DrGeraldine Fela

Geraldine Fela is an historian of Australian social and political life, with a particular interest in histories of labour, gender, and sexuality. Her first book, Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia's AIDS Crisis (2024), was the first sustained historical study of the contribution of nurses and their unions to Australia's HIV and AIDS response, and was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Australian History in 2025. 

 

From 2022 to 2026, Geraldine was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Macquarie University where she researched the 1998 Patricks Dispute, a landmark moment in Australian politics and industrial relations. As part of this project, she worked at ABC Radio National for 10 months as a producer and expert historian on the six-part podcast series Conspiracy? War on the Waterfront (https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/abc-rewind/conspiracy-war-on-the-waterfront/104985320). Building on this work, Geraldine is currently working on a research project which will document and explore the 11 years of the Howard Government through a social history lens. By asking what the Howard years look like when they are viewed not only from the halls of parliament or from the newsroom, but from the street protest, the factory floor, the detention centre or the school classroom, this project will shed new light on this transformative period of Australian politics.