Seb Chan

Sebastian Chan is currently the Acting Head of Digital Services & Research at the Powerhouse Museum. Coming from a background in social policy, journalism and media criticism as well as information technology, he has been building and producing websites and interactive media since the mid 1990s. At the Powerhouse he has been responsible for driving a strong user focus in design, usability and content, as well as expanding the scope and reach of the museum's suite of online projects.

His team is responsible for large suite of innovative experimental projects, and the Museum's collection database won the Gold Medal at the AAM Muse Awards in Denver 2008, and was listed as one of the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 applications by BRW Magazine. He is known as a cultural sector specialist in social media and Web 2.0 applications, as well as web analytics.

He is also involved with several Australian Research Council Linkage projects researching social media, museums, and technology.

He is a regular speaker in Australia and has also delivered workshops and presentations in the USA, Latin America, Canada, New Zealand and UK.

His other interests include electronic music and digital art, and he has directed and curated large scale national and international events and festivals, and also produces related media from radio broadcasts to print. In his spare time he runs Cyclic Defrost Magazine (www.cyclicdefrost.com)

In a previous incarnation he was researching a PhD on the cultural geography of youth subcultures.

At the Powerhouse he also runs the internationally popular Fresh + New blog covering issues and new ideas around digital media and museums at www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/.