Erik Champion is Enterprise Fellow at the University of South Australia.
He was Professor and UNESCO Chair of Cultural Visualisation and Heritage at Curtin University, as well as Visualisation theme leader and Steering Committee member of the Curtin Institute of Computation (http://computation.curtin.edu.au). He was Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University. Prior to Curtin, he was Project leader of DIGHUMLAB, a 30 million DKK funded, a 4-university Danish consortium in Digital Humanities, working with EU research infrastructures and projects, and acting as the “Research and Public Engagement” co-leader for http://dariah.eu/.
His PhD was an ARC Industry PhD scholarship with industry partner Lonely Planet Publications, on 3D Internet Tourism at the University of Melbourne (Faculties of Engineering and Architecture), receiving a Dean’s prize and also best paper award in Virtual Heritage at VSMM2003. A past Fulbright Scholar, he has received invitations to speak in the United States, Mexico, Australia, United Kingdom, Malta, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, China, Poland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, and received grants from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and from other overseas governments and associations. He has delivered game design workshops in Italy, the USA, Qatar, and Poland. He is listed as top author for virtual heritage in Microsoft Academic Search and is third most cited author on the same topic in Google Scholar.
Work experience includes Hansen Technologies, Digital and Compaq, in documentation, user training, SQL reporting, billing systems and CRM. He has taught multimedia and 3D media since 1991, in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Specialist teaching subjects include digital environments, design history, multimedia animation, advanced interaction design, user experience design, biofeedback (cited in 13 US patents), and game design (ex-students work for Krome Studios, Creative Assembly, BioWare and other leading studios). His students have won prizes at ACM CHI and CAADRIA conferences, and Australian multimedia industry awards.
Publications
His recent books are Organic Design in Twentieth-Century Nordic Architecture (Routledge, 2019), Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage for Routledge’s Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities Series (2016), Playing with the Past (Springer, 2011), he was editor of The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places (Routledge, 2018), and Game Mods: Design, Theory and Criticism (ETC Press, 2012) and he was co-editor of Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities (Routledge, 2017). These books and papers are on reading lists at prestigious universities such as UC Berkeley, UCL, and the universities of Toronto, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Cologne, Maynooth, and Weimar-Bauhaus.
He has most recently acted as an expert witness or references for the Australian Academy for Humanities, the Australian Research Council, various United States National Endowment of the Humanities applications, for European / COST Research applications and a research proposal by Greek museums and universities. Most recent supervising and research has focused on film tourism and AR, 3D contested heritage, Augmented and Mixed Reality heritage, GIS and 3D, panoramic collections and panoramic movies, makerspaces, serious games, etc. He reviews for MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge and Springer, plus six leading academic journals.
Media
Champion, Erik Malcolm. 2019. "Virtual Reality and Tourism”, ABC Radio Melbourne interview with Jon Faine, 6 March 2019.
Champion, Erik Malcolm. 2019. "Virtual reality adds to tourism through touch, smell and real people’s experience." The Conversation. Last Modified 5 March 2019. Accessed 5 March 2019. https://theconversation.com/virtual-reality-adds-to-tourism-through-touch-smell-and-real-peoples-experiences-101528
Collard, Sarah. (2018). “Video game nostalgia booms as young and old seek refuge from an online gaming warzone” ABC. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-22/video-game-nostalgia-booms-on-a-retro-wave/9890362
Jauk, Daniel. (2017). Are you ready to live in a virtual world? Curtin University news story. Thursday 28 September 2017. https://news.curtin.edu.au/stories/ready-live-virtual-world/
Anon-Times of Malta (2016). Role of computer games in national heritage. Times Malta. 11 October 2016. http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20161011/social/Role-of-computer-games-in-national-heritage.627610
Voldgaard, V. A., Champion, E., & Thunø, M. (2012). Ny værktøjskasse til humanistiske forskere. Magisterbladet. http://magisterbladet.dk/magisterbladet/2012/202012/202012_p16
“Reality-based games a step closer”, The WOW! Factor, Virginia Winder, Taranaki News, Monday 10 August 2009. http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/lifestyle/2684281/Reality-based-games-a-step-closer
“Ancient Wonders Brought to Life”, Claire McEntee, reporter, NZ INFOTECH, section C page 6, The Dominion Post, Monday 10 August 2009.
“Virtual Miracles”, Radio New Zealand National interview, Afternoons with Jim Moura, Tuesday 11 August 2009. http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/20090811
Te Karere, Maori TVNZ, August 11, 2009. URL: www.tvnzondemand.co.nz OR http://tvnz.co.nz/te-karere/2009-tuesday-video-1028654