I am Professor of Interdisciplinary and Public Humanities trained in History, Anthropology and Cultural Studies. My places of research are museums, universities, and other sites of public culture that engage with political exchange. My research investigates the relationships between cultural organizations, citizenship, government, and political reform movements. I am particularly interested in developing appropriate methodologies for building, translating and evaluating knowledge about collaborative research practice.

I have published extensively about the ways that museums across the world have conducted contemporary collecting and been involved in and identified as sites of activism and controversy. My focus on institutional ethnographies and organizational histories has generated new ways of addressing relationships between racism and contested histories in organizational and public/community settings. My documentation of curatorial and social activism within multicultural policy climates since the 1970s has made significant contributions to the way various stakeholders understand the political history and impact of culture.

I am committed to writing for public, industry, sectoral snd scholarly audiences so you will find my articles in a wide range of publication venues. I am also a frequent media adviser and commentator on matters relating to university policy, cultural sector policy, and culture and the arts. My details for media use are on the ANU Experts Guide.

Books

My books include Collecting Activism, Archiving Occupy Wall Street (Routledge 2019), The Disobedient Museum: Writing at the Edge (Routledge 2018), Museums and Racism (Routledge 2018), Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest (Routledge 2014), New Museums and the Making of Culture (Berg 2006), and Museum Theory: An Expanded Field (edited, with Andrea Witcomb, Wiley Blackwell 2015, reprinted 2020).

Principal editorial roles

I am Associate Editor of Museum Management and Curatorship journal (Taylor and Francis) and founding general series editor of the Routledge book series, Museums in Focus, which challenges authors and readers to radically rethink the relationships between cultural and intellectual dissent and crisis and debates about museums, politics and the broader public sphere. I am also chief editor of Humanities Research and led the journal's re-launch by ANU Press in 2023. Previously, I was founding joint chief co-editor of Museum Worlds: Advances in Research (Berghahn), Museum and Society managing editor, and exhibition reviews editor for Australian Historical Studies.

I am Director of the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. In 2026 I have taken up the appointment of Professorial Resident Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin where I will be in residence until July. I have recently completed my term as Research Fellow of the National Museum of Australia (2023-26). I hold continuing elected external appointments with international academic organisations (Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes), academic publishers (Routledge/Taylor and Francis, Bloomsbury Publishing, Berghahn Books), and national cultural institutions (Vietnamese Museum of Australia) as well as universities (Maynooth University).

Previously, I was Associate Dean Research for the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences (2019-22), Deputy Chair of the University Research Committee (2021-22), and Director of the Australasian Consortium of Humanities Researchers and Centres (2022-23). I was also Director of the Research School of Humanities and the Arts (2015-16) and Head of the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology (2013-15). I was an elected member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts Humanities and Creative Arts Panel (2014-16). Before that I was CASS Associate Dean Research Training (2010-12), and Museums and Collections program convenor at the ANU (2006-10). Prior to being appointed as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at ANU (2005), I was Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne (2004-05), and lecturer in the School of English, Film and Theatre at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand (2000-03).

I have held visiting and research fellowships at Indiana University (2018), the University of Copenhagen (2017), University of Leicester (2011), and the Smithsonian Institution – National Museum of American History and the National Museum of the American Indian (2010).

You can find me on LinkedIn, where I post Humanities Research Centre news and activities.

Oxford Cultural Leaders (University of Oxford)

PhD (University of Melbourne)

BA (Hons) (University of Melbourne)