Mary Tomsic

Dr Mary Tomsic is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at Australian Catholic University (ACU), Melbourne. Her research centers on migration and refugee history, gender history, public visual cultures, film, digital media, and children’s voices in historical narratives.

Her academic work explores how displacement is represented visually and narratively, particularly through children’s stories and media. She is deeply engaged in public history and community-based research, collaborating with organizations such as Kids’ Own Publishing to develop educational resources and digital storytelling projects.

Her recent publications span topics including feminist film, visual memory, refugee representation in picture books, and digital storytelling on Instagram. These works reflect a strong interdisciplinary approach, combining history, media studies, education, and cultural analysis.

Dr Tomsic is a full HDR supervisor and actively involved in public scholarship through platforms like The Conversation, Pursuit, and Wikipedia edit-a-thons. Her projects include Picturing Refugee Children and Children's Voices in their Own Books, which focus on visual and textual representations of displaced children.

She has contributed to major publications such as The Cambridge World History of Violence and journals including History Australia and History Education Review. Her book Beyond the Silver Screen is a significant contribution to Australian film and gender history.