Rate My Professor Virginia Madsen

Dr Virginia Madsen is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications in the Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University. She is affiliated with the School of Communication, Society and Culture and the Centre for Media History (CMH), where she served as Director from 2017 to 2020 and currently holds the position of Deputy Director until 2025. Madsen holds a Doctorate from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), a Postgraduate Diploma of Arts (French) from the University of Sydney, and a Bachelor of Media and Communications from UTS. Prior to academia, she worked as a producer-director and journalist for ABC Radio National's ideas and culture network, creating programs including The Listening Room, and producing dramas, features, and documentaries. After completing her PhD in 2001, she was awarded a Vice Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of New South Wales (2002-2004), one of only six such fellowships, under the mentorship of Professor Philip Bell. She previously taught at UTS.

Madsen's research specializations include the history and development of audio media, public service broadcasting in radio and audio, documentary forms and traditions, sound design and production, auditory and sound culture studies, podcast studies, audio and radio arts, locative media, and transnational media history. She was chief investigator on the ARC Discovery project 'Cultural Conversations: A History of ABC Radio National' (2014-2020). Key publications include "American radio art and the documentary imagination: breakaway and castaway emissions from broadcast to podcast" (2025), "Propositions from the history of the radio as atelier" (2025), "Composing the radio: musical collaborations and border crossings in drama and features at the Australian public service broadcaster" (2024), and "Resounding silence: recovering the history of radio performance in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation" (2024). Her creative works have earned awards such as Finalist in the Phonurgia Nova Awards for ‘Life and Death in Battambang: Children’s Stories from Cambodia’ (2009) and equal third in the Soundwalk September Awards for ‘Portland: The Town that Built Sydney’ (2023). Productions have been broadcast internationally and acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. She supervises PhD students in creative practice and teaches radio production, podcasting, sound design, documentary, and journalism.