Fiona Burrows

Fiona has a BA(Hons) in English Literature and an interdisciplinary PhD (Literature: poetics and cognitive neuropsychology) and she has been teaching and working at UWA since 2009. Her PhD thesis looked at synaesthesia and syanesthetic metaphor in twentieth century poetry and poetics, and her research interests lie in the intersection of literature and science, with a focus on sensory metaphor, embodied cognition, and the application of neuroscientific concepts in art and literature, especially poetry. She is also interested in the health/medical humanities (particularly the neurohumanities) and is currently researching and writing on embodied and synaesthetic metaphors in literature and art, feminist phenomenology, sensory studies and cognitive poetics. 

She is also a published and practicing author-illustrator and writer, with four picturebooks published with Australian trade publishers. Her works have been shortlisted for national literary prizes, including the NSW Premier's History Prize, the Psychologists' Peace Prize and the WA Young Readers Book Awards. Her debut author-illustrator picturebook "Violet and Nothing' with Fremantle Press was shortlisted for WA Premier's Prize for Writing for Children in the 2019 WA Premier's Book Awards. She has also published her writing in journals including Westerly and APJ, and in 2026 she won First Prize in the Ros Spencer Poetry Prize, and was Commended in the Poetry D'Amour Prize. She is interested in the study of children's literature and creative writing, and has appeared at local and national festivals including the Sydney Writers' Festival, Adelaide Writers' Festival, Scribblers and Amazing Arts.

She has taught, lectured in and coordinated units in academic writing and research, communications, creative writing, poetry, and literature. She is interested in the pedagogy of teaching and learning in higher education and has done research on the science of learning, embodied and multisensory learning and cognition, transition and equity student support, and blended and online learning. She has recently been been exploring embodied cognition, metaphors of learning, and critical AI literacy (CAIL).