Professor Erica McWilliam | Adjunct Professor | ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology

Erica McWilliam is an internationally recognised scholar in the field of pedagogy with a particular focus on workforce preparation of youth in post-compulsory schooling and in higher education. She is well known for her contribution to educational reform and its relationship to “over the horizon” work futures in the context of the new knowledge economy across the entire spectrum of formal learning environments from early years to doctoral education. Her career has involved four decades as an educator, moving from two decades in the schooling sector to a professorial role as an educational leader in the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. At QUT, she has been instrumental in leading the Creative Workforce 2.0 Research Program in the Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation since 2006. She has also performed professorial duties as an educational researcher at the National Institute of Education in Singapore, and has recently worked at Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School as a Scholar in Residence. Erica’s research and scholarship continues to be well known for its focus on ‘low threat, high challenge’ teaching in and for the 21st century. Her latest sole-authored book, ‘The Creative Workforce: How to launch young people into high flying futures’, is published by UNSW Press.