Susan Beetson

Susan Joy Beetson is a Ngemba computer science and information systems researcher, practitioner, and educator whose work advances Indigenous Knowledges through technology, data, AI, human-centred computing, Indigenous Data Sovereignty, Indigenous Data Governance, social media network analysis, business process transformation, technology provenance, and Indigenous-informed automated decision-making. Susan grew up in the very remote Aboriginal communities of Brewarrina and Gongolgon and brings more than 30 years of corporate computer science, information technology management, and process transformation experience together with a decade of higher education teaching and research across information systems, interactive technologies, human-centred computing, Indigenous studies, and engineering curriculum. She is a Research Academic in the Indigenous Business Hub at The University of Queensland, a Chief Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures, and a Chief Investigator with the iSista Care research program with the Southern Cross University.

Susan’s Culture Hubs research develops community-owned digital infrastructure that enables Aboriginal families and communities to hold, govern, teach, and mobilise cultural and historical Knowledges on their own terms. This work brings together Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, data provenance, digital entrepreneurship, language, cultural learning, repatriation of Knowledges, and community-governed technology design. Rather than positioning Aboriginal Knowledges inside Western-designed systems, the Culture Hubs work begins from Aboriginal authority, Country, kinship, relational accountability, and the rights of Traditional Custodians to determine how Knowledges are stored, accessed, validated, and used across digital environments.

Susan’s PhD research, Ngemba Tracks and Networks, examines culturally different social media network phenomena through a Ngemba lens and extends dominant social network theories that were largely developed through Eurocentric assumptions about identity, connection, interaction, and community. Her doctoral work explores dyadic phenomena, Indigenous self-representation, culturally grounded networking practices, and the social, institutional, and political conditions shaping Aboriginal peoples’ lives online and offline. As a Ngemba researcher grounded in lived experience, Country, and community accountability, Susan critically and reflexively examines virtual, interactive, immersive, and emerging technological spaces, including AI, XR, and other data-driven systems.

A Chief Investigator in the $37.5 million Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures and the $2.46 million NHMRC-GACD SISTACARE Strengthening Health Systems grant, where Susan's leadership spans stakeholder engagement and co-design, digital clinical decision systems, implementation, and quality improvement. She was awarded the Science & Technology Australia's #SuperstarsOfStem program, was named a Women in Technology Australia First Nations Changemaker finalist, and was recognised by Cosmos as one of 52 Indigenous peoples changing the world. Susan is also an inaugural auIGF/Identity Digital Indigenous Fellow in internet policy and governance, a guest academic editor for Information Systems Journal and the Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues, and an invited national and international speaker on Indigenous Knowledges, AI, data governance, digital futures, and Indigenous-led technology design.