Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Dr Brian Ballsun-Stanton is leading Macquarie University's Faculty of Arts understanding, policy, teaching, and research initiatives around the techniques and appropriate uses of Generative AI. With a PhD in Philosophy of Data that enables him to bridge theoretical frameworks with practical implementations, he has developed the university's "Guidance Note: Using Generative Artificial Intelligence in Research" and pioneered AI integration across multiple disciplines, winning the 2024 Faculty of Arts Educational Leadership Award for his innovative work in AI-enhanced learning. His implementations span Languages, Security Studies, and Law, each featuring unique aspects such as AI-optional and AI-required assessments, cross-model critical evaluation, and simulations. He teaches the effective use and techniques of generative AI to undergraduate and post-graduate students, reaching more than 1,500 students through various initiatives.
Brian has conducted invited workshops and presentations on LLMs for staff, postgraduate students, and external stakeholders internationally, in Europe and the United States. He has presented his "Introduction to LLM" workshop to early-career researchers and postgraduate students across Australia, the United States, and Europe on more than 20 occasions and has advised organisations from the University of Tasmania to NBNco on AI policy and implementation. His work on effective AI use has led to invitations from IEEE Silicon Valley and multiple Australian universities to present and consult on policy and practical pedagogy.
He has more than 15 years of experience as a data scientist, educator, sysadmin, and data security specialist, with particular expertise in natural language processing and social network analysis. He has served as Chief Investigator on grants and projects in humanities, social sciences, and security studies totalling over AUD$3,559,083, and has led a big data investigation of violent extremism using tens of millions of social media posts. As Technical Director for the FAIMS Project, he has delivered more than 70 field data collection modules since 2013, bridging the needs of archaeology, geology, ecology, and oral history projects. Brian is an internationally respected researcher in the Digital Humanities with 18 peer-reviewed publications, commissioned reports, newspaper articles, book chapters, and conference presentations, including recent publications on AI policy and implementation in higher education.
In the digital humanities, he has established himself as a mentor and leader, guiding researchers and emerging scholars in the effective use of technology for digitally enabled research. His experience implementing theoretically informed technical solutions while accommodating diverse research practices has made him a key figure in bridging technological innovation with humanities scholarship, university AI policy, and educational leadership.
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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From Rome to Marsfield - the Campus Martius
Laurence, R., Broun, S., Roberts, N., Johnson, M., Grey, D., Keane, A., Mcaliece, S., Webber, B., Willcocks, E., Coopey, E. & Ballsun-Stanton, B.
22/01/21 → …
Project: Research
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EpiRoads: The Latin Epigraphy of Roman Roads
Laurence, R., Ballsun-Stanton, B., Sol, A., Palmer, J., Peloquin, L., Kelly, R. & Budd, J.
27/07/20 → …
Project: Research
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MQSN 21: Observe, Reflect, Improve: a tool to enrich Children’s Learning (ORICL)
Harrison, L. J., Wong, S., Degotardi, S., Bull, R., Davis, B., Ballsun-Stanton, B., Alexander, W., Williams, K. & Elwick, S.
21/09/21 → 20/09/22
Project: Research
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NSW DoCJ: An examination of Australian Violent Extremism in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic
Ballsun-Stanton, B., Waldek, L. & Droogan, J.
28/04/21 → 31/10/21
Project: Research
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USIP: Racially and ethically motivated violent extremist (REMVE) Online Research – Australian Ecosystems
Droogan, J., Waldek, L., Ballsun-Stanton, B. & Hutchinson, J.
1/03/21 → 20/12/21
Project: Research
Research Outputs
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The use of large language models as scaffolds for proleptic reasoning
Kudina, O., Ballsun-Stanton, B. & Alfano, M., Jun 2025, In: Asian Journal of Philosophy. 4, 1, p. 1-18 18 p., 24.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
FAIR turn in epigraphy: low barrier pathways to quantitative and reproducible research in Latin epigraphy
Hermankova, P., Ballsun-Stanton, B. & Laurence, R., 20 Nov 2024, CHR 2024: Computational Humanities Research 2024: proceedings of the Computational Humanities Research Conference 2024: Aarhus, Denmark, December 4-6, 2024. Haverals, W., Koolen, M. & Thompson, L. (eds.). Aarhus: CEUR Workshop Proceedings, p. 649-661 13 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference proceeding contribution › peer-review
Open AccessFile20 Downloads (Pure) -
Archaeo-epigraphic data concerning the community of Legio VII servicemen in Dalmatia: a dataset for 'Fratres Romani in Dalmatia'
Coopey, E. S. & Ballsun-Stanton, B., 13 Apr 2023, In: Journal of Open Archaeology Data. 11, p. 1-8 8 p., 3.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile96 Downloads (Pure) -
Community and identity in the Roman Seventh Legion: digitally mapping funerary monuments referring to Legio VII servicemen and related members of the military community in Roman Dalmatia.
Coopey, E. & Ballsun-Stanton, B., 2023Research output: Non-traditional research output › Data set/Database
Open Access -
Creating large, high-quality geospatial datasets from historical maps using novice volunteers
Sobotkova, A., Ross, S. A., Nassif-Haynes, C. & Ballsun-Stanton, B., Jun 2023, In: Applied Geography. 155, p. 1-13 13 p., 102967.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile3 Citations (Scopus)119 Downloads (Pure)
Prizes
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DataApp Prize Competition
Ross, Shawn (Recipient) & Ballsun-Stanton, Brian (Recipient), 17 Jan 2018
Prize
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Faculty of Arts Learning & Teaching Educational Leader Award: Pioneering AI-Enhanced Learning Across Multiple Disciplines in the Faculty of Arts
Ballsun-Stanton, Brian (Recipient), Cam, Georgia (Recipient), Garde, Ulrike (Recipient), Hawker, Geoffrey (Recipient), Head, Amanda (Recipient), Hurley, Vincent (Recipient), Khalid, Maryam (Recipient), Laurence, Ray (Recipient), Revink, Tessa (Recipient), Stolfi, Francesco (Recipient) & Willis, Sonya (Recipient), 4 Dec 2024
Prize
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