Dr Ruth Kerr is an experienced historian in mining, regional, economic and company history, having written several books on these subjects. Ruth has worked in the area of native title, been an archivist at Queensland State Archives and is currently in Strategic Policy in Primary Industries and Fisheries in Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation. Ruth is a long term member of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland Council (first female president,1992-1995), an Adjunct Professor of History at University of Queensland, member, past President of Professional Historians Association (Queensland), past President of the FAHS (and Committee member since 1986), and a member of several historical societies.

Adjunct Professor Judith Smart (RHSV)

FAHS Senior Vice-President and RHSV Delegate

Judith Smart is a historian of the Australian homefront during World War I and of Australian women's organisations and activism. She is a past editor of Australian Historical Studies and the Victorian Historical Journal. She is currently working on a history of the National Council of Women of Australia 1931–2006. She holds honorary positions at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University and is a Council Member of the RHSV and vice-president of the History Council of Victoria.

Esther Davies is a retired history teacher and former President of both the Canberra and District Historical Society and the ACT History Teachers' Association. She currently works part-time as a school archivist.

Prior to her retirement twelve years ago, Helen was a Senior Researcher in Epidemiology in the Health Department of Western Australia. She has a PhD in Anthropology. She was elected to the Council of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society in 1996 and became Vice-Chairman in 2001, a position which she still holds. She has been actively involved for varying periods in: the History Council of Western Australia; the Historical Records Rescue Consortium; Museums Australia (WA); and the FAHS, of which she has served as Vice-President and President. Helen and her husband, Bill, are currently preparing a biographical account of the life and scientific contribution of Augustus Oldfield (1821-1887) who was an important botanical collector in Australia in the mid-nineteenth century.

Since leaving full time employment with Wesfarmers, Nick is now on various committees for the Royal Western Australian Historical Society being a Councilor, Tours & Events, Promotions & Marketing and the Affiliated Societies. Nick is also Treasurer of the Friends of Battye Library, Perth and the History Council of WA

Associate Professor Don Garden is an environmental historian who now works as a consultant historian after teaching at the University of Melbourne for many years. He holds honorary positions at the University of Melbourne and is a Council Member of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and a member of the Kew (Victoria) Historical Society.

Alison Alexander has a PhD in Tasmanian history from the University of Tasmania, and has written 24 books. Most are commissioned histories on topics ranging from schools and industries to a football club. She edited The Companion to Tasmanian History (University of Tasmania, 2005), and has written Tasmania's Convicts (Allen & Unwin, 2010), a study of the effect on Tasmania of its convict past, and a biography, The ambitions of Jane Franklin (Allen & Unwin, 2013).

Margaret Anderson is Director of the History Trust of South Australia, a position she has held since 2000. In a career spanning 30 years she has worked as a public historian in museums in Western Australia and South Australia and taught history and Australian Studies at Monash University. Her research interests have focused on women’s history and demography, but she has also written more generally about South Australian history and the practice of public history.

David Carment, AM, BA (Hons) UNSW, PhD ANU, FACE, FFAHS is an Emeritus Professor of History at Charles Darwin University. He is the immediate past President of the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Council of which he joined in 2008. He rejoined the Committee of the Federation of Australian Historical Societies, of which he is a former Vice-President and Honorary Secretary, in 2008. He is also a former Executive Committee Member of the History Council of New South Wales and a current and former office bearer in numerous other history and heritage organisations. His publications cover Australian federal political history, Central Queensland history, Northern Territory history, cultural heritage management and family history.

Joan Hunt is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and recent vice-president. In 1988 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study how community heritage groups in the U.K. organise and administer themselves. Joan convened the History Victoria Support Group of RHSV from 2004 until 2010, and has been president of several local and family history societies in Victoria; her involvement spans 38 years. She retired in 2011 from the Ballarat Archives Centre, Public Record Office Victoria. A retired teacher, Joan has published several histories and is currently a PhD by Research candidate at the University of Ballarat working on a history of the Springdallah district south-west of Ballarat.

Ian Jack is Senior Fellow at St Andrew’s College in the University of Sydney. He has retired from the Department of History in that university, where he was a co-founder of Historical Archaeology in 1974. He was President of the Royal Australian Historical Society from 2003 until 2010. His six-year stint on the Heritage Council of NSW ended in 2005. He is currently a member of the History Advisory Panel of the Heritage Council. He is author of Exploring the Hawkesbury and Macquarie’s Towns; co-author of Australian Pioneer Technology, Industrial Archaeology in Australia, Regional Histories of New South Wales and Australia’s Age of Iron: History and Archaeology; and many articles on heritage and local history.

Bob Nicholson has spent his life in the law. After six years as foundation Secretary-General of the Law Council of Australia, he returned to private legal practice in Perth. In 1986 he was appointed to the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In 1988 he became a justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia. In 1995 he became a member of the Federal Court of Australia. After reaching the compulsory retirement age in 2007 he became President of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society and now continues on the Council as Past President. In addition to articles on the law, he has published several papers on issues of historical moment concerning the law.

Stephen Sheaffe (RHSQ)

RHSQ Delegate

A barrister, former president of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, former member of the RHSQ Council and holder of many executive positions on the Council. Currently the president of the Queensland National Trust and the Queensland representative on the Australian Council of National Trusts.

Matthew Stephen has lived in the Northern Territory since 1987. Until 2001 he worked largely in the field of Aboriginal tertiary education. Since 2007 he has been the Manager of the Northern Territory Archives Service Oral History Unit. He completed his PhD at Darwin’s Charles Darwin University in 2009. His thesis is entitled ‘Contact Zones: Sport and Race in The Northern Territory, 1869–1953’. A revised version of his thesis with the same title was published by Charles Darwin University Press in 2010. He continues his research into Northern Territory sports history with a particular interest in oral history and photography and why some stories are ‘often told’ while others are ‘forgotten’.  

Chris Tassell (THRA)

THRA Delegate

Chris Tassell is the Managing Director of the National Trust of Australia (Tasmania). He took up this position in 2006 following the decision by the Tasmanian Government to restructure the National Trust. Prior to this he was Director of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston. During his time as Director he oversaw the Museum’s redevelopment of the former Tasmanian Railways Workshops at Inveresk. He has served on a wide range of arts and heritage Boards at regional, state and national level including the Australia Council as well as being actively involved in the documentation of aspects of Tasmania’s cultural heritage.

John Davies is retired from the Australian Public Service, where he was an Information Technology Officer. He has been working for the FAHS part-time since 2006.