Kate Fullagar

Kate Fullagar is Professor of History at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University (ACU). She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Royal Historical Society (UK), and currently serves as Vice President of the Australian Historical Association. She is also a Historical Consultant to Getty and the London National Portrait Gallery, and a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts (2022–2025).

Her research focuses on eighteenth-century world history, particularly the British Empire and its interactions with Indigenous societies in North America, Australia, and the Pacific. She specializes in visual culture, anthropological history, and experimental biography, with a strong commitment to decolonizing historical narratives. Her work explores Indigenous-Imperial relations through material objects, portraiture, and cross-cultural encounters.

Her recent publications reveal a consistent engagement with Indigenous agency, biography, and the cultural dimensions of empire. Themes include oceanic mobility, the politics of memory, and the representation of Indigenous figures in colonial art and discourse. She frequently contributes to public history through essays in Inside Story, History Today, and public lectures.

• Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities (2023)
• Fellow, Royal Historical Society (UK) (2024)
• Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship (2024)
• Visiting William Dobell Chair in Art History, ANU (2024)
• Winner, Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction
• Winner, NSW Premier’s General History Prize
• Shortlisted, Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction
• Shortlisted, James Tait Black Biography Prize

Kate Fullagar has supervised HDR students and led major research projects, including the ARC Linkage project 'Facing New Worlds' and the multi-volume Bloomsbury Cultural History of Oceania. She co-edits History Australia and serves on the editorial boards of Studies in Imperialism and Australian Historical Studies. She is the creator and host of the podcast Unsettling Portraits, which critically examines colonial representations of Indigenous people.

She is a key member of several academic teams and working groups, including the Oceania Working Party of the Australian Dictionary of Biography and the Australia-France Social Science Collaborative Research Program. Her work bridges scholarship, public engagement, and cross-institutional collaboration.