Alana Piper

Dr. Alana Piper is a Casual Academic in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where she also holds a Chancellors Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Her interdisciplinary research brings together social and cultural history of crime in Australia with criminological, legal, and digital humanities approaches.

Her educational background includes a PhD from the University of Queensland (2014), a Bachelor of Arts (Hons I) from the University of Queensland (2009), and a Graduate Certificate of Higher Education from UTS (2021). She has also completed specialized training in digital humanities through the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School.

Dr. Piper's research focuses on the intersection of crime, gender, and identity in Australian history. Her work covers diverse topics including female offenders, masculinity and crime, theft, gender violence, economic abuse, co-offending, criminal subcultures, legal representation, juries, alcohol, recidivism, and life-course offending. She approaches these topics through interdisciplinary lenses that combine historical analysis with criminological theory and digital methodologies. Her research often employs life-course approaches and data-driven methods to understand criminal careers and historical patterns of offending.

Dr. Piper's publication record demonstrates a clear trajectory toward increasingly interdisciplinary work that bridges historical criminology with digital humanities. Her recent articles show growing emphasis on digital methodologies, citizen science approaches to historical research, and the application of historical insights to contemporary criminal justice issues. She has increasingly focused on gendered aspects of crime and justice, particularly women's experiences within historical criminal justice systems.

Her scientific contributions have been recognized through several awards:

• Award for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching (2021)
• Digital Partners in Learning Award (2021)
• Highly Commended, Teaching and Learning Award - transition to remote learning category, UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (2020)
• Shortlisted - Digital History Prize, NSW Premier's History Awards (2020)

Dr. Piper has been actively involved in research supervision and teaching. She has served as lead supervisor for research projects on topics like "Australia Day: New battleground of the History Wars in news reporting" and as joint supervisor for "The jury in theory and practice: Serious crime trial decisions, 1901-1952." Her funded research includes significant projects such as the ARC Discovery project 'Sex and the Australian Military, 1914-2020' (2021-2023), the ARC LIEF project 'Time-Layered Cultural Map of Australia' (2019-2021), and the ARC Laureate Fellowship project 'The Prosecution Project' (2014-2018).

She leads the Criminal Characters project, which investigates the criminal careers and life histories of Australian offenders from the end of the convict period through to the Second World War. This project engages the public through crowdsourcing to transcribe historical crime records, creating valuable resources for both academic research and public education.