CREDS welcomes 2 new visiting scholars

The Visiting Scholar Program continues to be a real strength of CREDS—creating space for new collaborations, fresh perspectives, and practical opportunities for members to connect across projects. Building on the success of last year’s visiting scholar, Simon Paxton, we’re delighted to welcome two new visiting scholars in 2026 and to continue growing this initiative as a key part of our research community.

Our 2026 visiting scholars are Lena Petrova and Paul Triegaardt. Lena is an educational researcher whose work develops an alternative learning model grounded in interconnected, multimodal, and interdisciplinary ways of knowing—drawing on a background that includes doctoral study at Monash University and research on “cinematic bricolage” as a methodology for knowledge production.  She is also the author of Knowing with New Media: A Multimodal Approach for Learning, published by Palgrave Macmillan.  

Paul brings extensive international experience across schooling and higher education, with an EdD in Education Management from University of South Africa and current roles in online supervision and academic development, including with University of Johannesburg.  His research interests include leadership and innovation in 21st-century schooling, distributed leadership, teacher well-being, and educational technology and AI in 4IR contexts.