Recent work history and projects
2018 - present: Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne
In 2024, The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures - took the highly competitive Digital Preservation Coalition Award for Research and Innovation.
In 2021 I received the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) award for Research Partnership and Social Impact.
Co-chair of the conference "Where do we need to go from here? Language documentation and archiving during the Decade of Indigenous Languages" Berlin, 05-07 October 2022
I am a member of the Advisory Board for the True Echoes project (British Library)
Lead CI in the ARC LIEF grant:Nyingarn: a platform for primary sources in Australian Indigenous languages 2021-2024
Lead CI in the ARC LIEF grant: Modularised cultural heritage archives – future-proofing PARADISEC (2022-2024)
Chief Investigator in the Language Data Commons of Australia (LDACA)
Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
Recipient of a Ludwig Leichhardt-Jubiläumsstipendium from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in November 2012
Deputy Director of the Research Unit for Indigenous Language at the University of Melbourne.
Chief Investigator in the ARC project "Hearing histories of the western Pilbara: an interdisciplinary study of Indigenous songs composed in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the twentieth century and technologies to sustain them into the future" (2015-2019)
2011-2021 Editor of the journal Language Documentation & Conservation
2019-2021 Platform Manager for the Social and Cultural Informatics Platform (SCIP) at the University of Melbourne
2014 - 2018 ARC Future Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.
2009 - 2014 ARC QEII Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne.
2013 – Visiting the Linguistics Institute at the University of Cologne as a Humboldt Fellow (April-September).
2008 - 2010 Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.
Founding Project Manager and now Director of PARADISEC (Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) a project run by a consortium of Sydney University, ANU and Melbourne University which has established an archive of digitised material representing more than 1,360 languages, mainly from the Pacific, PNG and Indonesia, but also from all parts of the world.
From 2004-2007 - ARC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Linguistics & Applied Linguistics at the the University of Melbourne.
I managed the ARC project Ethnographic Eresearch, a collaborative research project working on online annotation of complex linguistic data that resulted in the online system EOPAS.
I have been a consultant on linguistic issues, including Native Title (see for example the judgment in the Ngarluma-Yindjibarndi case, or the judgment in the Single Noongar claim, or Bennell v State of Western Australia [2006] FCA 1243 (19 September 2006), see the report I wrote for that claim) and computer-based linguistic tools (see the CALW dating back to the 1990s).
From 1995 to 1997 I lived in Vanuatu and worked at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and also helped manage the Pactok e-mail system.
1991-1994 Visiting Research Fellow, Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) an Australian government statutory authority where I also ran the AIATSIS Aboriginal Dictionaries Project (1993-1994).
1987 - 1990 Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre linguist/co-ordinator in Port Hedland, Western Australia.
1985 - 1986 Linguistic project officer with the Institute of Applied Aboriginal Studies (IAAS), Mt.Lawley Campus of WACAE (now Edith Cowan University).
In the early 1980s I was a tutor at La Trobe University and then worked in short-term positions at the University of Western Australia and the School of Australian Lingustics in Batchelor, NT.
Professional Affiliations
Co-founder of the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity (now Living Languages)
Former Secretary and current member of the Australian Linguistic Society
Member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
Member of the Foundation for Endangered Languages
Member of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities
Invited member of The GLOCAL, The Global Council on Anthropological Linguistics
Member of the ISCA-ELRA Special Interest Group on Under-resourced Languages (SIGUL)
Advisor to the Digital Language Diversity Project
Former Secretary of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities
Recent Grants
I am a CI in the project Digital Tools for Kanak Languages (New Caledonia).
Language Data Commons of Australia, $1.6 million over 4 years (2024-2028)
Digitisation of Recordings from Tonga, a grant from UNESCO Memory of the World Asia Pacific USD$5,000
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) grant of $140,000 to rework the orphaned outputs of the EScholarship Research Centre (in OHRM format) to ensure longevity of this set of material
Language Data Commons of Australia (2024-2028) funds to support creation of textual material in Australian Indigenous languages and Pacific languages ($1,600,000).
Digitisation of Reel-to-Reel/Cassette Recordings of Songs, Dances and Stories of Yap State, a grant from UNESCO Memory of the World Asia Pacific USD$5,000
Chief Investigator in the project Modelling Pacific Creoles with DSTG and colleagues at the ANU (2022-2024) ($1.5 million)
Language Data Commons of Australia funds (2022-2024) to support creation of textual material in Australian Indigenous languages and Pacific languages ($400,000).
Modularised cultural heritage archives – future-proofing PARADISEC cultural heritage. (ARC LIEF grant LE220100010, 2022-2024, $620,000)
Nyingarn: a platform for primary sources in Australian Indigenous languages. (ARC LIEF grant LE210100013, 2021-2024, $600,000)
DSTG grant to prepare an audio/textual corpus of Bislama recordings, 2019/2020, $70,000.
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) $50,000 for the project 'Modularising PARADISEC's catalogue as a model for the data commons' (2019)
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Legacy Materials Grant titled "Digitisation of North Malaita recordings." £10,000 (2018)
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Legacy Materials Grant titled "Digitising tapes from Madang, PNG." £10,000 (2018)
Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Legacy Grant titled "Vanuatu Cultural Centre tape digitisation". £8650 (2017)
CI in the ARC grant DP150100094 collaborating with Sally Treloyn and others titled "Hearing histories of the western Pilbara: an interdisciplinary study of Indigenous songs composed in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the twentieth century and technologies to sustain them into the future". $359,489. (2016-2018)
Developing the Vanuatu collection in PARADISEC, Max Planck Institute Jena, (2016) $65,000.
ARC Future Fellowship (FT140100214) titled "Small Stones can break big canoes: Securing records of the world's indigenous languages". (2014-2018) $755,000.
Endangered Archives Programme (UK), $22,000 to digitise 200 tapes from the Solomon Islands Museum (2014)
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (I am a CI in this $28 million project) (ARC CE140100041) (2014-2025)
ARC LIEF scheme ‘PARADISEC equipment and facilities’ $238,000 (collaborative Sydney and ANU project) (2012)
Australian Research Council – QEII Fellowship ($717,000) titled 'Doing great things with small languages'. (ARC DP0984419) (2009-2014)
Dictionaries I have assisted with in various capacitiesEstablishing the Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre (Wangka Maya) after community consultations in the mid-late 1980s and working there until the end of 1990
Building the Aboriginal Studies Electronic Data Archive Discussed here
Building the Indigenous Languages Database (now Austlang) (at AIATSIS 1991-1994)
Running the Paper and Talk conference in 1993 (which became the inspiration for the Breath of Life workshops in north America) and editing the book of the same name (downloadable here)
Running the AIATSIS Dictionaries Project (1992-1994), resulting in 50 dictionaries.
Establishing (with Margaret Florey) the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity (now known as Living Languages)
Working at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and building an electronic catalog of the museum collections (1995-1997)
Writing the first major survey of Australian Indigenous languages, the State of Indigenous Languages report (with Patrick McConvell), 2001.
Being part of the team that built the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) and continuing as its Project Manager, then Director
Learning the Nafsan (South Efate) language, building a corpus of archived material for the language and writing the first grammar that is embedded in a corpus of field recordings. A guide to the contents of the Nafsan collection can be found here
Building Kaipuleohone, the University of Hawai'i's digital ethnographic archive
Production of EOPAS, a system for presenting interlinear texts and media online (no longer functioning)
Building an accessible online form of the vocabularies from the Daisy Bates papers
Leading the the ARC-LEF funded project Nyingarn- a platform for primary sources in Australian Indigenous languages (2021-2023)
Wordgenerator, a way to generate possible words in a language for which there is an existing dictionary: http://paradisec.org.au/wordgen/wg.php
Metadata entry tool https://sites.google.com/site/metadatatooldiscussion/. This has now become Lameta.
Glossopticon: https://glossopticon.com/exhibition.html
Mobile viewer for PARADISEC data: http://www.language-archives.services/about/mobile-viewer
PARADISEC catalog item viewer http://www.language-archives.services/about/nabu-viewer
Raspberry Pi delivery of archival records: http://www.language-archives.services/about/pi
Open Language Archives Community explorer. See what is in OLAC archives by each of the world's languages. See changes in holdings over time: http://www.language-archives.services/olac-explorer/explore-country
OLAC data visualiser see amount of data for each language: http://www.language-archives.services/about/olac-vis
Dataloader - a way to create meaningful collections of files for loading onto a hard disk or Raspberry Pi for delivery in remote areas onto mobile phones: http://www.language-archives.services/about/data-loader
Nafsan, Ngunese, Drehu, Tahitian, Kayardild, Batjala, Ngarrindjeri, Somali, Kwaio, Gathang, Marquisan, Wik Ngathan