Professional accolade for Deakin IT academic

Deakin University’s Associate Professor Jo Coldwell-Neilson has been made a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society (ACS), the association for Australia’s information and communications technology (ICT) profession.

A Fellow of the ACS is described as ‘a person who has made a distinguished contribution to the field of Information and Communications Technology in Australia and is a member of the professional division of the ACS’.

Associate Professor Coldwell-Neilson, a member of Deakin’s School of Information Technology, has contributed to the ICT field by improving the participation of women in ICT through the promotion of ICT as a desirable career path. Her efforts have realised substantial outcomes including the participation of some 6000 secondary schoolgirls in the ‘Go Girl, Go for IT’ event since 2006 and an annual Gender Summit in Deakin’s Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment, which was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Award in 2015. She has also demonstrated a commitment to the ongoing improvement of the profession through her role as ACS examiner of Diploma (Professional Practice) and supporting students in IT through linking her research to teaching practice.

Also being made a Fellow of the ACS in Victoria in 2016 were colleagues Associate Professor Annemieke Craig from Deakin’s Faculty of Business and Law and Associate Professor Catherine Lang from La Trobe University. Associate Professor Coldwell-Neilson said she hoped they would be ‘role models for more women to apply in the near future’.

The ACS recognition is the second fellowship for Associate Professor Coldwell-Neilson this year: she was also awarded an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) National Teaching Fellowship to support the development of a digital literacy benchmark for students.