Sarah Barns

Sarah is a Research Fellow based at the Institute for Culture and Society. She is also a respected industry and government adviser in the area of smart cities and data-driven city governance, and director of digital place-making studio Esem Projects.

Sarah's postdoctoral research from 2013 has dealt with the rise of 'platform urbanism' and examines how the proliferation of city labs, data infomediaries and open data experiments is shaping the urban innovation agenda in key global cities.

Sarah’s current research agenda builds on an established professional career as a digital strategist, creative producer and strategic policy adviser, having worked for a number of public agencies & consultancies such as Arup, the ABC, the Enterprise Connect Creative Industries Innovation Centre, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and National ICT Australia.

Through her creative work she continues to develop new interpretation methodologies for digital place-making, heritage interpretation and community engagement.