Jan Gothard

Dr Jan Gothard, past editor of the Oral History Association of Australia Journal and past convener of the journal’s Editorial Board, is Associate Professor in History at Murdoch University, where her teaching interests include oral history. In 2011 she published the oral history-based book Greater Expectations: Living with Down Syndrome in the 21st Century Australia (Fremantle Press). Other recent major publications include Blue China: Single Female Migration to Colonial Australia (MUP, 2001), which was awarded the WA Premier’s Prize for History, and the edited collectionLegacies of White Australia: Race, Culture and Nation, with Laki Jayasuriya and David Walker (Australian Book Review, 2003).  She is general editor of the Historical Encyclopedia of Western Australia (2009) and has also written about ethical issues associated with interviewing people with intellectual disabilities.  Jan is currently on the executive committee of the OHAA (WA).

Jill Cassidy

Jill Cassidy was born and educated in Tasmania. After 8 years teaching History and English to college students, she began work at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston as a research officer in the History department. In 1988 she was asked to conduct oral histories as part of the commemoration of Australia’s Bicentenary. The interviews formed the basis of a series of exhibitions during the year under the heading Launceston Talks, and were later published in a book of the same name.

As a result of this project’s success in documenting aspects of the history of Northern Tasmania, she was appointed as the museum’s first Oral Historian and soon initiated the formation of a Tasmanian Branch of the Oral History Association of Australia. She has been either branch President or Secretary ever since, and is currently also the National President.

Jill continued history research, in particular the history of Tasmania’s industrial heritage, while also curating many exhibitions based, at least in part, on oral history. Her final exhibition was Past Lives, New Beginnings about Tasmania and migration. This popular exhibition ran for seven years and was visited by many school groups.

Jill retired in 2004 but remains an Honorary Research Associate of the Museum.

Marsali Mackinnon

Marsali Mackinnon is an experienced journalist, public affairs specialist and former Australian diplomat based in Brisbane, Queensland. Her career began with 13 years in full time journalism, including as The Australian’s foreign affairs and defence correspondent, and as a freelance South Pacific correspondent for the BBC World Service. She has worked for over 25 years as a regional public and cultural affairs specialist with DFAT, AusAID and the Australian Federal Police in Fiji, Solomon Islands, PNG and New Zealand. Marsali is currently the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Queensland Public Relations Manager for the 2011 Census.

Before joining the ABS, she was employed by the University of Queensland’s School of Journalism and Communication as Project Manager of UNESCO’s 2010 World Press Freedom Day international conference, which was hosted by UQ in Brisbane. Marsali is also the author of a ground-breaking social/oral history media project, The Fiji Oral History Part I: Part-Europeans and Europeans, which is held in the archives of key regional institutions including the National Library of Australia, the Australian National University’s Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, the University of California (San Diego), Harvard University, and the University of the South Pacific. Marsali is a member of the Oral History Association of Australia (Queensland Branch) and the Australian National Commission for UNESCO’s Communications Network.

Janis Wilton OAM 

June had an eclectic career as an archivist in the National Archives of Australia, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, James Cook University of North Queensland, State Records of South Australia and the State Library of South Australia. She joined the Oral History Association in Queensland in 1992 when she worked as the University Archivist at James Cook University of North Queensland.