Dr. Stephen Thorpe is a Director of Zenergy, an academic, facilitator, trainer, and educator who specialises in group work in the online world. He is passionate about assisting people to collaborate using a range of online technologies and trains people around the world in online facilitation skills.

Stephen loves researching ways to enhance the effectiveness of online groups and his research has explored the use of storytelling in the facilitation of online relationship development. Stephen also holds a Diploma of Facilitation from Zenergy and a Bachelor of Business with First Class Honours from Auckland University of Technology (AUT) where he has a background researching computer-assisted group work and teaching user-centered design part-time.

He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, and a lead researcher in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the Auckland University of Technology. He is the Director of the Project Management Research Office and Editor-in-Chief of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, an international peer-reviewed journal for group facilitation practitioners.

Growth and agility are the underlying passions that drive his academic expertise and innovative spirit. Over recent years he has led the creation of AUT’s innovative new Master of IT Project Management where he teaches the Team Facilitation for IT Projects class and supervises students undertaking a range of project management, facilitation and agile-related research projects.

His is an agile mindset that likes to take a team approach, focuses on alignment, and is constantly building a culture of success. With a background in group facilitation, user-centered design and technology, he is one that integrates the domains of technology and collaboration in bringing together communities of students, alumni and industry.

Stephen’s research interests include: online team effectiveness, group facilitation, virtual worlds, second order project management, e-Government, as well as in IT governance, and data management. Some of his recent work includes a co-authored paper with Dr Glyn Thomas on Enhancing the Facilitation of Online Groups in Higher Education (2019), published in the prestigious Q1 Interactive Learning Environments. Also a chapter on The Gift of Presence in Groups, co-authored with Dr Dale Hunter and published by Routledge in Transforming worldviews and practices: Social Ecology and education (2020) edited by David Wright and Stuart Hill.