DrSheersha Perera

I bring eighteen years of tertiary teaching in film, screen and media studies across undergraduate and postgraduate levels at Deakin University, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), Swinburne and Holmesglen. 

My teaching is student-centred and research-informed, treating creative practice and scholarly inquiry as confluent rather than methodologically opposed, and I draw on a flexible, evidence-based repertoire blended and flipped classrooms, inquiry-based and expeditionary learning, personalised instruction and carefully scaffolded assessment  to integrate film theory, history and practice. I have designed, coordinated and redeveloped a wide range of units, from Screening History and Screen Practices to Contemporary Australian Cinema, as well as large international electives such as Science Fiction Film and Madness in Film and Literature at NTU, where enrolments exceeded a hundred students per semester and expanded to twice-yearly delivery. 

A decolonial and feminist ethos runs through my curriculum: I foreground Eastern, Global South and female filmmakers alongside canonical movements, and I actively support women and underrepresented students to imagine their own potential as filmmakers. I connect the classroom to the wider screen ecology through work-integrated learning, festival engagement and guest practitioners including Tony Ayres, Fred Schepisi, Nadia Tass and Genevieve Bailey, and I am currently leading the redevelopment a master's unit that introduce students to creative practice research through screenwriting. 

As a BIPOC female educator, I foster inclusive, interculturally aware learning environments, and my teaching has been recognised through consistently high student evaluations often exceeding 90% and formal recognition for teaching excellence.