Announcing the recipients of the 2025 National Library of Australia Fellowships, Scholarships and Asia Study Grants

The National Library has announced the 23 recipients of National Library of Australia Fellowships, Scholarships, Creative Arts Fellowships and Asia Study Grants in 2025. Researchers, including 7 PhD scholars, from across the country will share in $225,000 to support residencies at the National Library in Canberra.

Established in 1984, the Fellowships program has supported nearly 500 Australian and international scholars and artists. Funded through generous philanthropic gifts and bequests, the Fellowships, Scholarships and Study Grants encourage new and innovative research across a range of scholarly and creative disciplines.

Drawing on the Library’s extensive collections, the 2025 recipients will conduct research into subjects as diverse as desert fire management, experiences of polio in regional Australia in the twentieth century, indigenous languages of Vanuatu, Indonesian art and music, Australian-Soviet relations, and the regulation of Indian indentured labour in Fiji.

National Library of Australia Fellowships

Supported by the Stokes family

• Dr Alexis Bergantz, Senior Lecturer, RMIT University - Whose Pacific? Australia and the South Pacific Commission, 1940s-1990s.
• Dr Anna Kent, Sessional Academic, Deakin University- Shared histories, shared communities - a history of connections between International Students and the Australian Community
• Professor John Morrissey, Professor of Human Geography, University of Galway - The Battle for the Biosphere: The Political Ecology of Judith Wright

Supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust for Research in Australian Literature

• Dr Meg Brayshaw, John Rowe Lecturer in Australian Literature, University of Sydney - Rethinking realism in the work of Dymphna Cusack (1902-1981) and Kylie Tennant (1912-1988)

Supported in memory of Professor Ivor Jones for Research in Australian rural, regional or environmental history

• Professor Catharine Coleborne, Professor of History, University of Newcastle - My mother’s polio: understanding the illness experience of regional Australians in the twentieth century

Supported in memory of Cheng King Law for Research in Asian Studies

• Dr Sanjiao Tang, Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Asian and Pacific Studies, Seiki University - 30 Years Making of Communist and Nationalist Youth: the CCP's Propaganda Targeting the Chinese Youth during the Maoist Era

Offered by the Library

• Dr Andrew Carr, Senior Lecturer, Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University - Defending Australian Territory
• Professor Matthew Spriggs, Honorary Librarian of the Vanuatu and Pacific Collections, National Library of Vanuatu - Documenting the corpus of books in the Indigenous Languages of Vanuatu
• Dr Samuel White, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Adelaide - Keeping the Peace of the Realm

Creative Arts Fellowships

2025 Creative Arts Fellowship for Australian Writing, supported by the Ray Mathew and Eva Kollsman Trust

• Dr Julie Gough – Action Plan

2025 Creative Arts Fellowship, supported by generous patrons of the National Library

• Mx Scott-Patrick Mitchell – RISE RALLY REST

National Library of Australia Scholarships

Professor Robert and Mrs Josephine Shanks Scholarship

• Ms Natasha Naidu, University of New South Wales - The Regulation of Indian Indentured Labour in Fiji, 1879–1916

Morag Fraser Scholarship

• Mr Jesse Seeberg-Gordon, University of Melbourne - On the Diplomatic Sidelines: A Study of Australian-Soviet Relations

National Library of Australia Scholarship, supported by a generous anonymous donor

• Ms Cassandra Brooker, University of New England - Creative Activism: Exploring activist artists' practices, approaches, motivations, and effectiveness

Carol Moya Mills Scholarship

• Ms Rae Earl-Johnson, University of Tasmania - Sue Becker, the housewife and Harry M Miller – the David(s) versus Goliath battle that defines a life.

The Seymour Scholarship for Biographical Research

• Miss Harper Boon, University of Sydney - Inez Baranay: Novelist, Educator, Migrant

The National Library of Australia Scholarship in Asian Studies, supported in memory of Cheng King Law

• Ms Caitlin Hughes, University of Melbourne - Regionality and Contemporaneity: Eastern Indonesian art(s) and its intra- and international flows

The Dr Bennie Ng Scholarship, for research in the National Library’s maps collection

• Miss Stephanie Lee, Charles Darwin University - Improving desert fire management with culturally directed science

Asia Study Grants

Supported by the Harold S. Williams Trust

• Dr Wing-Fai Wong, Honorary Fellow, University of Queensland – A Mystery of Celestials: Uncovering the Secrets of Chinese Chronomancy and Rituals in Temple-Opening Ceremonies in Australia
• Ms Rima Febriani, PhD candidate, Monash University – The Desire to Know: The Formation of Sexual Knowledge in Postcolonial Indonesia
• Ms Hwee Ping Teo, PhD candidate, RMIT University – The Singapore Chinese Massacre of 1942 in History and Memory
• Mr Justin Lau, PhD candidate, Australian National University – Garbage Enterprises: Tracing Circular Economies in Cambodia
• Mr Michael Haryo Bagus Raditya, PhD candidate, University of Melbourne – Dangdut Agency in the Era of Internet Disruption: Indonesian Music for the People and the World

Please contact the media team if you would like to interview any of the recipients or find out more about this philanthropic program.

Links:

• National Library of Australia Fellowships
• Creative Arts Fellows
• National Library of Australia Scholarships
• Asia Study Grants