Serene Fernando PhD Candidate

Serene is a Kamilaroi descendant of North West New South Wales. She has moved to Canberra from Brisbane to complete a PhD on the history of her people and the impact that their history has on the health and wellbeing of successive generations of Kamilaroi people. Her doctoral study will focus on local Aboriginal understandings and definitions of health and wellbeing and Aboriginal theoretical approaches to conducting research. The PhD thesis will assist in the expansion of Indigenous knowledge on the social determinants of health through providing insight on the impact of what British colonisation and social exclusion has on the health and wellbeing of Kamilaroi people since first contact in the late 1820's.

Areas of research

•  Kamilaroi colonial history

•  Kamilaroi epistemology

•  Indigenist research methodology

•  Socio-cultural studies (Aboriginal teenage pregnancy, Aboriginal education and health)

•  Social determinants of health (Aboriginal social exclusion)