Abby Cooper BA (Hons) Monash, MA (Public History) Monash, PhD candidate

Abby Cooper grew up in Horsham, Western Victoria. In 2003, she completed a Bachelor of Arts with first class honors, majoring in history and philosophy at Monash University in 2003. In 2004, she completed a Masters of Public History also at Monash. Abby moved to Canberra in 2005 to undertake a position in one of the Australian Government's graduate programs. She has also been employed as an Assistant Curator at the National Museum of Australia where she worked on a contemporary Australian Indigenous art exhibition to tour Japan in 2008.

Abby commenced her PhD studies at ANU in March 2006. Abby's PhD will comprise of two components - an exhibition brief and design for a permanent exhibition looking at Indigenous sportspeople from the Wimmera and south-western Victoria from the 1860s to today, as well as a written thesis. This is the third project Abby has worked on in partnership with five Indigenous communities from the region.

Areas of Research

• Oral History
• Museology
• Pre-colonial Aboriginal games and pastimes
• Local and regional history
• Identity
• Indigenous participation in sport
• Sociology of sport

Publications

'Aboriginal Play', in Rodney P. Carlisle (ed), The Encyclopedia of Play: A Social History, Sage Publications Inc., forthcoming April 2009.

'Desperately seeking "Ivan": Interpreting and explaining the interview experience, its challenges and the memories and narratives of interviewees', Oral History Association of Australia, Journal no.28, 2006.

Interviews

Dowd, Maurice (Dir.), Tom Wills: A Boy's Own Life, SBS Productions, forthcoming 2009.

Professional associations

• Australian Professional Historians Association (NSW)