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Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University

Tama Leaver is a Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia and expert media commentator. He is the President of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

His research interests include digital childhood and infancy online, visual social media , social media, digital death, mobile gaming and the changing landscape of media distribution.

He is the author of Artificial Culture: Identity, Technology and Bodies (Routledge, 2012); co-editor of An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network (Routledge, 2014) with Mike Kent; and Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) with Michele Willson; co-author of Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures (Polity, 2020) with Tim Highfield and Crystal Abidin; and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children (Routledge, 2021) with Lelia Green, Donell Holloway, Kylie Stevenson and Leslie Haddon.

He has been awarded teaching awards from the University of Western Australia, Curtin University, and in 2012 received a national Australian Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities and the Arts.

Experience

  • 2021–present
    Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin
  • 2016–2020
    Associate Professor, Curtin
  • 2013–2016
    Senior Lecturer in Internet Studies, Curtin
  • 2012–2013
    Research Fellow, Curtin Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT)
  • 2009–2012
    Lecturer in Internet Studies, Curtin

Education

  • 2006 
    UWA, PhD
  • 2000 
    UWA, BA(Hons, 1st Class)

Honours

2012 Australian Award for University Teaching for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities and the Arts