{"id":219738,"date":"2026-03-04T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T13:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/04\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T08:15:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T13:15:22","slug":"macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/04\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe\/","title":{"rendered":"Macquarie Uni&#8217;s AI chief heads to La Trobe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itnews.com.au\/news\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe-623997\">Macquarie Uni&#8217;s AI chief heads to La Trobe<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itnews.com.au\/news\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe-623997\">https:\/\/www.itnews.com.au\/news\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe-623997<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-03-04 08:01:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.itnews.com.au\">www.itnews.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n<p>La Trobe University has poached Macquarie University\u2019s head of artificial intelligence Phil Laufenberg, appointing him to a pro vice-chancellorship position focused on the technology.<\/p>\n<p>\n                                        Phil Laufenberg, La Trobe University\u2019s inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor (Artificial Intelligence) and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer.\n                                    <\/p>\n<p>Laufenberg will join La Trobe from early April, taking on dual titles of pro vice-chancellor artificial intelligence and chief artificial intelligence officer, reflecting twin responsibilities overseeing both its strategy and technical deployment.<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s not unheard of for technology leaders to be given prestigious pro vice-chancellorships, La Trobe said that Laufenberg\u2019s appointment with a mandate to focus solely on AI is a first of its kind in Australia\u2019s university sector.<\/p>\n<p>Laufenberg will have a busy schedule in the new role.<\/p>\n<p>La Trobe has set itself a goal to become an \u201cAI-first\u201d university and vice-chancellor Professor Theo Farrell said Laufenberg\u2019s appointment is the start of a new phase in the transformation.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s given itself until the end of the year to provide all its staff and students access to advanced AI tools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver the past two years, we have upskilled staff, built a vibrant community of practice, piloted high-impact use cases, and tested secure agentic AI systems,\u201d Farrell said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Laufenberg\u2019s] appointment ensures we have the leadership capability to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itnews.com.au\/news\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe-623997\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Macquarie Uni&#8217;s AI chief heads to La Trobe https:\/\/www.itnews.com.au\/news\/macquarie-unis-ai-chief-heads-to-la-trobe-623997 Publish Date: 2026-03-04 08:01:00 Source Domain:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.nextmedia.com.au\/News\/phil_laufenberg_headshot_crop.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-219738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219740,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219738\/revisions\/219740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}