Dr Marcos Mortensen Steagall is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Design at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), where he has been part of the faculty since 2016. He currently serves as the Programme Leader for Communication Design in the final year of the undergraduate programme.

Dr Steagall holds a Master’s degree (2000) and a PhD (2006) in Communication & Semiotics from The Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil. In 2019, he earned a PhD in Art & Design from Auckland University of Technology, focusing on practice-led research, landscape photography, and indigenous epistemologies.

His research explores visual semiotics, practice-oriented methodologies in Art, Design, and Technology, lens-based image-making, and decolonial approaches to creative practice. He is the editor of the LINK PRAXIS Journal and chairs the LINK International Conference on Practice-Led Research and the Global South, fostering global discourse on design research. Through his work, he integrates artistic and scholarly inquiry, contributing to the evolving role of visual communication in contemporary research and education.