Dr Virginia Madsen 

is a Senior Lecturer and the Convenor of Radio, Discipline of Media, Macquarie University. She is a member and Board Member of the Faculty of Arts Research Centre for Media History (CMH), a former Director of CMH (2017-2020) and now Deputy Director, CMH. She has a Doctorate from UTS, and was a Vice Chancellor's Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of NSW. Prior to working in academia, Madsen has had a productive career in radio broadcasting as a producer with ABC Radio National. She has also written, directed or produced sound designs, documentaries and creative works for a range of institutions, broadcasters and arts companies.

Madsen's research interests span the history of public broadcasting in radio and audio media, documentary forms, traditions and developments in radio and audio media, sound and radio practices and production in all aspects, including theory and history; auditory and sound culture studies; new audio media, podcasting and the audio and radio arts. She also supervises higher degree research students in all the above fields, and specialisations in creative practice, non traditional and practice lead projects as a PhD Supervisor.

Currently she has two major research and book projects underway: a history of the Australian public broadcaster's ‘ideas network’, ABC Radio National. Madsen is leading this ARC funded Discovery project: 'Cultural Conversations: A History of ABC Radio National'. She is working at MQ with Chief Investigators Profs. Bridget Griffen-Foley and John Potts (Macquarie University). Madsen is also writing an international account of the 'documentary imagination' in radio from the 1920s to the present. This project charts transnational documentary and 'feature' traditions and the varied forms which have evolved in radio across a number of sites and broadcasters from the UK to France, Germany, Denmark/Scandinavia, the USA, Canada and Australia.

Madsen has taught students at all levels, designing, convening and teaching in units across the media studies, documentary, radio, podcasting and audio offerings within her department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Literature and Language, including at Masters level.