Bianca Williams

Bianca Williams is a Ngemba woman raised on Wiradjuri Country, living and working on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation. Bianca is a PhD candidate in La Trobe University's History Program. Her doctoral research explores how Aboriginal circus performers operated within the Australian circus industry from 1851 to 1960.

Bianca’s research sits at the intersection of Australian and Aboriginal history, with a focus on recovering underrepresented histories through Indigenous research methodologies. Her interests span Aboriginal and Australian history, Aboriginal family history and genealogical recovery, Indigenous knowledge systems, critical archival studies, storywork as method, and histories of mobility, labour, and performance, alongside the ongoing impacts of colonisation. This work is both scholarly and deeply personal, grounded in family history and ancestral memory, and connected to broader questions of recovery and representation. Guided by a commitment to truth-telling, her work seeks to surface histories that have been marginalised or obscured within dominant narratives while reinforcing the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems in historical inquiry.

Bianca holds a Bachelor of Arts (Indigenous Studies) from the University of South Australia and a Master of Justice and Criminology from RMIT University. Bianca is a recipient of the Dennis McDermott Research Scholarship at La Trobe University and an ANU Indigenous Family Research Residency Fellowship, and has been recognised with the University of Melbourne’s Award for Professional Excellence and Innovation. Guided by a commitment to recovering silenced histories, her work bridges research, teaching, and practice in higher education.