Rate My Professor Rohan Howitt

Dr Rohan Howitt is a lecturer in environmental history at Monash University in the Faculty of Arts. He is a global and environmental historian of the Southern Ocean World, whose research examines the deeply interconnected histories of Australia, Antarctica, New Zealand, the subantarctic islands, and the Southern Ocean, focusing on environmental transformation, globalisation, and imperial expansion. Central to his work is his first book, The Southern Frontier: Australia, Antarctica, and Empire in the Southern Ocean World (Melbourne University Press, 2025). Ongoing projects include the history of phantom islands (supported by the Australian Historical Association's Allan Martin Award), icebergs' role in 19th- and 20th-century maritime voyages to Australia, and the penguin oil extraction industry at Macquarie Island. Additional research interests encompass Australian migration history, animal history, and the history of chartered companies. Howitt completed his PhD at the University of Sydney with a thesis titled Ideological Origins of the Australian Antarctic, 1839-1933. Before joining Monash, he served as the inaugural Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian National University's Centre for Environmental History in 2022, where he established the Environmental Exchanges seminar series, co-convened the Deep Conversations series, and helped launch the Robin-Griffiths Annual Environmental History Lecture. He has also lectured in History and Global Studies at the University of Sydney and the University of Wollongong.

At Monash, Howitt teaches units including ATS2106: An Environmental History of the World: People & Our Planet, ATS2792: Understanding Australia: From the Deep Past to the Present, ATS3659: No Planet B: The Climate Crisis in Historical Perspective, and ATS3986: Sitting on Penguins: The History of Antarctica. He supervises postgraduate research in environmental history, animal history, ocean history, global history, and Australian history. Key publications feature "Australasian histories of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean world" (History Compass, 2024), "The company-microstate: the Auckland Islands and corporate colonialism in global history, 1849-52" (Journal of Global History, 2024), "Antarctica and the Stratigraphy of International Memory" (Sites of International Memory, 2023), and the co-authored introduction "Histories and legacies of extraction and toxicity" (International Review of Environmental History, 2023), for which he and Jessica Urwin guest-edited a special issue. In 2023, he received the Australian Historical Association's Allan Martin Award.