Lina Markauskaite

Lina Markauskaite is an Associate Professor of the Learning Sciences and co-director of the Centre for Research on Learning and Innovation, the University of Sydney, Australia. She received a PhD in informatics (computer sciences) from the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics (Lithuania), in 2000. Before arriving to Australia in 2004, Lina managed ICT implementation and educational change projects; and was the national coordinator of large-scale national and international studies on ICT in schools in Lithuania (such as IEA's study SITES). She also worked in various expert groups for developing national strategies and programs for ICT implementation in Lithuanian education. Lina's current research spans three related areas: 1) students and teachers’ ICT capabilities; 2) professional learning for complex professional knowledge work; and 3) ICT-enhanced interdisciplinary research methods. Her most recent projects have been mainly concerned with understanding the nature of knowledge work in the professions through analysing the capacities needed to solve novel, complex problems. Her formulated account of so called ‘epistemic fluency’ explains how university students and professionals become skilful at integrating different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing for working across disciplinary and professional boundaries and crossing traditional theory-practice divides. Lina's research is integrative – it brings into a single framework research from psychology, neuroscience, design, organisational studies, anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS). Her work pays close attention to how people’s cognitive ability (“thinking in the head”) is entwined with environment and action in the world. Her empirical studies focus on the tangible nature of complex knowledge work. They aim to provide curriculum leaders and teachers with direct insights into how to scaffold students’ learning for future workplaces. Her work is also very relevant for leaders of inter-disciplinary and inter-professional teams who need to co-design environments for complex teamwork and facilitate this work.