Rate My Professor Kristen Alexander

Dr. Kristen Alexander is an Adjunct Associate Lecturer and Visiting Fellow at the School of Humanities & Social Sciences, UNSW Canberra, University of New South Wales. She earned her PhD from UNSW Canberra in 2020 for the thesis 'Emotions of Captivity: Australian Airmen Prisoners of Stalag Luft III and their Families'. She also holds a Graduate Certificate of Management from the University of New England, awarded in 1994. Specializing in Australian aviation history, her academic interests focus on the emotions and moral dilemmas of warfare; personal stories of Australian airmen, particularly Royal Australian Air Force personnel during the Second World War; Australian prisoners of war in European and Japanese theatres; emotional responses to warfare among women on the Australian home front; and moral dilemmas faced by airmen during and after the war.

Dr. Alexander has an accomplished publication record, including several award-winning books: Jack Davenport: Beaufighter Leader (featured on the RAAF Chief of Air Force's 2010 reading list); Australian Eagles (highly commended, 2014 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards); Australia's Few and the Battle of Britain (nonfiction category winner, 2015 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards; on 2015 RAAF reading list); Taking Flight: Lores Bonney's Extraordinary Flying Career (highly commended, 2017 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards); and Kriegies: the Australian Airmen of Stalag Luft III (2023; nonfiction self-publishing category winner, 2024 ACT Literary Awards; Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize, 2024 NSW Premier's History Awards). Her PhD thesis received the Australian War Memorial's 2021 Bryan Gandevia Prize for Australian military–medical history, awarded in 2022. She has contributed book chapters such as 'Strangers at home' (2025, Routledge) and 'The Australian prisoner of war experience in Stalag Luft III, 1942–45' (2023, Routledge), and journal articles including 'Combatant grief and military mourning: 6RAR in the aftermath of Long Tan, 1966–1969' (2025, History Australia) and 'Mourning the Dead of the Great Escape: POWs, Grief, and the Memorial Vault of Stalag Luft III' (2023, Journal of War and Culture Studies). Her scholarship illuminates the psychological legacies of captivity and warfare for Australian military personnel and their families.