Professor Judith Noble is Head of Academic Research and Professor of Film and the Occult at Arts University Plymouth. She is joint coordinator of the Black Mirror research network with Dominic Shepherd (AUB), Jesse Bransford (NYU Steinhardt) and Robert Ansell and Merlin Cox (Fulgur). Her research interests centre on experimental, avant-garde and artists film, Surrealism and the occult and magic. She has published extensively on Maya Deren and on Kenneth Anger and Derek Jarman. Judith founded and is a member of the Inner Space Exploration Unit (ISEU) an artists’ project with members from AUP, the University of Cambridge and Arts University Bournemouth that makes practice-led collaborative research that is published online and exhibited physically.

She has recently completed work on Maya Deren and Surrealism and has published extensively on Deren’s work. In 2014 she organised the Visions of Enchantment conference with Dan Zamani and Rachel Parikh. Before returning to Higher Education in 2007, she worked for many years in arts funding and the film industry. From 1984 - 96 she was Film and Television officer at South West Arts; from 1996 - 2001 she was Chief Executive of the South West Media Development Agency and from 2001 - 2006 she was Head of Production at Sgrin Cymru Wales, where she was responsible for executive-producing and developing feature films supported by the Wales Lottery Film Fund. These included Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper Suitcases trilogy (in competition at Cannes and Berlin 2002 - 4), Amma Asante’s A Way Of Life (BAFTA winner 2005), Patagonia (Gruff Rhys) and Sleep, Furiously (Gideon Koppel). In 2007 she joined the staff of the BA (Hons) Film Production course at Arts University Bournemouth. She held an AUB Research Fellowship in 2010-11, trained as a PhD supervisor and became Course Leader for BA (Hons) Film Production in 2014 before taking up her current post at Arts University Plymouth. Judith was appointed as Professor of Film and the Occult at Arts University Plymouth in 2023.

In her role at Arts University Plymouth, Judith is responsible for the development of research culture and provision: devising and implementing research policy and strategy; developing and managing staff research; coordinating and developing research groups; managing major projects; and is joint editor of Making Futures online journal.

Judith is a Member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism and the Modernist Studies Association. She is a trustee of Plymouth Arts Cinema and a director of Pagan Phoenix SW. Judith holds an MFA from Reading (1980) and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Nottingham Trent (1978).