Ms Bronwen Williams | UNSW Research

Biography

Bronwen Williams (she/her) is an education focussed associate lecturer at UNSW, Sydney in the School of Art & Design.

She holds an MFA (Research) and BFA (First Class Honours) from UNSW and a Diploma Building Design from TAFE NSW.

Bronwen Williams (she/her) is an education focussed associate lecturer at UNSW, Sydney in the School of Art & Design.

She holds an MFA (Research) and BFA (First Class Honours) from UNSW and a Diploma Building Design from TAFE NSW.

Bronwen’s practice engages an experimental approach to making that requires agility and the ability to traverse a range of disciplines and skills, including new technologies. Her work spans the fields of installation art, sculpture, interactive media, experience design, and object design. She has fabrication skills across wood, metal, jewellery, ceramics, model-making, 3D modelling, creative coding, digital fabrication, audio/video capture and editing, architectural drafting and more. Bronwen’s work draws on the nuances of her experiences of being Chinese-Australian as influence in the creation of works that examine contemporary cross-cultural identity.

Bronwen's approach to teaching is grounded in a commitment to diversity, empathy, and student empowerment. She engages students as active participants in their learning to develop intrinsically motivated, reflective and technically skilled practitioners. These attributes are cultivated through deeply engaging and personalised learning environments that provide structured support and meaningful challenge. Her student-centred, strategic approach to teaching empowers students to become lifelong learners who are curious, collaborative, competent, confident, and creative practitioners.

My Grants

2025: EF Grant for research assistant

2025: EF Grant for collaborative international conference poster presentation

2023: Course Design Institute Implementation Grant

2022: EF Career Development Fund

2022: Eduction Director Fund

My Qualifications

Master of Fine Arts (Research), UNSW, 2018

Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours), UNSW, 2015

Diploma of Building Design, TAFE NSW, 2022

My Awards

2025: Awarded Fellowship (FHEA) by Advance HE

2022: Honourable Mention: Exemplary Teaching Practice Award

2021: Awarded Associate Fellowship (AFHEA) by Advance HE

My Research Activities

Conferences:

2025: Garbutt, M., Bond, K., & Williams, B. (2025, November 19-21). Experience design: A new paradigm [Conference presentation]. Pedagogy 2025: Emerging Theories, Teaching & Technologies. AMPS (Architecture Media Politics Society) Academic YouTube Channel. https://amps-research.com/videos/

2025: Martinez, D., Akmal, H., & Williams, B. (2025, November 6–7). Fearless design: Competency-based assessment, motivation, creativity and risk in design education [Conference poster]. International Conference on Education Research (ICER 2025), University of Lisbon, Portugal.

2019: Brown, S. A., Gratton, M., & Williams, B. (2019). A visual programming tool for creative practice pedagogy in embodied interaction and media arts. In Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 364–368). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3369457.3369495

Invited Presentations:

Martinez D., Akmal, H., & Williams B. (2025, October 30) Roundtable on Competency-Based Assessment at UNSW: Myths and Methods [Roundtable]. PVCE Student Experience Assessment & Feedback, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.

Williams, B., Martinez, D., & Akmal, H. (2025, August 10–12). 10 things I hate about competency-based assessment [Pecha Kucha presentation]. UNSW EF Retreat, Sydney, Australia.

Martinez D., Akmal, H., & Williams B. (2025, August 10–12). Is Competency-Based Assessment for you? [Tell Me More Workshop]. UNSW EF Retreat, Sydney, Australia.

Akmal, H., Martinez, D., & Williams, B. (2025, August 6). Implementing CBA in a first-year UG design course: Observations and insights [UNSW EF CoP presentation]. Enhancing First-Year Experience Community of Practice, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.

Williams, B. (2023, July 24). In the making: A Matraville outreach program [Forum presentation]. UNSW Education Forum, School of Art & Design, UNSW Sydney.

Selected Non-Traditional Research Outputs (NTRO)

Williams, B., & Thomas, M. (2019) Sculpture at Scenic World (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition Katoomba, May.

Williams, B., & Thomas, M. (2019) North Sydney Art Prize (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition Sydney, March.

Williams, B. (2018) In-audibility, in-visibility (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition UNSW Galleries, Sydney, April– May.

Williams, B. (2018) In Motion Festival (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition AirSpace Projects, Sydney, October.

Williams, B., & Thomas, M. (2018) Sculpture at Scenic World (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition Katoomba, May.

Williams, B. (2018). Rock the boat (Audio recording). In S. Chen & C. Field (Eds.), Favour Economy [Volume 3]. [Audio work contributed to collaborative project].

Williams, B. (2017) Art Without Agency (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition The Workshop Arts Centre and Ewart Gallery, Sydney, March.

Williams, B. (2016) Vox Dissonus (NTRO: Creative work), presented in exhibition MOP Projects, Sydney, August–September.