Denise Chalmers, Professor Emeritus in the field of higher education teaching and learning at the University of Western Australia, was awarded an OLT Senior National Teaching Fellowship on recognising and rewarding university teaching in 2015 and an Australian Award for University Teaching: Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2014. In 2017 she was awarded Life membership by HERDSA. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2022 for service to tertiary education and to professional associations. She currently serves on the Advisory Board for LUMS University, Pakistan.

She has over 25 years demonstrated leadership in higher education, leading two university Centres of Teaching and Learning as Director and was a Foundation Director of the Carrick Institute. She has served as President and Vice President of the Council of Australian Directors of Academic Development (CADAD) 2008-2014. She was President of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) (2019-21). She has initiated and led several institutional, national and international initiatives and projects including developing and embedding teaching quality criteria and indicators and promoting the use of teaching and learning performance indicators to guide decision making and resource allocation.  She has published widely on teaching and learning in higher education