The School of History at University College Dublin is delighted to announce the appointment of Prof. Martin Thomas to the 2019 Keith Cameron Chair in Australian History. Martin is currently based at ANU where he specialises in Australian, Aboriginal and trans-national history. He has published in the areas of environmental history, landscape studies, cross-cultural encounter, expeditions and exploration, history of anthropology, and on the impact of sound recording and photography. He has written numerous visual art reviews and catalogue essays and works as an oral-history interviewer for the National Library of Australia. He also has had extensive experience as a broadcaster and maker of radio documentaries.
In 1985 the Keith Cameron Professorship of Australian History was endowed by the Commonwealth of Australia and the family of Dr Tony O’Reilly. Keith Cameron was a distinguished Australian mining engineer and company director. In 2006, the then Australian Ambassador to Ireland, Anne Plunkett, recommended that the Keith Cameron Chair of Australian History should be re-endowed by the Australian government. Prime Minister John Howard announced the renewed funding during his visit to UCD on 22 May 2006.
Image caption: Film shoot in west Arnhem Land where Martin Thomas worked on the documentary Etched in Bone (Red Lily Productions/Ronin Films, September 2018).