Katie Cavanagh

Flinders University’s Katie Cavanagh lectures in 'hands-on' digital media topics, where she happily frolics and explores the convergence and combination of text, design, image and meaning.

Katie has a wealth of practical experience to offer students, having worked as a graphic designer, web monkey, and project manager for TechWorks and TMP Worldwide. Her skills have enhanced Flinders’ world-class visual effects credentials, highlighted by back-to-back wins in the prestigious Rookies Awards.

“Winning the Rookies, School of the Year: Digital Illustration in 2017 was amazing; holding the title for the second year against such strong competition underscores the rigour of our world-class degree. Of particular note, Flinders students were ranked among the most industry-ready participants in the international competition.”

The Rookies global rankings (2017 and 2018) place Flinders University in collaboration with CDW Studios as the world's No. 1 Digital Illustration School. The relaunched Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Effects and Entertainment Design) provides students with industry focused skills and knowledge that Katie is confident will see them graduate job ready.

“We changed the name to Visual Effects and Entertainment Design to help clarify both for the students and for prospective employers what the students have studied. The future in the VFX space is looking bright. South Australia has always been a creative state but now there is more work for artists here.”

Shane Bevin

“Most of my artistic time is spent off the computer and as a sculptor/model maker at heart I love to stick bits of junk together to make something cool...or weird...or weirdly cool. I like to play in the fringes where the digital and traditional art worlds meet. As a Lecturer in Digital Media at Flinders University my day to day job involves teaching others to let their creative brain loose.”

Born in the year that we first walked on the moon, Flinders Lecturer in Digital Media, Shane Bevin spent most of his school lunch money on Time Pilot, Moon Patrol and Xevious...the dawn of the video game era. His first computer was a ZX81 with 1 KB of ram, a 3.5 MHz processor and any colour on screen you liked (as long as it was black or white). As an art tool, it was somewhat limited, but digital art slowly took over Shane’s life. 

Co-founder of Adelaide animation studio Monkeystack, Shane has experience in animation project management, render wrangling, 3d production, Virtual Reality production and software management.

He has been awarded multiple times for his work as director, art director and technical director, and his many years of teaching and production experience brings an exciting, energetic industry focus to the delivery of curriculum.

Simon Scales

Simon is the Founder and Director of CDW Studios, and is also an Instructor across a range of subjects in the Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Effects and Entertainment Design). 

He has been working in the industry for over 15 years across a number of areas, from illustration, environment design, to matte painting. His clients have ranged from THQ, EA Games, LEGO, Mighty Kingdom, Animal Logic, Warner Bros, and TT Games, to name a few.

Since opening CDW Studios’ doors in 2011, Simon’s focus has been to create a world class education facility based in Australia. He has facilitated many masterclasses with some of the absolute best artists in the world coming out to Australia to share their wealth of knowledge with students in the Bachelor degree.