Prof. Dirk Ifenthaler holds the Chair of Business Education - Technology-Based Instructional Design at the University of Mannheim and the UNESCO Deputy Chair on Data Science in Higher Education Learning and Teaching at Curtin University, Australia. His research focus combines issues of teaching-learning research, educational technology, data analytics and organisational learning.

Previous academic positions include Professor and Director of the Centre for Centre for Research in Digital Learning at Deakin University, Australia, Manager of Applied Research and Learning Analytics at Open Universities Australia and Professor of Applied Teaching and Learning Research at the University of Potsdam. Professor Ifenthaler was a 2012 Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, at the University of Oklahoma, USA.