QUT has conferred the title of Distinguished Professor on internationally acclaimed Indigenous researcher Aileen Moreton-Robinson.
QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake said the title of Distinguished Professor was awarded to Professor Moreton-Robinson in recognition of her outstanding international achievements in Indigenous studies, research and for advancing opportunities for Indigenous students to undertake postgraduate studies.
“As one of Australia’s leading Indigenous academics, Distinguished Professor Moreton-Robinson is a scholar of global standing who has been a role model for Indigenous academics for nearly two decades,” Professor Coaldrake said.
“The Distinguished Professor title is a rare honour and the highest accolade the university can bestow upon an academic.”
As QUT’s Professor of Indigenous Studies, Professor Moreton-Robinson teaches the Indigenous postgraduate research capacity building program. She is also Director of the National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network (NIRAKN), an Australian Research Council-funded network of Indigenous researchers from 22 universities and five national research partner organizations.
Professor Moreton-Robinson will assume additional research leadership responsibilities as Dean, Indigenous Research and Engagement. She will head the Indigenous Research and Engagement Unit in the Division of Research and Commercialisation.
A Goenpul woman from Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Quandamooka First Nation (Moreton Bay), Professor Moreton-Robinson is widely published on the subjects of law and sovereignty, whiteness, race, feminism, native title law and Aboriginal land rights.
Her latest book, The White Possessive: Property, Power and Indigenous Sovereignty (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis) was awarded the 2015 Best Subsequent Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies Prize at the annual NAISA conference in May 2016.
Professor Moreton-Robinson is a former council member of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. She is an executive member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium, president of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association, and a member of Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Professor Moreton-Robinson is the first Indigenous Australian to be appointed as a member of the managing editorial board of American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association.
QUT is part of a national collaborative group of five major Australian universities that form the ATN (Australian Technology Network of Universities).
Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 1841, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
