Humanities Travelling Fellowships enable early-career researchers to undertake research overseas, where they may access materials otherwise inaccessible, connect with international organisations, researchers and forge new networks.
Among the nine Fellowship recipients announced in 2025 is Anna Gero, Research Director at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures and PhD candidate at Griffith University, who will use the Fellowship to conduct research in Fiji examining the complex social and cultural impacts of climate change within the Pacific region.
“My research will help advance climate justice in the Pacific by enabling me to conduct research in Fiji alongside communities, practitioners, and policy makers,” Gero said. “This transdisciplinary approach will amplify Fijian voices in defining what ‘successful’ climate change adaptation means to them and challenging dominant narratives that overlook diverse cultural context and worldviews.”
Another recipient is Dr Mohammed Makki, Lecturer in Media and Communication at The University of Wollongong, who will use the Fellowship to research how digital discourse shapes political activism and the suppression of dissent on social media. The support will allow Dr Makki to further integrate computational methods with critical discourse analysis to enhance the analytical depth and impact of his research, and represents a significant step in furthering his career “as a leading scholar in the fields of digital discourse, political communication, and media governance,” Mr Makki said.
2025 Humanities Travelling Fellowship recipients
Ms Anna Gero
Griffith University
Climate change adaptation investments in the Pacific Islands – the influence of culture and worldviews
In the Pacific, a growing number of adaptation investments aim to enhance resilience to climate change. However, defining and evaluating the success of these investments in culturally appropriate ways remains challenging. Ms Gero’s research aims to understand how culture shapes discourses of “success” of climate change adaptation in the Pacific.
Under the Fellowship, Ms Gero will undertake field research in Fiji, engaging with cultural leaders, organisations and communities, with work informing her doctoral candidature and wider research. The research will provide an evidence base to improve current practices, better serving Pacific communities facing climate change impacts, and providing external funders with tools to more effectively work within Pacific cultural contexts.
Dr Charbel El-Khaissi
Australian National University
Mapping Language Change: Insights from the Middle East
The exact nature of the spread of spoken Arabic and the specifics of language shift in the Middle East are not yet well understood (Pat-El & Stokes, 2022). Using approaches in the Digital Humanities, this research project aims to improve our understanding of written Aramaic– Arabic language contact varieties in the Levant region.
Key outcomes include an updated linguistic analysis of Garshuni texts to advance scholarly knowledge of historical social contact situations in the Levant region and new computational linguistic methods for the analysis of historical materials.
“The Fellowship presents a significant opportunity to continue my research post-PhD into how languages shift in historical societies. The award will support much-needed investigation into the internal diversity of Middle Eastern languages and cultures—an underrepresented area of research in Australia. It is heartening to see the Academy recognise the important role of linguistics as a tool for understanding the past.”
Ms Harriet Hurley
Independent researcher
Traditional Sky Cultures in the Contemporary World: Understanding Māori Culture through the Night Sky
In recent years, the revitalization of Māori astronomy has been significant in reclaiming traditional knowledge and practicing culture in contemporary society. This research aims to build an understanding of how Māori sky culture fosters intergenerational relationships and knowledge transmission and can support Māori diaspora communities.
Under the fellowship, Ms Hurley will travel to Aotearoa/New Zealand to engage with community and knowledge-holders, with the trip informing a research report on Māori astronomy.
“Understanding the revitalisation and practice of Māori sky cultures is important in a time of space colonisation, with growing satellite activity, and increased light pollution. The night sky is under threat and through understanding Māori astronomy can support the preservation of the night sky and culture.
Getting financial support for independent research is difficult, so to receive this fellowship embeds hope within me that I can continue to engage in research outside of institutions.”
Dr Jennifer Nicholson
The University of Sydney
Shakespeare’s False Friends: French English, Early Modern England, and the Stage
False Friends addresses the curiosity of there being no monograph or extended scholarship concerning William Shakespeare’s knowledge of French. Dr Nicholson’s research considers how relationships between the porous edges of French and English in early modern plays, including those by Shakespeare and his contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, generate new readings of theatre’s textual and philosophical uncertainties.
Under the Fellowship, Dr Nicholson will travel to the United States, Scotland and England to access archival sites containing manuscript materials relating to Shakespeare. In addition to her research, Dr Nicholson will co-facilitate a seminar at the Shakespeare Association of America’s 2026 conference and will visit research centres across the United Kingdom.
“I am immensely grateful to the Academy for this endorsement. With a view beyond our immediate context and in light of current global uncertainty, funding opportunities like this one exemplify how the Academy upholds and sustains researchers in our field to tackle complex problems through nuanced critical thinking and disciplinary expertise. The support of early career researchers like me through this kind of recognition is testament to their invaluable mission to champion the ongoing study of arts and humanities research in and beyond Australia.”
Dr Katerina Bryant
The University of South Australia
Narrative, Storytelling and AI: Exploring How Fiction and Media AI Stories Shape Public Perceptions
AI stories are a critical way the public is exposed to conversations about what AI does, is and may do in the future. When considering how artificial intelligence is depicted in fiction and media, there are certain pervasive, and often problematic, trends and tropes.
Under the Fellowship, Dr Bryant will expand upon research conducted in Australia by travelling to South Korea, the second country to enact AI-governing legislation, and Japan, where the unique cultural relationship with AI contrasts Western representation. This research will extend her scholarship form the basis of an application for further grants, support the development of articles for publication, and foster international relationships across Australia and Asia.
“I am deeply grateful for the support from the Australian Academy of the Humanities to travel to South Korea and Japan to visit interdisciplinary AI research centres. This opportunity not only allows me to expand my research on narrative and AI, but also to forge international research connections; this would not be possible for me as an ECR without this fellowship.”
Dr Mairi Hill
The University of Melbourne
Women, Language, and Labour in Medieval and Early Modern England
Women played an important economic role in medieval and early modern society. However, the profitability of female labour in early capitalist society is rarely discussed. Women’s work and spaces of work are presented as communal and places which encouraged women’s alleged propensity for excessive speech.
This project aims to answer questions around relationships between women, spaces of work and how excessive speech may have contributed to language related to “women’s work” and shaped attitudes still prevalent in contemporary society.
Under the Fellowship, Dr Hill will travel to the United Kingdom to access historical records about premodern women’s labour across the UK National Archives, The London Archives and Surrey House Centre. Dr Hill intends for the research completed under this Fellowship to form the foundation of a second monograph.
“I am so excited to have support for my project examining women’s labour and speech in medieval and early modern England. This research has the potential to speak beyond the work of the medieval and early modern periods, as the censorship and criticism of women’s voices and discreditation of women’s work continues today. The Humanities Travelling Fellowship is hugely important to me as an early career researcher as it will allow me to undertake archival research in the UK that is essential to my project. Without the support of the AAH such a trip would be inaccessible to me.”
Dr Mohammed Makki
The University of Wollongong
Disrupting Dissent: Cross-Cultural Digital Suppression and the Politics of Misinformation
Dr Makki research aims to investigate the role of digital discourse in shaping political activism and the suppression of dissent on social media, with a focus on two interconnected case studies: firstly, the mis/disinformation and textual personae in cross-cultural digital spaces (Australia and Iran), and secondly, the suppression of the #MahsaAmini movement on Persian Twitter.
He’ll investigate how the mechanisms of digital suppression used to undermine political activism, particularly through incivility, state-aligned actors, and online discursive strategies.
Under the Fellowship, Dr Makki aims to generate a range of public-facing outputs, including delivering two papers at the International Communications Association Conference, in Denver, Colorado, and will connect with a wide range of researchers across North America.
“This fellowship enables international collaboration and methodological advancement that are essential to my research on cross-cultural mis/disinformation and the suppression of digital activism. It supports the integration of computational methods with critical discourse analysis, enhancing the analytical depth and impact of my work. The fellowship marks a significant step in establishing my profile as a leading scholar in the fields of digital discourse, political communication, and media governance.”
Dr Rhianne Grieve
Australian National University
In Search of Harmony; socialist engagements with human nature in Britain, 1775 – 1850
In working towards the publication of her PhD as a monograph, Dr Grieve will travel to the United Kingdom to access the papers of Robert Owen, members of the Owenite movement, and other contemporaneous cooperative associations held in three British archives.
These materials, which are not digitised, will provide a more nuanced picture of modern understandings of British socialism in its formative era, and expand the scope of the monograph to include otherwise obscure or neglected writers of the time.
Dr Roberto Chauca
The University of Sydney
Unearthing Indigenous Voices from Early Modern Amazonia 1560-1561
Across 1560 and 1561, Spanish captains Pedro de Ursua and Lope de Aguirre charted the second European voyage along the Amazon River. Dr Chauca Tapia’s project aims to unearth, for the first time, a complete edition of two anonymous accounts of that expedition—which alludes to a search for the mythical city of El Dorado, and the murder of Ursua.
Under the Fellowship, Dr Chauca will travel to Madrid, Spain, to access documents at the National Library of Spain and the Royal Academy of History, and develop a monograph-length manuscript for publication.
“This fellowship will provide me with the opportunity to challenge the conventional interpretation of Spanish explorations along the Amazon River in the early modern period, generally portrayed as events of heroism and discovery. Instead, the documents I seek to transcribe and translate from the Madrid archives will reinforce my research profile as a historian who has sought to position Indigenous knowledge as the foundation that enabled Europeans to learn about the human and natural landscapes of the Americas.”
