Professor Mark Ryan

Full description

Dr. Mark Ryan, publishing as Mark David Ryan, is the Academic Lead, Research and Research Training and a Professor in Film and Screen for the Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice Faculty, Queensland University of Technology. He is an Academic Board Member for the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and an associate editor of the the screen journals Studies in Australasian Cinema and Metro Magazine. He has held numerous leadership roles at the school and faculty level in QUT including the Academic Lead, Engagement, a Program Leader for the Creative Lab, and the Research Leader.

Ryan is the leading international expert on the Australian horror movie industry and is a leading researcher investigating the history and contemporary dynamics of feature film production in Australia. He has published extensively in screen and media studies. He is the co-editor of Australian Genre Film (In Press 2020, Routledge), Australian Screen in the 2000s (2017, Palgrave Macmillan), and the Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 (2015, Intellect). His research has been published in leading film and media studies journals, including New Review of Film & Television Studies, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy, Senses of Cinema, and Studies in Australasian Cinema. His book chapters appear in collections published by leading international academic publishers including Routledge, Sage, University of Toronto Press, University of Ottawa Press, and Bloomsbury Press.

Mark has won over $1.5 million in competitive research grants or external research funding. He is a Chief Investigator for two recent Australian Research Council Linkage projects: Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Value (2019-2024) and Australian Cultural & Creative Activity: A Population & Hotspot Analysis (2017-2020). He has been awarded various grants in Cat 2 and Cat 3 funding categories.

Ryan’s research has made a significant contribution to local and national screen and creative industries policy. He is the lead author, or co-author, of over eight major reports commissioned by local, national, or supra-national government agencies, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Commonwealth Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts, Screen Queensland, the Gold Coast City Council, and various other national and state government departments. Ryan led an innovative study of the Gold Coast film and television Industry in 2020 resulting in the establishment of the first Australian local council administered fund to invest in local film and television production.