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Professor Tara Magdalinski completed undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Human Movement Studies at The University of Queensland, focussing on the sociological and historical aspects of sport. Following ten years as a founding member of the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Sunshine Coast, she moved to University College Dublin in 2007 and served as the Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, and Head of Subject, Sports Management. She was appointed Associate Dean (later Dean) for Learning Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology. After acting as Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education and Quality) for 18 months, she was confirmed in the role from January 2022.
Tara publishes widely in the area of sports studies, focussing on exploring the interface between performance technologies, nature and the athletic body to try to understand concerns about “unnatural” enhancement and expectations of “authenticity” in sport. Her well-reviewed research monograph, Sport, Technology and the Body: The Nature of Performance (Routledge 2008), examines these issues. Tara also co-edited (with Timothy Chandler), With God on their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion (London, Routledge, 2002), and her most recent book, Study Skills in Sports Studies (Abingdon: Routledge), was released in May 2013.
Tara also explores a range of teaching and learning issues, including digital and gamified environments in higher education. She completed a Professional Diploma in University Teaching and Learning (UCD, 2014) and a Professional Certificate in Entrepreneurial Educators (Innovation Academy, UCD, 2016). She was a co-investigator on a project that examines online delivery of Interprofessional Education for health care students (funded by Ireland's National Forum for Teaching and Learning), as well as on a HSE funded project that utilises educational technology to teach physiotherapists to promote self-management of chronic back pain or osteoarthritis of the hip or knee joints.