She has been lecturing, teaching and researching in Creative Arts education for over 25 years and has authored a prolific number of publications, including over 25 creative arts resource books, videos, cassettes, journal articles, professional reports, national and international refereed conference papers and popular magazine articles. Deirdre has won several teaching awards, including the prestigious national Australian Award for University Teaching (Social Sciences) in 2001. She has been on the forefront of developing the creative arts website artsmmadd.com, which offers free resources to teachers to encourage them to teach the creative arts in their classroom.