Dr. Bettina Frankham is a practice-led researcher and screen production educator at UTS, with over two decades of experience spanning industry production, creative practice research, and curriculum leadership. As a moving image practitioner, she makes creative works that cross into territories of documentary, art and poetry; her projects have screened at international media arts festivals including Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival, Stuttgart Filmwinter Festival for Expanded Media, Berlin Asia-Pacific Film Festival, the Artivist Film Festival California and Flickerfest International Short Film Festival Australia. Her research examines documentary and visual methodologies as forms of inquiry, with particular interests in creative practice research, poetic and essayistic documentary, expanded documentary forms and the role of aesthetic experience in knowledge creation. Through both scholarly and creative practice projects, she investigates how documentary can function not only as a mode of representation but also as a method of exploration, sense-making and knowledge production. Current projects include research on procedural filmmaking methodologies, creative practice HDR research, the interdisciplinary Hi-Vis project, and the essay-film project Units of Dwelling.

Alongside this research practice, Bettina has a sustained record of curriculum design and educational leadership, grounded in an evidence-informed, equity-driven approach to teaching and academic practice. She developed and refined the award-winning subject Exploring Media Arts over nine years, and in 2026 led the design and delivery of Creative Production: Sound and Moving Image (CP: SaMI), a new cross-disciplinary first-year core subject for the Bachelor of Creative Production serving over 330 students. Her teaching has been recognised with the 2025 ASPERA Screen Production Teaching Award, a 2025 Faculty of Design and Society Learning and Teaching Award for Student Experience, and she holds Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She currently serves as Responsible Academic Officer for Academic Integrity, and in 2025 held the role of Interim Deputy Head of School (Academic) for the School of Communication, with responsibility for new degree promotion, building relationships with Career Advisers and Industry Advisory Board liaison.