From two successful ARC Future Fellowships to various awards, accolades and prizes, see where Faculty of Arts academics have been recognised in July here.

GRANTS

2023 ARC Future Fellowships Success

Dr Julien Cooper, from the Department of History and Archaeology, has been awarded $879,628 in funding for the project ‘Rescuing Pharaoh’s Gold Mines: Archaeological conservation in Eastern Sudan.’ Building on pioneering pilot surveys, this project will document the unexplored archaeology of the remote Atbai Desert of Eastern Sudan, a region whose unique heritage is being destroyed by unregulated mining. Employing satellite surveying and local fieldwork, this project will document new archaeological sites before they are destroyed, while engaging with the local Beja nomads to form culturally sensitive conservation strategies. Uncovering the history of ancient miners and indigenous nomads with new scientific techniques, the project will transform our narratives of the ancient Nile Basin, inform Sudanese heritage policy, empower local stakeholders, and propel Australia as a leader in world heritage conservation and rescue documentation.

Associate Professor Katie Barclay, from the Department of History and Archaeology, has been awarded $1,128,292 in funding for the project ‘How to Feel Safe at the End of the World.’ This project aims to provide the first history of how early modern families created conditions to feel safe in times of crisis, revealing how ideas of safety, security and hope for the future were conceived and put into practice. Its innovative research focus explores how histories, personal and national, inform psychosocial conditions of safety and security for families and build resilience within the next generation. This historical perspective on a contemporary problem has the benefit of supporting families struggling with today's changing world.

AWARDS

Professor Michelle Arrow, from the Department of History and Archaeology, is the 2022 recipient of the John Barrett Award for Australian Studies (Open Category) for her article ‘Smash Sexist Movies: Gender, Culture and Ocker Cinema in 1970s Australia’. In 1996 Dr John Barrett of LaTrobe University endowed a prize for the best-written article published in the Journal of Australian Studies each year. There is a general award and a postgraduate award, and is administered by the International Australian Studies Association (InASA).

Associate Professor Emily O’Gorman, from the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, has been named the joint winner of the inaugural Environmental History Book Prize from the Australian and Aotearoa and New Zealand Environmental History Network for her publication Wetlands in a Dry Land: More-Than–Human Histories of Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin, published in 2021. The two winning books received high praise for extraordinary scope and depth of research, imaginative and lucid writing, and innovative approaches.

Dr Rita Matulionyte, from Macquarie Law School, was awarded the AI in Law award at the 2023 Women in AI Awards, which honour and recognise excellence in AI across the Asia-Pacific.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Professor Bronwyn Carlson, Head of the Department of Indigenous Studies, has been named in Cosmos magazine’s prestigious list of the top 52 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders changing the world. The list was developed in consultation with the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) and the five members of ACOLA. Professor Carlson’s research interests include Indigenous engagements on digital platforms, Indigenous identities and Indigenous futurisms. She has a wide publication record and is the founding and managing editor of the Journal of Global Indigeneity and the Director of the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures. Professor Carlson is also an active member of the Australian Sociological Association and an editorial board member for the Journal of Sociology.