Mark Brown
Massey University
New Zealand

Mark is the Director of both the National Centre for Teaching and Learning and the Distance Education and Learning Futures Alliance at Massey University, New Zealand. Massey has 17,000 distance students along with approximately 18,000 internal students studying on three major campuses in Auckland, Wellington and Palmerston North. He has specific responsibility for policy and strategic direction in the areas of online, blended and distance education.

Mark has over 20 years experience in the university sector. He originally trained as a primary level teacher and first started work at Massey as a Graduate Assistant in the Faculty of Education. Professor Brown was fortunate to work with some of New Zealand's leading scholars in the area and completed his doctoral study at Massey. Mark has a strong interest in Education across all sectors and supervisors advanced postgraduate research from early childhood to higher education. Before taking on a senior leadership role, Mark coordinated the Doctor of Education (EdD) programme in the College of Education and was the Coordinator of specialist postgraduate qualifications in the area of Educational Technologies.

Helen Hughes
Massey University
New Zealand

Helen was Project Manager and Research Officer for the Massey University-led project known as In their own words: The experiences of first time distance learners. Helen is now undertaking a PhD at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Her doctoral interests are a continuation of the In their own words project.

Mike Keppell
Charles Sturt University University of Southern Queensland
Australia

Natasha Hard
Charles Sturt University University of Southern Queensland
Australia

Liz Smith
Australia