Writer, director, producer and music curator Dr Alethea Beetson has been named the 2026 QUT Outstanding Indigenous Australian Alumnus for her contribution to arts, culture and storytelling, and her work amplifying young First Nations voices.
The honour was announced at the annual QUT Outstanding Alumni Awards last night (October 29) at the university's Gardens Point campus in Brisbane.
A Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi and Wiradjuri woman, Dr Beetson completed a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Drama) and Bachelor of Education (Secondary) at QUT in 2005 before returning to earn a Doctor of Creative Industries in 2022.
Throughout her career she has worked extensively with Indigenous communities and arts organisations, directing major productions, curating festivals and supporting emerging artists across multiple platforms.
Since 2021, Dr Beetson has been the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program Lead at global music streaming platform Spotify, where she developed the Dreaming Loud strategy to help ensure Indigenous artists are represented and supported.
She is also the founder of Indigenous arts company Blak Social and youth organisation Digi Youth Arts, the latter being inspired by her early-career experiences as an Indigenous support teacher who felt young people were not being heard.
Dr Beetson has developed major theatre productions including Queen City, which was completed as part of her doctorate at QUT, and her acclaimed one-person show Meet Your Maker.
Reflecting on her career, she said some of her proudest achievements had come from creating opportunities for others.
“Some of the highlights of my career have been working with other Indigenous artists to make new art,” she said.
“Being able to provide space for Indigenous young people to share their stories is so important because they are the youngest generation of one of the oldest surviving, and despite everything thriving, cultures in the world.
“So giving them space so they can self-determine what stories they want to tell, and so they can dream our future and dream the next generation of Indigenous artists, is probably – for the rest of my life – the thing I'm most proud of.”
Dr Beetson said being recognised by QUT was both meaningful and humbling.
“It's really nice to be recognised … But I'm also very conscious that I am getting a lot of opportunities from folks who fought for me to have these opportunities,” she said.
“So I want to accept being recognised but know that it's come from many, many, many people who have gone before me doing work that allows me to do my work.”
Looking back at her time at QUT, Dr Beetson said the connections she made as a student had remained important throughout her career.
“When I was at QUT completing my first two degrees, I spent a lot of time in the Oodgeroo Unit,” she said.
“We use that as an example when we're giving advice to young people about networking – to look around at who you're studying with because they will become the people that will probably help you out the most in your career.”
Her advice to today's students is to embrace opportunities and back themselves.
“I think for any young people working in the creative industries – whether that be music, film, theatre, the kind of areas that I'm working in – know that none of us know anything that you don't know,” she said.
“The way that I learnt how to make a play, despite having studied, is I still just went, ‘I'm going to make a play,' and I figured it out, and I'm still figuring it out.”
Media contact: QUT Media, media@qut.edu.au
