Prof Gaye Sculthorpe

Gaye is a palawa woman from Tasmania with qualifications in history and anthropology (Australian National University) and Museum Studies (University of Sydney). As a mature age student she completed a PhD at La Trobe University in the Area of Aboriginal Studies, School of Archaeology. Her thesis focused on change and innovation in wood carving (punu) in the central and western deserts of Australia. 

Over her museum career, Gaye has worked in local, state, national and international museums: Burke Memorial Museum, Beechworth; Museums Victoria, Melbourne, National Museum of Australia, Canberra; and the British Museum (2013-2022) where she was curator and section head of Oceania, in the Department of the Africa, Oceania and the Americas. For almost ten years she worked as a Member of the National Native Title Tribunal, before moving to work in London. 

In August 2022, she took up the position of Research Professor, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, in the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. 

ICOM

Museum Ethnographers Group UK

Museums Australia 

Aboriginal material culture

Repatriation issues and practice

Interpretation of difficult histories

Provenance research

Museums and communities

Keynote speaker, 'Return: Reconnecting objects and collections iwth people and places', ANU and Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga, June 2023 ('Finding your Ancestors' objects in Britain')

Keynote speaker, AIATSIS Summit, Perth, June 2023 ('Aboriginal museum collections in a changing world: where to from here?')

Invited speaker, Belonging Series, Chau Chau Wing Museum, August 2022 ('Being Collected: Aboriginal Objects in the British Museum')

Keynote speaker, AMAGA Annual Conference, Perth, June 2022 ('Listening locally, acting globally: reflections from London')

Deputy President, International Cultural Property Society

2022 Global Impact Award, Global Australians Awards

2017 ANU Indigenous Alumnus of the Year

Mobilising Aboriginal Objects in International Museums ARC Discovery Project  2020-2023 DP20000102212, led by Assoc. Professor Maria Nugent (ANU, the British Museum, MAA Cambridge)

Collecting the West ARC Linkage Project 2016-2022 LP160100078) led by Professors Andrea Witcomb (Deakin University) and Alistair Paterson (University of Western Australia)

The Relational Museum and its Objects (ANU, National Museum of Australia, the British Museum, Wagga Wagga City Council) ARC Linkage Project 2016-2023 LP150100423