Rate My Professor Vannessa Hearman

Associate Professor Vannessa Hearman is a historian in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University, where she holds the position of Associate Professor of History. She coordinates the History program and lectures in History and International Relations. Hearman obtained her PhD in History from the University of Melbourne. Her career includes prior roles as Senior Lecturer in History at Curtin University since 2021, Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney, and positions at Charles Darwin University. Born in Indonesia, she has taught Indonesian language, history, and politics, and collaborates across disciplines including anthropology, art history, and cinema studies.

Hearman specializes in the history of Indonesia and Timor-Leste, examining human rights, transitional justice, political violence, historical memory, Cold War internationalism, and Australia’s engagements with the Asia-Pacific region. Her monograph Unmarked Graves: Death and Survival in the Anti-Communist Violence in East Java, Indonesia (NUS Press, 2018; University of Hawai'i Press) received the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) Early Career Book Prize in 2020. Notable publications include 'Challenges in the pursuit of justice for East Timor’s Great Famine (1977–1979)' (Third World Quarterly, 2022), 'Australian News Photography and Contested Images of Famine in Indonesian-Occupied East Timor' (Australian Historical Studies, 2023), 'Learning from the entangled histories of Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste' (History Australia, 2024), 'From Travel to Imprisonment: Remembering Cold War Trade Unionism and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in Adam Soepardjan's Prison Notebooks' (International Review of Social History, 2024), and 'An Appeal for International Solidarity in a Time of the Cold War: Retracing Indonesia’s Participation in the 1966 Tricontinental Conference' (Bandung, 2024). She has secured Australian Research Council grants, such as SR200201031 and LP210300068, and delivered public lectures including a Lunchtime Talk at the John Curtin Gallery on political violence, human rights, and historical memory. Hearman has served as a judge for the Allan Martin Award.