Rate My Professor Andre Brett

Dr. André Brett is a Lecturer of History in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, where he has held his position since 2022. He specializes in the histories of Australia, New Zealand, and British imperialism, with particular emphases on political, economic, social, environmental, and transport history—especially railways—alongside higher education policy and genocide studies. Brett completed his PhD in History at the University of Melbourne in 2014; his Honours thesis there earned the 2009 Margaret Kiddle Prize for the top History Honours thesis. Prior appointments include Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow in History at the University of Wollongong from June 2017 to September 2020, Gilbert Postdoctoral Career Development Fellow in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne (2015–2016), Research Fellow in the University of Melbourne Chancellery (2016–2017), and Research Associate and Executive Officer for an Australian Research Council-funded project in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne (2014–2016).

Brett’s publications feature prominently in leading academic journals such as Journal of Genocide Research, Australian Historical Studies, History Compass, Australian Economic History Review, Environment and History, and New Zealand Journal of History. His books include No End of a Lesson: Australia’s Unified National System of Higher Education (Melbourne University Publishing, 2017, with Stuart Macintyre and Gwilym Croucher), Acknowledge No Frontier: The Creation and Demise of New Zealand’s Provinces, 1853–76 (Otago University Press, 2016), Life After Dawkins: The University of Melbourne in the Unified National System of Higher Education (Melbourne University Press, 2016), and Can’t Get There from Here: New Zealand Passenger Rail Since 1920 (Otago University Press, 2021). Notable articles encompass “‘The miserable remnant of this ill-used people’: colonial genocide and the Moriori of New Zealand’s Chatham Islands” (Journal of Genocide Research, 2015), “Railways and the Exploitation of Victoria’s Forests, 1880s–1920s” (Australian Economic History Review, 2019), and “Coping with Climate Extremes: Railways and Pastoralism During Australia’s Federation Drought” (Environment and History, 2020). Among his awards are the 2021 Max Crawford Medal and National Library of Australia Fellowship from the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2020 Wollongong Local History Prize and Humanities Travelling Fellowship, 2019 Allan Martin Award from the Australian Historical Association, 2018 Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Development Prize from the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, and 2017 high commendation in the Barrett Prize for Australian Studies. Brett’s scholarship elucidates institutional histories, colonial processes, infrastructure’s environmental ramifications, and policy evolution in Australasia.