Rate My Professor Michael Westaway

Professor Michael Westaway is Professor of Archaeology and Biological Anthropology in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland, where he holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. He obtained his PhD from the Australian National University in 2010, Graduate Diploma in Arts (Biological Anthropology) from the Australian National University in 2002, Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Sydney in 1994, Graduate Diploma in Education (History and Social Science) from the University of New England in 1993, and Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University in 1992. His career trajectory includes Senior Research Fellow at Griffith University from 2013, Senior Curator at the Queensland Museum from 2013 to 2014, Head of Program at the Queensland Museum from 2010 to 2013, Lecturer in Archaeology at Flinders University in 2010, Executive Officer at the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area from 2004 to 2008, Manager of Repatriation and Biological Anthropologist at the National Museum of Australia from 2001 to 2004, and Project Archaeologist at Aboriginal Affairs Victoria from 1997 to 2001.

Westaway specializes in bioarchaeology across Australia and New Guinea, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and history, archaeological science, zooarchaeology, paleoanthropology, environmental archaeology, human impacts on ancient environments, conflict archaeology, and Aboriginal settlement and food production systems. He leads Australian Research Council projects such as 'Diving into the Desert: Indigenous and Future Floodplain Management' (2023-2026) and 'Testing the Dark Emu hypothesis' (2022-2026). His ARC Future Fellowship (2019-2023) focused on new bioarchaeological perspectives on pre-contact lifeways in Sahul. Key publications include 'Re-evaluating the significance of the rock art of the Flinders Islands Group, north-eastern Australia' (Antiquity, 2025), 'Fish Traps, Seed-Grinding and Food Stores: Reconstructing Complex Mithaka Indigenous Economic and Water Management Technologies' (The Oxford Handbook of Global Indigenous Archaeologies, 2024), 'Transdisciplinary approaches to understanding past Australian Aboriginal foodways' (Archaeology of Food and Foodways, 2023), 'Papuan pasts: the origins of Papuan human remains collections in the world's museums, the issue of repatriation, and telling new stories with skeletal data' (The Routledge handbook of museums, heritage, and death, 2024), and 'Origins of the First Australians' (The Global Atlas of Archaeology, 2014). He supervises Doctor of Philosophy candidates, teaches human evolution, bioarchaeology, and forensic archaeology, and founded National Archaeology Week in 2002.