Olivia Khoo is Professor and Head of Film and Screen Studies at Monash University. Prior to arriving at Monash, Olivia taught Film and Media Studies at the University of New South Wales and Cultural Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, and the University of Melbourne. She was a Targeted Research Fellow at Curtin University during 2008-2010.

Olivia is the author of Asian Cinema: A Regional View (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), The Chinese Exotic: Modern Diasporic Femininity (Hong Kong University Press, 2007), and co-author (with Belinda Smaill and Audrey Yue) of Transnational Australian Cinema: Ethics in the Asian Diasporas (Lexington, 2013). She is co-editor of four volumes: The Routledge Handbook of New Media in Asia (with Larissa Hjorth, 2016), Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia (with Daniel Black and Koichi Iwabuchi, 2016), Sinophone Cinemas (with Audrey Yue, 2014), and Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures (with Sean Metzger, 2009). Her essays have appeared in leading international journals including Screen, Convergence, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Television and New Media, Asian Studies Review, Camera Obscura, and GLQ.  

In 2023, Olivia was appointed Co-Chair of the Screen Diversity and Inclusion Network (SDIN), a Network of broadcasters, screen funding agencies, business associations, guilds and industry-aligned education and training organisations committed to working together towards a more inclusive and diverse screen industry (https://www.sdin.com.au/). With colleagues in Law and Business and Economics she produced a research report on Incentivising Australian Screen Diversity (2024). Olivia is also Chair and Founding Executive member (since 2006) of the Asian Australian Studies Research Network, the peak network for Asian Australian Studies internationally.

Olivia is a Member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts (2023-2025). She is also the successful recipient of two ARC Discovery Project grants: on the History of Asian Australian cinema (with Audrey Yue and Belinda Smaill, 2009-2011), and on Trans-Asian Media Flows between Australia and East Asia (with Koichi Iwabuchi, Fran Martin and Audrey Yue, 2016-2022).

In 2004-5 Olivia was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and in 2005 she received an Australia-China Council Residency Award to the Taipei Artists Village in Taiwan. She has also received a University of California Humanities Research Institute collaborative research residential award to UC Irvine in August 2013, and from January-April 2015 she returned to the Asia Research Institute as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow. In 2023, Olivia was awarded a National Library of Australia fellowship, the Asia Study Grant.

Olivia has been nominated three times for the Monash Graduate Association Supervisor of the Year Award, and received a Special Commendation for the 2022 Dean’s Award for Postgraduate Research Supervision. She has supervised over 16 PhD and MA students to successful completion.  

She holds an Honours degree in English Literature from the University of Western Australia, a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of New South Wales, and a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of Melbourne.

Film, Television and Digital Media

Asian cinema

Asian media and cultural studies

Asian Australian cinema

Screen Diversity

Streaming Platforms and Diversity

Australian cinema

Transnational Film

Women and film

Gender and Media

Film, Television and Digital Media

Cultural Studies

Gender and Media

Asian cinema (transnational Chinese cinemas, East and South-East Asian cinemas)

Asian media and cultural studies (popular culture in Asia, diasporic media)

Asian Australian cinema

Screen diversity; Streaming platforms and diversity

Australian cinema (Australian national cinema, women's filmmaking in Australia, race and ethnicity in Australian cinema)

Women and film (feminism and film, women's filmmaking, sexuality and film)

World cinema (international film festivals, transnational cinemas)

ATS3539: Asian Screen Cultures

APG5782: Film Festivals in Local and International Contexts