Future Careers Forum Online - Disrupting Disinformation
This is a careers forum with purpose. Each semester, Science Gallery Melbourne introduces your students to inspiring people who work to solve some of our most pressing global and local challenges that we as a community face.
Students will hear not only about career journeys and industry connections, but how these professionals work across science, technology, engineering, arts and maths and use a range of transferable skills in the ways they work to make a difference in the world.
For this event, we are delighted to collaborate again with Auckland University of Technology. In this edition of the Future Careers Forum Online - Disrupting Disinformation, we will explore careers in communication, technology, research and storytelling, and their intersection with “truth”. Amidst the rise of disinformation and fake news, how will young people’s future careers evolve and help us to sort fact from fiction?
Watch the live event on Tuesday 25 November 2025 at the following Australian and International Time zones:
Melbourne/Sydney/Canberra/Hobart 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Brisbane 10:00 – 11:00 am
Perth 8:00 – 9:00 am
Auckland 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Seoul 9:00 – 10:00 am
Shanghai/Beijing 8:00 – 9:00 am
Tokyo 9:00 – 10:00 am
If you cannot watch the event live please register to receive the recording of the forum to watch with your students in class time. It will be available in December 2025.
Panellists
Professor Andrew Perfors is the Director of the Complex Human Data Hub in the School of Psychological Sciences as well as the Academic Lead for LGBTIQA+ Inclusion at the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on understanding how people learn from and share information with each other, and how that learning changes the information environment itself. He uses a combination of computational models and experiments to understand the why and the what within these topics.
Having grown up in a rural, religious, and conservative part of America, Andy moved to Australia upon receiving his PhD from MIT in 2008. His understanding of disinformation is informed by multiple aspects of his life experience as well as his academic research.
Doctor Jasmin Pfefferkorn is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at The University of Melbourne, researching at the intersection of museum studies, visual culture, and critical AI. She is currently the lead investigator on the project ‘The Impact of Generative Technologies on Museums’ Practices.’
Jasmin is the author of Museums as Assemblage (Routledge, 2023) and co-editor of Decentring Ethics: AI Art as Method (Open Humanities Press, 2025). She is on the steering committee for the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics’ Art, AI and Digital Ethics research collective, and co-founder and director of the research group CODED AESTHETICS.
Doctor Helen Sissons is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Auckland University of Technology and co-director of the TOROA Centre for Communication Research. A former BBC reporter with nearly two decades of newsroom experience, she now focusses on media literacy, information disorder and the future of journalism practice.
Helen’s recent projects examine journalism’s digital transformation and explore ways to strengthen young people’s resilience to online harm and misinformation. Her teaching and research reflect a commitment to practice-informed journalism and to strengthening information literacy and fostering greater public trust in news.
Daniel Fastnedge is a Lecturer in Advertising and Brand Creativity at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). He researches audience responses to controversial advertising, complaint cultures, and the creative and ethical implications of generative AI for brands. His current research focus looks at how provocative campaigns spark debate, set boundaries, and mobilise audiences.
At AUT he teaches advertising and brand creativity, strategy and media innovation, and co-designs industry-engaged learning with agencies and client partners. Current practice-based projects include translating young people’s experiences of rumours, scams and misinformation on social media into short, shareable counter-content for digital literacy.
MC
Xavier Chalkley grew up in Shepparton before moving to Melbourne to study a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne, majoring in Human Structure and Function. At the end of 2023, after a trip overseas, Xavier and his friend Tom Clark realised just how much their devices were influencing their lives and that, like so many young people, they'd never been taught how to use them intentionally. This led to the creation of Ctrl Your Scroll, an organisation helping young people build motivation, awareness and strategies to improve digital wellbeing and reduce screen time. Since then, Xavier and Tom have worked in over 60 organisations and with 10,000+ students, parents, employees and athletes all across Victoria.
