Alex is the Creative Lead at the Academy. His international career spans two decades as a writer, director, animator and script consultant in senior roles across the animation and VFX industries, working at companies including Rising Sun Pictures, Animal Logic, Flying Bark and Script Central. Most recently Alex worked on ‘Peter Rabbit’ and wrote and directed the Chinese animated feature films ‘Frog Kingdom 3’ and ‘Frog Kingdom 4’. He was co-director of the animated feature ‘Blinky Bill: The Movie’, animation supervisor on Zack Snyder’s ‘Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole’ and lead animator on the Oscar-winning animation feature ‘Happy Feet’.

Chris French is the Technical Lead at the UTS Animal Logic Academy. Chris’ experience includes CG Lead, On Set Supervisor and Operations Manager at Fuel VFX where he worked on projects such as Charlotte’s Web, The Spirit, Australia, Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Prometheus. Other credits include Thor: Ragnarok, Wrinkle In Time, Outlaw King and Skyscraper.

As a writer, Chris has worked with Digital Pulse and Curiious developing story for virtual reality projects. His most recent collaboration has been with Virtually Human Studio on their digital horse racing game, Zed Run.

Chris has also been active as a teacher and industry mentor at TAFE Design Centre Enmore, specialising in lighting, rendering and production studio subjects that replicate the VFX studio environment.

Professor Andrew Johnston is the Research Director of the UTS Animal Logic Academy, where he supervises projects and researchers working on convergence between creative practice and digital technologies. He also co-directs the Creativity and Cognition Studios, an interdisciplinary research group working at the intersection of performance, art and technology, and is co-director of the UTS Visualisation Institute.

Sarah is our Studio Coordinator, providing administrative and operational assistance for the department and students. In managing the day-to-day operation of the studio, Sarah oversees academy enquiries and admissions, provides primary student contact and support, and coordinates studio events and social media. Sarah’s focus is to support the academy in the delivery of its award-winning program and to help produce the next generation of animation and visualisation professionals.

Naomi is a graduate of the Master of Animation and Visualisation and now works in Pipeline Support for the Academy. Naomi supports our Technical Lead as well as our students in solving problems and developing new tools to ensure project work is delivered efficiently to our award-winning pipeline. Her experience as Surfacing Lead on the student project ‘SubAqua’ and a Surfacing/Lookdev Artist on the short film ‘Bounty Hunter’ has given her hands-on experience and insight in how best to support the students through both the creative and technical challenges of collaborating on professional-level projects.

As the Production Technology Support Officer, Seng has over 5 years’ experience working for UTS in numerous departments. His background combines video, photo production and computer systems administration. Seng supports all the technology used at the Academy, including workstation computers, cinema projection, mixed and virtual reality.