DrLuke Heemsbergen

Current institutionally aligned research projects include ones on misinformation and democratic equity in alternative Social Media in Australia; cultivating critical digital dispositions for gender justice; creative AI, with kids; creative AI, with adults; creative AI, with apiritions;  and the work that comes out of the Deakin Digital Life Lab. 

I remain excited about new projects around how physical and digital environments engage and relate to each other in the sociotechnical infrastructure we assert as real life. These interests might specifically include projects exploring: 

1) XR, AR, and other emerging sensory interfaces (everyday, bio-surveillant, and embodied or environmental).

2) Platform politics and digital infrastructures (digital sovereignty, governance, GenAI practices in context).

3) Transparency, power, and control (radical democratic theory and practice, misinformation, alternative social media; health appification).

4) Implications of decentralising creativity and control through digital means (including via the democratisation of generative AI).

I look forward to collaborating and supervising work in these four areas.

My previous work includes 26 journal articles, 8 book chapters, scores of conference proceedings, and the book Radical Transparency and Digital Democracy being reprinted by Emerald in 2025. I have served as CI on over $750,000 in external research income, with partners including VicHealth, the Susan McKinnon Foundation, ACCAN, iCare, and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.