Catharine Coleborne

I am a historian of health and medicine, especially mental health. I am currently working on two projects funded by the Australian Research Council: 'Life Outside Institutions', on mental health aftercare in Australia, 1900 to 1960, with Dr Effie Karageorgos; and a new project about Australian polio memories, 'My Mother's Polio'.

I am a proud Humanities graduate of the University of Melbourne and of La Trobe University. Currently a member of the ARC's College of Experts, I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales. I am a former Humanities panel member for the Royal Society of New Zealand's Marsden Fund. My book Vagrant Lives in Colonial Australasia: Regulating Mobility 1840 to 1910 was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2024, and appeared in paperback in 2025.

Past President, Australasian Council for Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH), 2020-2022
Past President, Australia and New Zealand Society for the History of Medicine, 2019-2021