Lynette Russell

Lynette Wendy Russell, is an Australian historian, known for her work on the history of Indigenous Australians; in particular, anthropological history (especially during the early colonial period of Australia and the 19th century); archaeology; gender and race, Indigenous oral history, and museum studies.

Early life and education Russell was born on 27 April 1960 in an outer Melbourne suburb, into a working-class family. She has traced her Aboriginal ancestry via her grandmother from western Victoria with connections to Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands, on her father's side, and from transported convicts on her mother's side.

In October 2017, Russell gave the 2nd Bicentennial Australian History Lecture at the University of Sydney, with the title of her address being "50,000 years of Australian History: a plea for interdisciplinarity".

Russell was president of the Australian Historical Association from 2016 to 2018.

Recognition Russell is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London and a Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University.

Russell was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to higher education, particularly Indigenous history, and to professional organisations".

In October 2019, Russell was awarded an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship with her project, "Global Encounters and First Nations Peoples: 1000 Years of Australian History", funded with million over five years. She was also awarded the 2019 Kathleen Fitzpatrick fellowship, which "recognises one outstanding female Laureate Fellow in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences". She was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023.

Selected publications Savage Imaginings: Historical and Contemporary Representations of Australian Aboriginalities (2001)

Appropriated Pasts: Archaeology and Indigenous People in Settler Colonies, coauthored with Ian McNiven (2005) Roving Mariners: Aboriginal Whalers in the Southern Oceans 1790–1870 (2012) Hunt Them, Hang Them: 'The Tasmanians' in Port Phillip, 1841–42, with Kate Auty (2016) First Naturalists with Penny Olsen (2019), https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/australias-first-naturalists/