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Our people

 
Photo Name Expertise
Dr Peter Stanley  Dr Peter Stanley

Dr Peter Stanley is a military social historian and Head of the Centre for Historical Research. He writes about people in extreme situations, usually in war, but also in natural disasters – his current book is about the Black Saturday bush fire of 2009.

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Mike Smith Dr Mike Smith

Dr Mike Smith is a pioneering desert archaeologist and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Historical Research. For more than 30 years he has worked extensively across the Australian arid zone attempting to piece together a picture of the human and environmental histories of this diverse and fascinating region.

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Libby Robin
Dr Libby Robin

Dr Libby Robin is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Historical Research. An environmental historian jointly appointed to the National Museum of Australia and the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University. She is the author of How a Continent Created a Nation, and co-editor of Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve and Historical Records of Australian Science, the journal of the Australian Academy of Science.

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Nicholas Brown
Dr Nicholas Brown

Dr Nicholas Brown is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Museum of Australia’s Centre for Historical Research, and Associate Professor at the School of History, Australian National University. His research interests span twentieth-century Australian environmental and social history, with a particular focus on biographical approaches.

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Margo Neale
Margo Neale

Margo Neale is a Senior Research Fellow, Senior Curator and Principal Indigenous Advisor to the Director at the National Museum of Australia. Margo is also an Adjunct Professor in the history program at the Australian National University's Australian Centre for Indigenous History.

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Darrell Lewis
Dr Darrell Lewis

Dr Darrell Lewis is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Historical Research. His areas of interest include Australian archaeology, settler and environmental history.

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Anne Faris Anne Faris

Ms Anne Faris is the Grants and Administration Officer at the Centre for Historical Research as well as the publications assistant for the reCollections journal.

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Museum Associates Louise Douglas and Michael Piggott 
Associates

Since its inception in 2007, the Centre for Historical Research has provided a base for a variety of researchers from Australia and overseas, investigating different aspects of Australian history.

To date Katherine Aiger, Alison Clark, Louise Douglas, Stephen Foster, Christine Hansen, Matthew Higgins, Shino Konishi, Kathryn Medlock, Maria Nugent, Michael Piggott, Biff Ward and Christine Wright have been Centre Associates. 

Read more about the Centre's Associates and their projects.

Image: Associates Louise Douglas and Michael Piggott

Library staff Noellen Newton and Naomi Newton
Library staff: Noellen Newton and Naomi Newton

The Museum’s Library, located in the Annexe and part of the Centre for Historical Research, has developed as a vigorous combination of scholarly special library and staff services library. Its holdings include collections of personal and professional papers and rare books, created by influential figures such as Dr Bob Edwards (museum curator and entrepreneur), Professor David Ride (cultural heritage management pioneer), historians Professor Ken Inglis and Professor Bill Gammage and the Baldwin steam collection. The library collection includes over 40,000 books and many serials, all relating to areas central to the Museum’s key themes of Australian history and society, people and the environment and Indigenous history and culture. The library has strong holdings in museum studies and conservation. The Library is run by Ms Noellen Newton and Ms Naomi Newton, whose acknowledged strengths are their responsiveness to readers’ interests and requests. In 2012 the Library will be refurbished, which may create periods of disruption.

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