ProfessorTiffany Shellam

I work collaboratively with First Nations people and historians, archivists, museum curators and scientists to critique the archives, unearthing hidden and alternative histories generated by encounters between First Nations people and European explorers and colonists in the nineteenth century. I am currently interested in the disciplinary intersections of nature and culture in the nineteenth century and its legacy in museum and archival collections today. The key concerns driving my work are the endangered nature of Indigenous Knowledge held (hidden) in science museum collections and its disconnection from the source communities who continue to hold traditional environmental knowledge for biodiversity conservation through caring for Country. My book 'Meeting the Waylo: Aboriginal encounters in the Archipelago' (2020, UWAP) was awarded the Prime Minister's prize for Australian History in 2020.