics: the convict routes of Australian democracy.

Susan Provan AO
CEO Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Susan Provan AO is an accomplished performing arts director, producer and administrator with many decades of experience in the comedy sector. She inaugurated the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) as Festival Director and CEO in 1994, a position she still holds. As MICF’s director, Susan has steered the Festival into one of the largest comedy festivals in the world. Under her leadership the MICF has introduced nationally renowned development programs to support a flourishing comedy industry that have paved the careers of many Australian performers, including ‘RAW Comedy’ (Australia’s largest and most popular open mic competition), ‘Class Clowns’ (workshops and comedy competition for teens) and ‘Deadly Funny’ (developing and showcasing Indigenous comedy). The Festival’s annual three-month Roadshow tours around 40 comedians annually to 80 destination across Australia and into Asia. Susan brings to the project her detailed knowledge of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival archive collection, accessing data about the festival’s operation and history of the MICF and the broader cultural history and ecology of Melbourne performance comedy since the 1980s. She will contribute to publications and documentaries about MICF, supervise research on the Indigenous aspects of the MICF collection.

PhD Candidates

Matilda Knowles
Monash University

Til Knowles is a PhD candidate at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Her PhD research focuses on the influence of suicide jokes told by stand-up comedians in post-2000s Australia. She’s interested in the role of authenticity, community, mediation and confession in contemporary performance comedy.  Til’s masters research, “Larrikins, listeners and Lifeline: inside Australian comedy chatcast The Little Dum Dum Club”, examined the performance of cultural conventions and community in comedy podcasts. Til is also a pop culture writer, speculative fiction nerd and occasional podcaster.

Mitch Alexander
Monash University

Mitch Alexander is a PhD candidate, vocalist, metalhead, comedian, philosopher, commentator, podcaster, vegetarian, reductionist utilitarian who hates labels. He has a Masters in Philosophy from Monash University, over 20 million online streams with his band Eye Of The Enemy, and his previous comedy/politics podcast Not Good Enough regularly charted in the Top 10 of Australian shows. He is currently researching the impact digital platforms are having on Australian comedy at Monash University. It is an interdisciplinary project incorporating platform studies, philosophical theories of autonomy, notions of persona and authenticity, and investigations into cultural and industrial disruptions taking place in the Australian comedy scene.

Project Coordinator

Dr Daisy Bailey
Monash University

Daisy Bailey is Senior Project Coordinator. Having worked in a similar role on the ARC Linkage Project Conviction Politics, and as production coordinator during the Comedy Country interview shoots in 2024, she is excited to be a part of the team and see the outputs of the project come to life. Daisy also has an interest in Australian cultural history, recently completing her PhD in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University on the impact of political prisoners transported to the Australian colonies in the nineteenth century. She is enthused to now be involved in a cultural history project researching change in Australia through the lens of comedy.