Speaker Profile

Peter is a Senior Lecturer in the Law School, teaching and researching in internet law, media law and Australian Constitutional law.

Peter studied Arts, with a major in Media Studies, and Law at the University of Queensland, graduating from Law as a University Medallist. After working as an Associate for Justice Davies of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland, he worked at the University of Carlos III, Madrid, teaching and coaching a moot team for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot.

From 2003-2004, Peter studied at Columbia University in New York, completing his Master of Laws in 2004. On his return to Australia, Peter worked at the Australian Catholic University and the University of Queensland, and was involved in a research project on electronic tendering at QUT. Peter commenced full time work as an associate lecturer in the QUT Law School in January 2005.

Since joining QUT, Peter has developed an expertise in the legal and policy issues surrounding social media. In addition to his teaching and researching in this area, he is a regular media commentator on these and other issues, including government, politics and constitutional law. He has a weekly segment on Spencer Howson’s 612 ABC Brisbane radio show on Tuesday morning, as well as on Andrew Bartlett’s 4ZzZ breakfast show on Monday morning. He also appears regularly on The Drum on ABC News 24.

Peter also maintains a blog, Freedom to Differ, focusing on legal issues facing the media and the internet, and tweets at @peterjblack.

Peter is a member of the University Academic Board, and has previously been a member of Reframe,a university-wide project reconceptualising QUT’s evaluation of learning and teaching, as well as QUT’s Learning and Teaching Web Resources Steering Committee. He was also previously chair of QUT’s Virtual Learning Environments Advisory Group. Peter is also the mid-year coordinator for the School of Law. He has an active interest in how technology can be used to improve learning in universities, and uses a variety of social media tools in his teaching.

Peter also sits on the board of directors of the Postgraduate Medical Education Council of Queensland (PMCQ) and the Queensland Aids Council. He is also the vice-president of the Brisbane Pride Festival.