Rate My Professor Chloe Killen

Dr. Chloe Killen is a Research Academic in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She specializes in Communication and Media, with research interests in creativity and cultural production, Australian children's literature, environmental communication, community engagement, and biodiversity conservation. Killen examines the creation of symbolic messages and employs community-focused approaches to promote stewardship of threatened species. She holds a PhD from the University of Newcastle, awarded in February 2016, for her thesis "True Stories About Tall Tales: A study of creativity and cultural production in contemporary Australian children’s picture books." Her earlier degrees include a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Communications, and Bachelor of Communications (Honours), all obtained from the University of Newcastle.

Throughout her career, Killen has taught Communication and Media programs since 2008 and Visual Communication Design since 2013. She has served as a lecturer and course coordinator at the University of Newcastle, Billy Blue College of Design (Torrens University Australia), and other institutions. Currently, she coordinates honours courses and teaches subjects such as Media and Communication Concepts, International and Global Media, and Communication, Creativity and Cultural Production. In addition to academia, she has industry experience as a Senior Social Researcher for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), strategic communications advisor for the Blue Mountains Economic Enterprise, and editor for various publications. Killen collaborates with artist Kevina-Jo Smith on site-specific art installations using upcycled materials, exploring themes of motherhood, environmental awareness, and biodiversity loss, with their work featured in media and scholarly publications.

She has been recognized with awards including the Emerging Scholar Award from Common Ground Research Networks (2022), Learning Design and Teaching Innovation LMS Achievement Award (2022), Sessional Academic Professional Development Award Finalist (2019), and several scholarships during her studies. Key publications include conference papers such as "Communicating as Community: Examining Power and Authority in Community-focused Environmental Communication through Participatory Action Research in the Ourimbah Creek Valley" (2021), "Illustration Research: Exploring the Role of Non-traditional Research Outcomes and Exhibition" (2024), and "Using Nominal Group Technique to Develop a Consensus Derived Model for Peer Review of Teaching Across a Multi-school Faculty" (2011).