Professor Heather Zwicker

Heather Zwicker is Executive Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Queensland. She moved to UQ in October 2018 from the University of Alberta, where she served as Vice-Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research (2015-2018). She also co-founded BRiC, the Banff Research in Culture residency, in which advanced graduate students, postdocs, and junior professors in the humanities work alongside visual artists and curators at the world-renowned Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

A cultural studies researcher, Heather brings postcolonial and feminist theories to bear on problems such as stereotypes, universities, classrooms, and cities. Key areas of exploration have included nation (especially Northern Ireland), stereotype (in particular, pre-9/11 stereotypes of Irish terrorists), the local (with an emphasis on Edmonton writing), gender, and digital humanities. She holds a PhD from Stanford University (1993) and is the winner of several awards, including a 3M National Teaching Fellowship.

Heather holds a deep conviction that the arts, humanities and social sciences must play a lead role in exploring possibilities, understanding implications, generating partnerships and critiquing outcomes with respect to all of the big questions confronting our society, particularly in the face of seemingly inexorable climate catastrophe and COVID-19.