Retirement of Dean, Faculty of Information Technology
Professor Ann Nicholson will not seek a further term as Dean, Faculty of Information Technology (IT) and will step down from her position on Friday 19 December 2025. Following an extended period of annual and long service leave in 2026, Professor Nicholson will formally retire from Monash University on 12 December 2026.
For more than 30 years, Professor Nicholson has served the Faculty of IT in an array of senior academic and leadership positions. During her tenure as Associate Dean (Education) between 2014 and 2016, the Faculty achieved rapid growth in student enrolments in successive years. In 2018, Professor Nicholson was appointed Deputy Dean (Research), where she worked with teams across the Faculty to expand and grow Monash’s capabilities in all core measures of research, including publications, citations, research rankings and overall research income.
An accomplished Faculty leader
Professor Nicholson was appointed Dean, Faculty of Information Technology in December 2021, having previously held the role of Interim Dean since July 2020. After navigating the COVID-19 pandemic with strong, stabilising leadership, Professor Nicholson oversaw key milestones for the Faculty as it emerged from the pandemic. The Faculty has achieved strong growth in its taught load numbers since then, rising from 5560 in 2019 to nearly 7500 in 2025, providing a considerable financial contribution to the University in recent years.
Under her leadership, the Faculty launched two critical research centres – the AI for Law Enforcement and Community Safety (AiLECS) Lab in partnership with the Australian Federal Police in 2023, and the Monash Assistive Technology and Society (MATS) Centre in 2024. Last year, the Faculty also took ownership of the Monash Data Futures Institute, which became the Monash AI Institute in February 2025. In collaboration with the Faculty of Science and the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, the Faculty established Monash University’s new Environmental Informatics Hub earlier this year.
Professor Nicholson has been instrumental in ensuring that the Faculty’s global reputation in prestigious university rankings has risen substantially during her tenure, from ranking among the world’s top 250 universities in 2020 to most recently placing 61st in the world and second in Australia for computer science in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings by Subject 2025. The Faculty also boasts Monash’s highest Field Weighted Citation Index of 2.42, while its research talent has also achieved consistent national recognition with 14 different fellowships – worth more than $15.4 million – awarded to Faculty researchers by the Australian Research Council since 2022.
During her tenure, Professor Nicholson has strengthened links to industry, achieving positive partnership outcomes with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the United States] and cooperative research centres such as Digital Health and RACE for 2030, and establishing the Dean’s Industry Advisory Council.
Professor Nicholson also spearheaded several education initiatives, including the “Responsible and Ethical IT” curriculum initiative which was launched in 2024 to alert and educate students about relevant questions and issues related to ethics in IT. She also oversaw the initiation of the Education Transformation Project focusing on transforming large core foundation units taught by the Faculty, as well as the growth of the Faculty’s reputable work-integrated learning programs through expanded placement offerings and the introduction of IT student teams under the Monash Student Teams Initiative.
Pioneering representation initiatives and research achievements
A champion of greater Indigenous participation within the Faculty, Professor Nicholson instituted the Faculty's first Indigenous Plan and oversaw growth in Indigenous staff numbers from one in 2020 to nine in 2025. The Faculty has also become a University leader in the conversion of casual teaching staff to CDPAE and PhD Teaching Fellow roles, with 99 CDPAE staff and 36 PhD Teaching Fellows as of April 2025. As Dean, she played an instrumental role in growing the number of women academics, particularly professors in the Faculty, as well as strengthening the Faculty’s staffing structure with the appointments of Associate Dean (Sustainability) and Associate Dean (Indigenous) in 2022, and the more recent appointment of the Faculty’s inaugural Associate Dean (Innovation) in 2025. She has also served on various Monash committees including the IITB-Monash Research Academy Board, Time and Attendance Steering Committee, AI Steering Committee, and the Digital Research Committee.
A renowned expert in Bayesian networks, Professor Nicholson’s research has focused on translational impact and social good, with cross-disciplinary collaborations in epidemiology, medicine, education, environmental science and meteorology. She has published more than 120 peer reviewed papers and co-authored the highly regarded ‘Bayesian Artificial Intelligence’ textbook. Her research has attracted more than $12 million in research funding, which resulted in the establishment of two start-up companies for Bayesian AI technology transfer. In recognition of her influential academic contributions to computing – and their interdisciplinary translation to real-world impact – Professor Nicholson was appointed Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering in 2022 and was inducted as a member of the CORE Academy in 2023.
Professor Nicholson retires from Monash with a distinguished reputation as an internationally recognised researcher in artificial intelligence and an innovative educator. As a long-serving academic leader, many staff and students – past and present – have benefited from her advice and mentorship over the years. Her invaluable contributions to Monash in her various senior leadership capacities have helped strengthen the foundations for the Faculty to build on for the future.
We thank Professor Nicholson for her remarkable service to Monash for the past 31 years and wish her all the best for her retirement. Interim arrangements and an international search for the position of Dean, Faculty of Information Technology will be announced in due course.