Facing Empire

Born and raised in Canberra, Australia, she completed her honours degree in History at the Australian National University in 1997. Subsequently, she pursued her MA (2001) and PhD (2005) at the University of California at Berkeley under the guidance of scholars such as Thomas Laqueur, James Vernon, and David Lieberman. During this period, she freelanced for OUP and the journal Representations, contemplating a potential career in publishing.

Returning to Australia, she initially worked as a project officer at the Australian Academy of Humanities. From 2007 to 2010, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney, followed by a tenured position in the Modern History department at Macquarie University from 2010 to 2020. In July 2020, she became a professor in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at ACU.

She authored "The Savage Visit" (Berkeley, 2012), examining the rise and fall of British fascination for Indigenous visitors in the eighteenth century. Exploring similar themes, she edited "The Atlantic World in the Antipodes: Effects and Transformations since the Eighteenth Century" (Newcastle, 2012), featuring contributions from eminent scholars.

Transitioning to more Indigenous-focused history, she collaborated with historian Michael McDonnell, co-editing "Facing Empire: Indigenous Experiences in a Revolutionary Age" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). In 2020, she published the award-winning "The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire" (Yale University Press), delving into the lives of Cherokee warrior Ostenaco, Raiatean voyager Ma’i, and British painter Joshua Reynolds. In 2023, she ventured into Australian history with "Bennelong & Phillip" (Simon and Schuster, 2023).