Samantha Bennett is Associate Dean Higher Degree Research and Professor of Music in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University, Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Chair of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). 

Her academic governance experience includes current terms as elected board member of the Australian Council of Deans and Directors of the Creative Arts (DDCA), and member of the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH). Samantha has held numerous University leadership positions including as current Chair of the ANU Practice Research Working Group, and member of University Research Committee, and a term on University Education Committee. Specialising in academic strategy and governance, she has successfully led institutional Graduate Research policy reform, undertaken sector-wide research consultations, designed and implemented research mentorship schemes, and brought transformational change to global organisations in her discipline. Her research has been nominated for and/or won numerous prizes including in categories in the American PROSE Awards, The Society for Music Theory Awards, and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards. She is editor and advisory board member for Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series, and editor of the Cambridge Elements in Popular Music Series (Cambridge University Press). As Principal or Co Investigator, her research has been awarded more than $850,000 in grant funding and, through multiple interdisciplinary MEC grants, she has led major digital and physical research infrastructure projects to completion, to include the refurbishment of the ANU School of Music Recording facilities. 

Samantha holds 15+ years of curriculum design, program authorship and quality management experience in 2 countries and, as an external consultant, reviewer and examiner, she has led national and international arts curriculum reform at high school, TAFE / FE, and University levels. Samantha is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, notably, an Australian Award for University Teaching (2020), the Vice Chancellor's Award for Education Excellence and a Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence at the Australian National University (2019) and a Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Fellowship at the University of Westminster (2012).

I am a Professor of Music, specialising in music technologies and praxes, sound recording, and the analysis of technological and production aesthetics in recorded popular music. My research focuses on the technological and social aesthetics that shape recorded musical sound and as such, my theoretical and conceptual approaches are drawn from music, audio engineering, and science and technology studies (STS). As a researcher, I have held more than $850,000 in AHRC (UK), Australia Council for the Arts, Arts ACT, and ANU Major Equipment grant funding, to include as PI and CI on interdisciplinary physical and digital research infrastructure projects, including the redesign and refurbishment of the ANU School of Music Recording facilities. I am published in Popular Music, Popular Music and Society, Convergence, IASPM@journal, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, and the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. I am the author, co-author, and co-editor of six books, including:

2025. Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies (co-authored with A/Prof Eliot Bates, CUNY) The MIT Press ISBN: 9780262551854

2025. Secrets and Revelation in Music and Audio Technology Cultures (Sole authored monograph) Cambridge University Press [in press]

2018. Modern Records, Maverick Methods: Technology and Process in Popular Music Record Production 1978-2000 (Sole authored monograph) Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN: 9781501344091

2018. Peepshow (33 1/3 series edition on the album by Siouxsie and the Banshees) (Sole authored monograph) Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN: 9781501321863

2018. Critical Approaches to the Production of Music and Sound. (Co-edited with A/Prof Eliot Bates, CUNY) Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN: 9781501332050

2018. Popular Music, Stars and Stardom. (Co-edited with Dr Stephen Loy and Dr Julie Rickwood, ANU) ANU Press. ISBN: 9781760462123

Current projects

Tomorrow's Music Today: Examining the Global Impact of Australia's Fairlight CMI

A long-term, large-scale and international project, I aim to investigate how a transformative music technology, The Fairlight Computer Music Instrument, catalysed the global digital music revolution. Theoretically framed in science and technology studies, I investigate the Fairlight through technological, sociopolitical, historical, musicological, and Queer feminist lenses, and apply blended analytical, archival, practice-led (composition), and ethnographic methods. Recent impact and engagement includes: The Sound of Music (BBC Radio 4 Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Eno); The Sound You've Never Heard Of (ABC Radio National Podcast); History, Technology, Ideology Symposium at the ANU School of Music; and a number of video features - The Making of a World First Computer Music Instrument (Mustard Flats), How the Fairlight Changed the Course of Music (Sydney Morning Herald).

Muruwari Ngulli Yaandibu (Muruwari We Speak)

Working on a large-scale Indigenous Languages and Arts project with and for Muruwari research lead Roy Barker Jr. We are focused on how Roy's grandfather, Jimmie Barker, conducted sound recording experiments on Muruwari country at the turn of the 20th Century and went on to document Muruwari history, culture, songs, and language through extensive audio recording. Informed by more than 120 hours of Jimmie Barker's sound recordings, we are focused on analysing his Muruwari sound recording and archiving practice and broader Indigenous epistemology of sound. Recent impact and engagement includes: Pretty little Lines - Muruwari Sound Recordist, Inventor, and Pioneer Jimmie Barker (opening keynote at the Audio Engineering Society European Convention, The Hague, Netherlands); and, Pretty Little Lines - Jimmie Barker, Sound Pioneer (AIATSIS Explore Story).

Google Scholar h-index

13 from 458 citations (as of March 1st 2025)