Qualifications:
PhD (Culture and Society), BCA / BSc Hons. 

Dr Scott East is a Lecturer at Art & Design committed to engaged research with the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) and broader cultural sectors having presented his research in policy, academic and industry settings. 

Scott completed his PhD at the University of Western Sydney based on an ARC-Linkage Grant investigating the roles of museums in discussions of climate change. Scott’s broad interest in is how cultural and educational institutions figure in broader social networks of rapid change. 

Previously he has held leadership roles in the Faculty including Director, Student Experience and Director of Global Engagement at Art & Design. He has also worked as an Educational Developer providing professional development to academic staff as well as an Educational Officer focused on Science Communication. He has also worked for local government and policy organisations.  

Current projects include a gallery visitor study utilising eye-tracking (with Dr Michael Garbutt-awarded a Faculty Research Grant 2018), a community arts project with a disability arts group and a project investigating the construction of creativity in international cultural policy. 

Research interests include museums and institutions, culture, gender, sexuality, disability studies, queer theory, transnational feminisms, practice-led research, cultural policy and critical and creative pedagogies. 

At UNSW Art & Design, Scott teaches Museum Studies: Exhibitions, Collections and Material Culture (SAHT3213 DART2341); Arts & Cultural Policy (SAHT9124); Exhibiting Cultures (SAHT9310); Contexts for Art (SAHT1221 / DART1340) & Art & the Body: Identities and Orientations (SAHT2642 / DART2320). 

I supervise postgraduate projects, including both practice-led and thesis-only candidates.

Current Students include: 

Diogo Machado, 'International Cultural Heritage Law in Times of Insecurity' (Scientia PhD Scholarship, supervised with A/Prof Lucas Lixinski & Prof Sarah Williams UNSW Law)

Recently completed:

Dr Luise Guest ‘(In)visible Ink: Gender and National Identity in the Work of Four Contemporary Chinese Artists’ (PhD, Jointly supervised with Prof Paul Gladston)

Dr Wendy Osmond, ‘Is it Oil?: from live performance to exhibition’  (PhD, jointly supervised with Dr Michael Garbutt)

Dr Vicente Estrada Gonzalez, ‘Eye Tracking, Aesthetics, and the Cultural Innovation‘ (Scientia PhD Scholarship, Career Mentor Supervisor with Prof Branka Spehar Psychology & Michael Garbutt Design)

Dr Allison O’Sullivan, Claude Cahun’s objects of resistance (2018 with Dr Michael Garbutt)

Isabella Cornell, Reparative Curating: Towards an ethics and politics of queer listening, (2019, Art Theory Hons)

Alia Parker, Affective Materiality: A practice-based collaboration with fungi, (2019 MPhil jointly supervised with Prof Stephen Loo)

Carol Hudson, Intertidal Project, (2019 MFA jointly supervised with Peter Sharp)

Nicole McTaggart (Bachelor of Art Theory Honours) Re-arranged Skins: Contemporaty Australian Taxidermy art as critique (2017)

Alexandra Mitchell, Conspiring with the flowers of Asquith (BFA Hons 2015)