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Current work

 

I’m the Learning Programs Manager at Western Sydney University Library.

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Learning Programs is an exciting new team working across 7 campuses and online, uniting staff with expertise in areas such as academic and digital literacies, teaching and learning, and learning design.

We're really keen to co-design with the Western Sydney community so please get in touch if you’re interested in collaborating across: events, learning activities, exhibitions, tours, online resources, or research on the impact of our work.

We're committed to continuous improvement in education through co-design, communities of practice, data-driven insights, research (education, linguistics, SoTL), reflective practice, and universal design for learning principles.

 

Western Sydney University was the vision of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam to create more equitable learning opportunities for the people of Western Sydney. It has one of the most socio-economically diverse student cohorts in Australia, leading the way in providing social mobility through education.

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Outside of my day job, I am also an active researcher (currently working on projects around social media discourse and legitimation in language, and understanding generative AI through multimodal discourse analysis), studying social impact and systems thinking, and an Adjunct PhD Supervisor (External).

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Career History

My PhD “A Discourse-Analytic Approach to the Study of Information Disorders: How Online Communities Legitimate Social Bonds When Communing Around Misinformation and Disinformation” was officially conferred by UNSW Sydney in May 2023. My thesis developed a combined systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) framework to understand how online communities on YouTube, via language and visual resources, construct and legitimate social bonds that propagate information disorders. I am currently (very slowly) working on turning this research into a book that will explore the more practical implications of my research.

My interdisciplinary research has been published in linguistics, multimodality, and discourse journals (e.g. Discourse & Communication, Social Semiotics, and Visual Communication) and communication studies, politics, and social media journals (e.g. Social Media + Society and The Communication Review).

 

I have over 8 years experience in higher education. I’ve worked in very different departments across very different universities: an academic library, student accommodation, a humanities faculty, and a computer science faculty. 7+ years research experience (honours, PhD, post-PhD) and 4 years experience in casual academia and guest lecturing (media and communication studies). 8+ years experience in professional staff roles at universities, with recent leadership roles including nearly 3 years as the Academic Literacy Coordinator at Western Sydney University implementing and evaluating the University's Academic Literacy Strategy and influencing the practice of professional and academic colleagues, and 3.5 years as Deputy Dean at Fig Tree Hall (UNSW Colleges) providing academic and pastoral care to a diverse cohort of 159 young university students.

 

Despite having come from a rural and low socio-economic area, I was fortunate enough to receive scholarships to attend university. This has motivated me to work hard and not take education for granted, and to now give back by mentoring and volunteering in my spare time. I am currently a Mentor for the Public Education Foundation and I hold lifetime membership at Fig Tree Hall UNSW.

 

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Contact

If there’s anything you think I could help you with, you're interested in collaborating, or you'd just like to chat and share experiences, feel free to contact me: o.inwood@westernsydney.edu.au | oinwood@gmail.com

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