Beth Marsden joined the University of Melbourne in 2025 as a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow. A non-Indigenous historian, Beth’s research focuses on First Nations peoples’ engagement with settler education, policy and practice situated within broader cultures of resistance. Beth specialises in the fields of Australian history, Aboriginal history, settler colonialism, and histories of childhood and education. Beth is currently writing the first national history of state school systems for and engaged by First Nations people, with an additional output in-development through partnership with the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition (NIYEC).

Following undergraduate degrees in history and education, and a successful career as a secondary school teacher, Beth completed her PhD in History at La Trobe University in 2022. Post-PhD, Beth took up two ARC-funded Research Fellowships: 'Ngura Ninti: an Indigenous History of Documents 1788-2000' led by Associate Professor Katherine Ellinghaus and Professor Barry Judd, and 'Progressive Education and Race' led by Professor Julie McLeod. In 2023, Beth took up an ARC Laureate Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Research Centre for Deep History, at the School of History, Australian National University, as part of Professor Ann McGrath's Laureate project 'Rediscovering the Deep Human Past: Global Networks, Future Opportunities'. At ANU, Beth drove the ‘Indigenous Family History Research Residencies’ program, convening three residencies in which thirty-nine Indigenous women participated in a program delivered by Indigenous historians and national archival institutions such as AIATSIS, the NLA and NAA. This program has attracted more than $50k in competitive funding.

Beth’s research has won multiple prizes and awards, including the 2025 Ann Curthoys Prize and 2023 ECR Fellowship, both from the Australian Historical Association, and a Humanities Travelling Fellowship from the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2024, she was a visiting fellow at HEX, the Centre for the History of Experience, Tampere University Finland.

Beth’s research has been published in leading academic journals such as Australian Historical Studies, History of Education, Aboriginal History, and History of Education Review. She has regularly consulted for government and Indigenous organisations, has been a member of the AIATSIS Education Advisory Committee, and is currently Honorary Secretary of the Australia New Zealand History of Education Society (ANZHES).

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Beth Marsden

McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow

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Beth Marsden

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