Award-winning historian and La Trobe University Professor Clare Wright OAM has been appointed Chair of the Council of the National Museum of Australia for a three-year term.
Minister for the Arts Tony Burke announced the appointment on Thursday (August 8), saying Professor Wright and three other new Council members would help guide the Museum to deliver on its vision for the future.
Professor Ann McGrath AM, Professor Megan Davis and Ms Janine Freeman have also been appointed as members to the Council for three years. Professor Wright has served on the Council since 2022.
The National Museum of Australia is dedicated to telling and safeguarding Australia's rich and diverse stories through researching, collecting, preserving and exhibiting the country's historical material.
"The National Museum of Australia houses an array of eclectic historical materials that showcases the many stories and identities that make up our nation," Minister Burke said.
"It's fantastic to welcome Clare as the new Council Chair, and Ann, Megan and Janine as members - four extremely distinguished women in their respective fields.
"They have a vast depth of knowledge between them ranging from history, sociology, governance and beyond, which will be of great value to the Council."
Professor Wright has worked at La Trobe University since 2004.
The Professor of History and inaugural Professor of Public Engagement said it was an honour to lead the Council.
"It is an incredible honour to be appointed Chair of this remarkable national collecting institution, a repository and caretaker for the rich material heritage that tells Australia's First Nations, colonial, 20th century and contemporary stories in all their complexity and diversity.
"I look forward to working closely with Council and the Museum's amazing team of curators, researchers, guides and administrators to bring these stories - as well as international blockbuster exhibitions - to life."
National Museum of Australia Director Katherine McMahon said she was delighted with the appointments.
"Professor Wright is one of Australia's foremost and celebrated contemporary historians," Ms McMahon said. "She has served on the Museum's Council with distinction. On behalf of the Museum I welcome Clare as our new Chair and extend a warm welcome to Ann, Megan and Janine to our Council. I look forward to working with the four of them as they help steer the Museum's next exciting chapter."
Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author, broadcaster, podcaster and public commentator who has worked in politics, academia and the media. Clare is currently Professor of History and the inaugural Professor of Public Engagement at La Trobe University. She is the author of four works of history, including the best-selling The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka and You Daughters of Freedom, which comprise the first two instalments of her Democracy Trilogy. The final instalment of the trilogy, Näku Dhäruk, a history of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, will be published in October 2024. Clare has written and presented history documentaries for ABC TV. She also hosts the ABC Radio National history podcast, Shooting the Past, co-hosts the La Trobe University podcast Archive Fever and is Executive Producer of Hey History! the first Australian history podcast designed for use in the classroom. In 2020, Clare was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours list for "services to literature and to historical research". In 2022, Clare was on the National Cultural Policy Expert Advisory Panel and was commissioned to co-write (with Christos Tsiolkis) the Vision Statement for the policy document, Revive. She has been a Member of the National Museum of Australia Council since October 2022 and is a past Board Director of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas.
Professor Ann McGrath AM is the WK Hancock Distinguished Professor of History and the Director of the Research Centre for Deep History at the Australian National University (ANU), and holds a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellowship until 2025. At the ANU, she was the founding Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History in 2003 and in 2019 she became Director of the Research Centre for Deep History. She was awarded the John Douglas Kerr Medal for Distinction in Research and Writing Australian History in 2016. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2007 and in 2018 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to the social sciences as an academic and researcher in the field of Indigenous history and to tertiary education".
Professor Megan Davis is a leading constitutional lawyer and public law expert, specialising in Indigenous peoples and the law, the constitutional recognition of First Nations people and democracy. She is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Society at the University of NSW and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She is also Acting Commissioner of the NSW Land and Environment Court. Professor Davis has campaigned for the constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples for two decades and was central to the design of the Referendum Council's deliberative process that led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. She is a Sydney Peace Prize Laureate for the Uluru Statement and was awarded a 2024 PeaceWomen Award by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Janine Freeman is currently the Independent Chair of Fair Food Western Australia, a Director at the Water Corporation of WA Board and a Director of the WA Government Employees Superannuation Board. She was a former member of the WA House of Assembly seat of Mirrabooka. First elected in 2008, Ms Freeman served in the Assembly until retiring from politics in 2021. During that time, she acted as the Speaker of the House and sat on various committees, including as Chair of the Education and Health Standing Committee and a member of the Delegated Legislation Committee.
