Maria Nugent (historian)

Maria Nugent is an associate professor of History at the Australian National University.

Studies

Nugent completed her BA from the Australian National University (ANU), and MA from University of Sydney. She also has a graduate diploma in Adult Education from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).^[1] In 2000 she completed her PhD thesis at UTS.^[2][3]

Career

Nugent joined ANU in 2009 as a research fellow in the Australian Centre for Indigenous History. She served as the centre's co-director from 2018 to 2023. In 2024 she was appointed the head of the School of History at ANU.^[4] Previously, in 2015-16, she was a visiting professor of Australian studies at University of Tokyo.^[4]

Research

Nugent's research engages with Aboriginal history, memory, heritage,^[5] material history and museum collections, and cross-cultural history and encounters.^[6] She was granted the ARC Future Fellowship (2011-2015).^[4] She was part of the research project, Ancestors, artefacts, empire – mobilising Aboriginal objects, funded by the Australian Research Council (2011–2023) along with Gaye Sculthorpe, Howard Morphy, and Lissant Bolton.^[7]

Books

• 2005. Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet. Allen & Unwin.^[8]
• 2009. Captain Cook was here. Cambridge University Press.^[9]

Edited books

• 2016. eds. Sarah Carter and Maria Nugent. Mistress of everything: Queen Victoria in Indigenous worlds. Manchester University Press.^[10]
• 2016. eds. Tiffany Shellam, Maria Nugent, Shino Konishi, and Allison Cadzow. Brokers and boundaries: Colonial exploration in indigenous territory. ANU Press.^[11]
• 2021. eds. Gaye Sculthorpe, Maria Nugent, Howard Morphy. Ancestors, artefacts, empire: indigenous Australia in British and Irish museums. British Museum Press. ^[12]

Awards

• 2004: Allan Martin Award for Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet.^[2]