Caroline Wilson-Barnao

Dr Caroline Wilson-Barnao is a Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Strategic Communication undergraduate degree in the School of Communication and Arts. A museum studies scholar with extensive experience spanning research, teaching, and professional practice, she is a former Director of the Master of Museum Studies in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Over the past decade, her research has examined the transformation of museums and collecting practices in response to digital technologies, with particular attention to the implications of platformisation, artificial intelligence, digital participation, and born-digital collecting.

Caroline is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council (ARC) LIEF project The Australian Emulation Network Phase 2: Extending the Reach and a Chief Investigator collaborating on projects that explore the collection and preservation of social media objects. She is also working with Queensland Museum on research focused on women's stories and objects, exploring how material culture and collections can support more inclusive approaches to history, memory, and representation.

A central concern of Caroline's work is understanding who is represented in museum collections and who remains absent. Her research explores how museums can address these absences through innovative collecting, interpretation, and community-engaged practices. She works with objects and collections to help communities understand the role of material culture in a digital era, creating opportunities for connection, presence, and belonging. She also collaborates closely with museum professionals to address issues of significance to the cultural sector, including the value of culture within Australian public policy.

Before entering academia, Caroline worked for approximately twenty years as a communications professional in the arts and not-for-profit sectors. This experience continues to inform her teaching and research, particularly her interest in the ways museums and cultural organisations use digital and participatory media to engage audiences and support social change.

Caroline regularly contributes to museum and cultural sector conversations through invited presentations and keynote addresses. She has delivered keynote presentations on museum storytelling, digital transformation, and inclusive museum practice, sharing research insights with museum, gallery, library, archive, and heritage professionals nationally and internationally.

She serves on the Board of the Communications and Public Relations Association of Australia (CPRA) and contributes to a range of national and international scholarly and professional communities, including the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, and the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also an accredited Fellow of Advance HE. Recognised for excellence in teaching, Caroline has received both University and Faculty teaching awards and is deeply committed to industry-engaged learning and practice-informed education.

Caroline is the author of Museums as Platforms (2022) and co-author of Collecting Social Media: From Object to Content (2025). Her scholarship has examined the digitisation of cultural practices, including the influence of algorithmic systems, audience analytics, personalisation, and platform technologies on museums and cultural organisations.

Research Interests

• Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM)
• Museum Studies
• Digital Humanities
• Rapid-response and born-digital collecting
• Museums and artificial intelligence
• Museums and soft power
• Museums and social change
• Heritage, memory, and representation
• Historic urban and cultural landscapes
• Heritage and cultural tourism
• Urban space and media cities
• Gender and sexuality studies
• Social media and digital cultures
• Object-based learning
• Arts and cultural policy
• Cultural value

PhD Supervision

Caroline welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD candidates and can offer supervision in:

• Museums, art, culture, and digital transformation
• Museum studies and cultural heritage
• Born-digital and social media collecting
• Digital cultures
• Arts and cultural policy
• Cultural studies of museums and technology
• Representation, diversity, and inclusion
• Museums and community engagement