Amanda Barnier

Amanda Barnier is a Professor of Cognitive Science with an Honours degree and PhD in Psychology. She is an accomplished academic and researcher as shown by four consecutive Australian Research Council (ARC) Fellowships, continuous ARC funding for 20 years, 135 publications and 250+ talks. From 2011-2018, Amanda was a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. In 2016, she was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Amanda's research in the areas of autobiographical memory, hypnosis and delusions reflects an ability to address complex problems in innovative and interdisciplinary ways. She is especially interested in individual, collaborative and collective memory and cognition, and the skills and processes that predict “emergence” or “consilience”. She has worked to understand, and apply in her leadership, the conditions that help members of teams and organisations combine and coordinate their capabilities to become more than the sum of their parts.

Amanda has engaged and collaborated within and beyond her discipline, within and beyond her University, and within and beyond the higher education sector. She has led and/or contributed to every stage of the research lifecycle including: higher degree research training; early career, mid career and leadership development and mentoring; grant writing and reviewing; institutional and national research policy and strategy; research architecture, strengths and centres; research quality assurance and integrity; research analytics and return on research investment; and national research assessment exercises.

In 2018, Amanda became Associate Dean Research for Macquarie's Faculty of Human Science, and in 2020 she became Macquarie's Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Performance). In 2022, Amanda added research development to her portfolio to become Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Performance and Development). She brings to these roles over 25 years of sustained focus on almost every aspect of the research enterprise. She is passionate about supporting Australian research and researchers, and puts cognitive science to work in her strategic and operational leadership.