Rate My Professor Katherine Ellinghaus

Professor Katherine Ellinghaus is a Professor of History in the Department of Archaeology and History at La Trobe University. She holds the position of Deputy Associate Dean for Research, Industry, and Engagement in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Ellinghaus earned her PhD from the University of Melbourne. Her previous appointments include Hansen Lecturer in History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne and Monash Fellow in the School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies at Monash University. She teaches undergraduate and honours subjects such as Histories of Indigenous Resistance and Decolonising Knowledge.

Ellinghaus's research examines comparative histories of Indigenous assimilation and absorption policies in Australia and the United States, with a focus on interracial marriage, blood quantum measures, and Aboriginal exemption policies. Her major monographs are Taking Assimilation to Heart: Marriages of White Women and Indigenous Men in the United States and Australia, 1887-1937 (University of Nebraska Press, 2006) and Blood Will Tell: Native Americans and Assimilation Policy (University of Nebraska Press, 2011). Key journal articles include 'Absorbing the 'Aboriginal Problem': Controlling Interracial Marriage in Australia in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries' (Aboriginal History, 2003), 'Biological Absorption and Genocide: A Comparison of Indigenous Assimilation Policies in the United States and Australia' (Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2009), and 'Indigenous Assimilation and Absorption in the United States and Australia' (Pacific Historical Review, 2006). She co-edited Re-Orienting Whiteness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity (RMIT Publishing, 2007). As Chief Investigator, Ellinghaus leads the ARC Discovery Project 'Indigenous Mobilities to and Through Australia' (DP200103269, 2020-2024), funded at over $1 million with collaborators Professor Barry Judd, Dr Rachel Standfield, Professor Julie Andrews, Dr Sianan Healy, and Professor Alan Lester. She provided expert historical evidence to the Yoorrook for Justice Commission on frontier massacres and Indigenous dispossession. Her scholarship has garnered over 900 citations on Google Scholar.