AI Fluency • Curriculum & Learning Systems • Educational Design • Responsible AI
Award-winning educational designer, applied linguist and AI-in-education leader with nearly two decades of teaching, curriculum, online learning and professional education experience. I specialise in turning complex ideas into clear, reusable learning systems for adult and professional audiences, with particular expertise in responsible generative AI, assessment, multimodal learning design and capability development. At Sydney Law School I lead educational design across curriculum, assessment and AI integration, while building practical AI-assisted workflows, openly reusable resources and professional-learning materials that others can adapt and teach without ongoing oversight. My practice combines evidence-based pedagogy, strong general-audience writing, rapid prototyping, technical experimentation and data-informed evaluation.
Designed, developed, and evaluated operational frameworks, agent prototypes, and production pipelines translating frontier AI capability into scalable educational practice.
Model-agnostic guidance for educators and students on appropriate use, human judgement, verification, disclosure, privacy, assessment design and professional responsibility.
Modular professional-learning ecosystem combining teaching materials, workflow guidance, prompt resources and reusable artefacts for legal educators working with generative AI.
Repeatable workflows that transform source documents and presentations into structured, Canvas-ready HTML, quizzes, FAQs and facilitator resources, with human-led quality assurance.
Learning and research prototypes using Cogniti and other conversational or workflow agents for formative support, guided practice, educational production and analysis of learner interaction.
Practical frameworks and examples designed to teach durable ways of working with AI across systems rather than product-specific tricks or prompt recipes.
Prompt libraries, workflow agents, structured content templates and lightweight tooling that shorten the path from source material to usable learning artefact while retaining expert review and pedagogical control.
Strategic competencies cultivated across higher education, curriculum transformation, applied linguistic research, and professional sector capability building.
Coherent learning architectures, sequencing, assessment and quality assurance across degree, professional and staff-development contexts.
Accurate, intuitive explanations of technical, pedagogical and policy concepts through mental models, examples, visual design and scaffolded activity.
Practical, autonomous and professionally relevant learning designed to work when the original designer is not in the room.
Moving from concept to testable learning artefact quickly, then refining from learner, educator and stakeholder evidence.
Combining qualitative and quantitative evidence, learning analytics, survey data and assessment performance to distinguish participation, comprehension and changed practice.
Working with academics, government and professional bodies to produce resources that others can adapt, facilitate and sustain.
A sustained track record leading educational design, AI enablement, curriculum reform, and faculty development in major Australian and international institutions.
Peer-reviewed research, international conference presentations, and pedagogical publications on multimodal learning environments, generative AI chat logs, and student writing support.
Lumsden, S., Djonov, E., & Slatyer, H. (2024). “The multimodal community of inquiry: A framework for evaluating online learning environments in higher education.” Routledge.
“The Mountain in the Machine: What Can Cogniti Chat Logs Tell Us About Student Learning?” AI Agents and Workflows: Opportunities and Challenges for Education, University of Kent, 2026.
“Writing Feedback with Generative Artificial Intelligence.” University of Sydney Learning & Teaching Forum, 2023.
“A Social Semiotic Approach to Design & Development of the Online Learning Environment.” University of Sydney Business Education Research Seminar, 2023.
“Student Writing Support with Generative Artificial Intelligence.” The English Connection, 2023.
“Making Sense of Multimodality and Social Semiotics in TESOL.” The English Connection, 2025.
Academic research qualifications spanning applied linguistics, social semiotics, and educational research, paired with senior sector fellowships and technical certifications.
Research focus: Multimodal social semiotics and online teaching/learning environments.
Educational Research / Applied Linguistics.
Applied Linguistics & Language Pedagogy.
Political Science.
Advance HE, awarded 2025. Highest benchmark in tertiary educational leadership.
Generative AI for Cybersecurity, 2024. Technical grounding in AI security & safety.
Process design, quality management, and continuous improvement certification.
Distinctions recognizing excellence in curriculum innovation, learning experience architecture, and microcredential design.
Nominated for end-to-end educational design of the Nuclear Weapons Law microcredential, integrating curriculum architecture, learning experience, assessment, and online delivery.
Learning Experience Category (Team Award): Co-led institutional learning experience initiative at University of Wollongong during digital transition.
Multiple university and teaching awards across Australian and international higher-education contexts, celebrating innovation in pedagogy, student engagement, and educational technology.
Hands-on technical stack and methodology across frontier models, learning management architectures, analytical tooling, and executive communication.
Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Harvey AI, local & open-weight LLMs; prompt and workflow design; agent prototyping; structured content pipelines; human-in-the-loop QA.
Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, SAP SuccessFactors, Articulate 360, H5P; semantic HTML/CSS; interactive and multimedia learning design; assessment and rubric design.
Qualitative and quantitative evaluation, learning analytics, survey design, NVivo, SPSS, Power BI; evidence synthesis and educational research methodology.
General-audience writing, academic writing, workshop and facilitator resources, executive briefings, policy guidance, presentations, scripts and visual/multimodal explanation.