Rate My Professor Lyndall Ryan

Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan was a leading Australian historian whose research focused on Australian history, Aboriginal history, and feminist history. She held a Bachelor of Arts and Diploma of Education from the University of Sydney, a Master of Arts Qualifying from the Australian National University, and a PhD from Macquarie University. Her academic career spanned several institutions: Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Griffith University from 1977 to 1986; Reader and Professor of Women's Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Flinders University from 1986 to 1998, where she served as Head of the Women's Studies Program; and Foundation Professor of Australian Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle from 1998 to 2005. At Newcastle, she was Head of the School of Humanities at the Ourimbah Campus from 1999 to 2003 and Director of Research for the School from 2004 to 2005. Ryan established the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle with Professors Philip Dwyer and Roger Markwick. She also served as a member of the ARC College of Experts (HCA Panel) from 2013 and held memberships in professional associations including the Australian Historical Association, International Association of Australian Studies, and Australian Women's Studies Association.

Ryan's groundbreaking publications include her first book, The Aboriginal Tasmanians (1981), which traced the history of Tasmanian Aborigines from colonization to the present and challenged myths of their extinction; Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803 (2012); Theatres of Violence: Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity throughout History (2012, co-edited with Philip Dwyer); Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre (2018); and Empires of Violence: Massacre in a Revolutionary Age (2025, co-authored with Philip Dwyer, Barbara A. Mann, and Nigel Penn). She led the ARC-funded Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930 project, developing an interactive online map that documented frontier massacres and advanced scholarly and public understanding of colonial violence. Her contributions earned election to the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2018 for outstanding service to the humanities and an honourable mention as one of the world’s most influential historians in 2020.