Yenni Tim

A practice-oriented researcher, Dr. Yenni Tim specialises in Digital Resilience research. Her research program advances understanding on the effective design and use of digital technologies to anticipate, absorb, and adapt to major technological, organisational, and societal disruptions.

Yenni has conducted over 30 in-depth field studies and action design research across Asia, Europe, and Australia investigating contemporary digital resilience issues that are meaningfully relevant to, and impact, organisational and societal practices. These include the design and use of digital technologies in responding to and/or building forward from crises and emergencies (such as pandemics and natural disasters), extreme living conditions (such as poverty), digital exclusion, environmental destruction, and digital shocks (such as cyber-attacks).

In addition to research, academic-practitioner collaboration is also core to her teaching and leadership practices. In the education space, Yenni develops practice-informed educational innovations that expose learners to contemporary industry challenges and know-how.

To provide every student with the opportunity to experience the world of work, Yenni pioneered an innovative “Sandbox” pedagogy and founded the UNSW Sandbox Program (https://unsw.to/sandbox) in 2019 to realise effective, large-scale implementations of industry-engaged experiential learning. In less than two years, the Sandbox program has brought over 40 industry projects from 19 leading organisations, such as Salesforce, Ernst & Young, the Australian Red Cross, KPMG, Microsoft and more, into the curricula of Information Systems, Actuarial Studies, Commerce, and Marketing programs for over 2,100 students.

Her research, teaching, and leadership work has received accolades including funding from both industry and academia, international, national, and university awards, as well as professional appointments. Her work has also been covered by SBS radio, Sky News Australia, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Conversation, UNSW Newsroom, UNSW BusinessThink, among others.

Yenni serves the Information Systems community through her role as an Associate Editor for the Information Systems Journal (ISJ) and a Managing Editor for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS). She also regularly contributes reviews to journals (e.g., ISR, JSIS, I&M) for research relevant to digital resilience, affordances, and/or use qualitative or design research methodologies.

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy - PhD UNSW Business School (2014 — 2018)
• Master’s Degree National University of Singapore (2013 — 2014)
• Bachelor’s Degree (Honours) University of Malaya

Awards

• AIS Early Career Award - by Association for Information Systems (AIS) (2021)
• Dean's Emerging Leadership Award - by UNSW Business School (2021)
• Value in Action Award - by UNSW Business School (2021)
• The Heinz Harant Award for Teaching Innovation – by UNSW (2020)
• Dean’s Research Fellow – by UNSW Business School (2020 to 2022)
• National Award of ICT Educator of the Year – by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) (2019)
• Best Poster Award at 2019 Learning and Teaching Forum – by UNSW Office of the PVC Education (2019)
• John Prescott Award for Outstanding Teaching Innovation – by UNSW Business School (2019)
• Staff Excellence Award for Research Achievement – by the UNSW Business School (2018)
• The Professor M Weinstock Memorial Prize Most Innovative Completed PhD – by UNSW Business School (2018)
• Best Practice-oriented Paper Award – by the International Conference of Information Systems (ICIS) (2017)