Empowering Minds for a
Brighter Future.

Professor Richard Carter

Chair

Professor Richard Carter retired as Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor (Education Services) and Director TAFE – Victoria University in March 2009 after a distinguished career in the education sector spanning over 35 years. Professor Carter commenced employment at Victoria University in 1994. After holding a number of positions in Technical and Further Education (TAFE) he was appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor TAFE in August 2003 and Professor in 2005. Professor Carter’s roles at Victoria University ranged across both educational and general management including the management of major issues and critical incidents. His work included a significant number of years controlling the complex information technology provision of the University, a revamping and rebuilding of student services functions, the building of a substantial new and highly successful branding and marketing presence and the management of media and external relations. He was also involved in the planning, development and bringing to completion of five significant construction projects with a combined value exceeding $300 million. Professor Carter has served on a wide range of boards and committees involved in the development and governance of TAFE, Further Education and International Education including Victoria University Singapore Ltd , Victoria University International Ltd, Renewal and Change 2020 (USA), Chair Academy Advisory Board (USA), International Training Australia Pty Ltd, Victoria University Council, the Northern and Eastern Regional Councils of Further Education, Australian Technical College Sunshine, the Council of Broadmeadows College of TAFE and the Australian Committee for Training Curriculum. Prior to commencing employment at Victoria University Professor Carter held a number of senior positions with the Victorian Office of the State Training Board including as Executive Officer of the Victorian Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board. He also served for some time as a senior policy consultant to the Australian Committee for Training Curriculum. Professor Carter has provided advice to the governments of Mauritius and East Timor on vocational training systems and assisted in the planning of and participated in a major project to upgrade the skills of vocational training administrators in Uzbekistan. He contributed as a board member to a major bid by International Training Australia for the establishment of an armed forces college in Oman and was an invited member of an Australian Government Mission to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to investigate and develop cooperation in vocational education. He has played a key role in tendering for and implementing a significant number of international aid funded training projects. Professor Carter’s key areas of interest include provider recognition and course accreditation systems in vocational training, assessment of quality in vocational training and vocational curriculum and course design. In addition he has delivered a number of papers both nationally and internationally on the marketing and branding of higher education. Most recently he has directed a Rapid Audit Project for the Victorian Government auspiced through the Victorian Recognition and Qualifications Authority to address a crisis in public confidence in the quality of private provision of vocational education to international students in Victoria. In recognition of his long service and achievements at Victoria University, Professor Carter was appointed Professor Emeritus in June 2009.

Professor Andrew Flitman

Deputy Chair

Professor Flitman is currently Principal of iMORSE, an analytics consultancy based in Melbourne Australia. In this capacity he has advised a number of client in the financial services and higher education sectors. He is also a current TEQSA auditor and Fellow of the Australian Computer Society and the Operational Research Society. Prior to his current role Andrew was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) of Swinburne University from 2007-2012. In this role he led a step-change in research performance of the University to be ranked within the top 400 in the world. Prior to joining Swinburne he held positions as Dean of Science and Technology at Deakin and Head of School (Business Systems) at Monash. Professor Flitman is an internationally recognised expert in financial (corporate and market) and strategic computer modelling. He has significant commercial consulting experience in computer based finance, business planning, business analysis, decision support and modelling. This consulting experience was developed chiefly through senior positions held at Deloitte Haskins and Sells (London), Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte (UK) and Price Waterhouse (Melbourne). Much of the consulting undertaken by Professor Flitman has been for major blue-chip organisations both in Australia and overseas. Since obtaining his PhD in Operations Research from Warwick University, Andrew has published over 100 research publications and has authored a number of commercial reports.

Professor Naveen Chilamkurti

Reader

Professor Naveen Chilamkurti has consistent track record in professional and Academic Actives. Some of his contributions have been listed below
Key areas of expertise are:

Surender Etikala

Director of Business Operations

Surender has a consistent track record in successfully leading large teams with a strong focus on growing the business and an ongoing commitment to student success. Over 20 years of experience in developing and implementing strategic and operational plans, along with expertise in student retention, student progression and student welfare in the Higher Education, Vocational and ELICOS environments.

Key areas of expertise are:

• Leadership
• Human Resource Management
• Performance Management
• Student Engagement
• Student Wellbeing and Welfare
• Policy Development
• TEQSA and ASQA Compliance and Audits

Dr Mafruha Mowrin Hossain

MITS Coordinator

Dr Mafruha Mowrin Hossain is a senior lecturer and MITS Program Coordinator. She completed bachelor and master’s in information and Communication Engineering. She completed her PhD in health analytics at University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is a well-qualified educational professional with experience of over 12 years in teaching and administration in Australia and overseas. Dr Mowrin’s background expertise come from areas such as Networking, Network and Cyber security, Health Analytics, Mobile and Wireless Networks, Project Management, Image Processing, IoT and Cloud Computing. She has supervised many postgraduate and undergraduate students for the senior Projects.

Rohith Meneni

Director of Business Development and Operations (Marketing and Admissions)

Rohith Meneni is an experienced management and business development executive who has a strong business acumen and a customer focused approach. He is a strategic thinker who likes to challenge the status quo and looks for continuous improvement.

Key areas of expertise are:

• Business Operations
• Project Management
• Acquisition marketing (B2C)
• International student recruitment
• Solution sales (B2B)
• Financial services marketing
• Commercial negotiation

Professor Sid Nair

Executive Dean/Dean, Learning, Teaching and Student Experience

"Sid Nair has over 30 years’ experience in the tertiary sector both in Australia and internationally." His experience ranges from being the Executive Director of the apex regulatory body, Tertiary Education Commission, Mauritius; Professor of Higher Education Development at University of Western Australia; and, Interim Director and Quality Advisor (Evaluations and Research) at the Centre for Higher Education Quality (CHEQ), Monash University.

Key areas of expertise are:

• Formulation and execution of strategies and policies in higher education
• Building academic capacity in learning and teaching
• Evaluations
• Enhancing student experience
• Quality Assurance and Accreditation

Professor Sebastian Ng

Discipline Head IT Program

Professor Sebastian Ng has extensive experience in Australia Higher Education. After finishing his doctorate at the University of Hong Kong, Dr Ng joined Swinburne University of Technology as an academic staff in 1992 till 2020. He is currently an adjunct professor with Swinburne University of Technology.

Sebastian was the ex-chair of Computer Science and Software Engineering Department at Swinburne, after serving many other leadership roles such as Academic Directors (Pathways) and Associate Dean (International). His academic qualifications include PhD, Master’s, PG Diploma and Bachelor’s degrees in multi-disciplines ranging from Computing and Information Technology to Science and Education. His main research interests are Software Engineering, Software Testing and IT Education. He is a Certified Professional and Senior Professional Member of the Australian Computer Society.

Dr. Dinesh Pandey

BITS Coordinator

Dr. Dinesh Pandey has over 7 years of teaching experience in leading Australian academic instructions, with a track record of successfully administering, teaching, and delivering IT courses (Analytics, cloud computing, computer networks, Servers and cyber security). He has worked as a lecturer, supervisor, unit coordinator, and researcher in Australia’s leading higher education institutions. He has 11 years of experience in academic and industrial research, which has instilled multidimensional approach using artificial intelligence for analysing data, identifying problems, their causes and finally evaluating and developing feasible solutions. He also has over 5 years of experience working on industrial projects using MySQL, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Data/Text Mining, Natural Language Processing, and Power BI in a number of applications, including health and social media. Dr. Pandey has excellent administrative, verbal, and written communication skills, as well as constructive and successful teaching approaches in a range of delivery modes, including face-to-face, online, blended, and project-based learning.

Associate Professor Anuradha Samkham Raju

Associate Dean, Sydney Campus and Registrar

Anuradha Samkhamraju has 20 years of academic and industry experience in IT in India, the Kingdom of Bahrain and Australia.

‘Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first loves together’- Scott Hayden

• Software Testing
• Software Engineering
• Object Oriented Programming
• Database Management Systems

Professor Andrew Scown

Provost

Professor Andrew Scown has dedicated his career to education, beginning with teaching primary school in the mid 1970’s through to supervising research students in Australia and abroad, and for the last 20 years in leading and managing Universities in Southeast Asia. Alongside his leadership roles as Vice-President Academic of RMIT Vietnam’s Campus, and President of Stamford International University Thailand he has also been deeply immersed in the research, development, and implementation of curriculum and pedagogies to enhance authentic learning for international students.

In his current role as Provost of VIT he is able to harness his vast experience as he works to develop and shape global approaches to post-secondary education for the new world of work that is unfolding in the 21st Century.

In addition to various undergraduate awards in education and theology, he also holds an MBA focussing on human resource development from RMIT University, and a PhD in Education from Melbourne University where he conducted phenomenological research into the lived experience of Being an Academic.

Alec Sissaguian

Head Librarian

Alec has worked in Libraries in both the public and private sector for over 20 years. An energetic leader with a ‘can do’ work ethic, he has held roles in all aspects of library work. He also has experience in marketing, I.T., graphic design, management, and recruitment. Alec brings solutions and innovation to resolve issues. He is committed to customer service and always prepared to go above and beyond expectations.

Wen Shao

Director, Educational Quality Assurance and Compliance

Wen has over 10 years’ experience in tertiary education, academic management, academic quality assurance and dual sector compliance. Prior to joining VIT, Wen held many senior academic management positions, and led a few successful provider (re-)registration and course (re-)accreditation with TEQSA.

His expertise includes designing self-regulating and compliance-assurance system for higher education provider, formulating and implementing institutional academic quality strategies, and management of compliance with legislations for dual sector providers.

Wen received his MPhil degree in Computer Science from the Australian National University. His research was around artificial intelligence and machine learning

Associate Professor Rahul Thakkar

Associate Dean Academic (Melbourne Campus)

Rahul has over 16 years of experience in academic. Proven distinction in the development of strong bond with students and colleagues. Exhibits expertise in coordinating academic and exam related matters and in activities to boost learning in Higher Education. Demonstrates additional knowledge of research in data analysis and in administrative work related to exams and academic.

Has completed PhD and M.Phil in the discipline of Computer Science and Information Technology.

Key areas of expertise are:

• Machine learning
• Information retrieval
• Knowledge Management
• Database Management
• Application Development

Dr Michael Tomlinson FGIA, FCIS

Higher Education Governance and Quality Consultant

Michael Tomlinson is a Higher Education Governance and Quality Consultant. Until February 2020, he was Director of the Assurance Group at TEQSA (the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency), where he led case teams to organise and conduct assessments of all registered providers of higher education (including all of Australia’s universities) against the Higher Education Threshold Standards (2015). He also led TEQSA’s implementation of those standards and the preparation of all the guidance material about them for providers. He was the delegated decision-maker for all applications for course accreditation and renewal of course accreditation and made recommendations to the TEQSA Commissioners on registration and renewal of registration. He has a particular interest in policy and in 2019 provided formative input into the revision of the Provider Category Standards. Before coming to TEQSA, Michael was an Audit Director at the former Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA), and for twenty years worked in Australian universities, for the last fifteen of these in senior positions at Swinburne University of Technology, where he was Executive Director in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office and then University Secretary. Michael is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia and of the International Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. He is a member of the Board of the Australian College of the Arts Pty Ltd (trading as ‘Collarts’). He has been an expert panel member for a number of provider reviews for the national accreditation agency in Timor Leste, and (in 2020) for the Fiji Higher Education Commission (for the University of the South Pacific), and for the Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology of Papua New Guinea.