Elisa Martinez-Marroquin

Professor Elisa Martinez‑Marroquin is an internationally recognised academic leader and researcher in artificial intelligence and higher education. With more than 30 years of academic experience across Europe, Singapore, and Australia, she has held senior leadership roles including Associate Dean Education, Chair of Faculty Board, Executive Dean, Chair of the Academic Board, and Council member at the University of Canberra. Before moving to Australia, she served as Head of Discipline for eight years, during which she led the establishment of the Multimodal Processing Research Group and its associated Technology Transfer Unit. Professor Martinez-Marroquin has been Visiting Researcher at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore.

As Associate Dean Education, Professor Martinez-Marroquin led the revision and redesign of courses, academic quality assurance, and internal and external professional accreditations. As inaugural Executive Dean, she established the Faculty of Science and Technology, with responsibility for strategic direction, budgeting, workforce planning, financial management, and organisational design. As Chair of the Academic Board, she led the University’s academic governance, including for the transition to remote teaching and learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Martinez-Marroquin is currently the founder and Director of the Research Centre for Intelligent Computing and Systems. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence, with applications in areas such as intelligent diagnostics, robotic vision, and biometrics. She also contributes to engineering education research, with a focus on employability, the integration of technical, social, and ethical dimensions, and the AI-enabled transformation of curricula. Her research projects have attracted over AU$10 million in funding, including EUR 8.8 million from the European Commission Framework Programme. She has published extensively in high-impact international journals and conferences and is the author of ten book chapters. The impact of her research extends beyond publications into translation: she is the author of a commercialised patent, has licensed proprietary software, and has led 10 technology transfer projects in partnership with industry. She has extensive experience developing and leading large-scale, cross-sector research initiatives that integrate industry and academia, and brings expertise in aligning technological innovation with governance, ethics, and data sovereignty principles.

Professor Martinez-Marroquin is a Fellow, Chartered Professional Engineer, and Engineering Executive with Engineers Australia. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society, a member of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE), and a registered expert with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). Since 2002, she has served as an independent expert in the assessment of FP5, FP6, and FP7 ICT research projects and has been a regular member of Engineers Australia Professional Accreditation panels since 2015.

Externally, Elisa has contributed to numerous committees, panels, and boards, including the Australian Council of Engineering Deans, the Association for Tertiary Education Management, the Australian Council of Deans of ICT, the UCC Academic Board, and the Australian Mathematics Trust Board, where she served as a non-executive director.

Elisa received her B.Sc degree in Telecommunications Engineering, M.Sc. and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from La Salle School of Engineering, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain. She completed also a Master in Project Management, an Executive Program on Leadership and Management Skills by ESADE Business School, a Master in Computer Vision, and a Master in Signal and Information Theory and Processing. She was a faculty member of La Salle School of Engineering as Assistant Professor from 1996-01 and as Associate Professor from 2001-11. There she served as Head of Discipline for 8 years, during which she led the creation of the Multimodal Processing Research Group and the associated Technology Transfer Unit. Both the Research Group and the Technology Transfer Unit were recognized by the Catalan Government for their quality (SGR and Tecnio accreditations). She then became the director of the Master of Research in Information Technology and Management at La Salle-URL, of which she was in charge for 4 years. She was appointed Director of the Msc in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Barcelona School of Management (Pompeu Fabra University-UPF) in 2012. In 2013, she joined the University of Canberra (Australia).