Prof Zoe Laidlaw

Prof Zoe Laidlaw
""

Prof. Zoë Laidlaw is a recipient of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission: Commonwealth PhD Scholarships (for high income countries)

"A Commonwealth Scholarship gave me the opportunity to undertake a doctorate in modern history at Balliol College, Oxford from 1997 to 2001. My research focuses on the interpersonal networks that sustained Britain’s nineteenth-century empire, so studying at the University of Oxford meant joining a cosmopolitan community of postgraduate students and faculty working in the same field, while enjoying access to the archives and libraries that were central to my research.

My first book, Colonial Connections 1815-1845, emerged from my doctoral research, as did a lectureship at the University of Sheffield, and then a position at Royal Holloway, University of London. The influence of the work I did in Oxford is still clear in my more recent work on settler colonialism, imperial governance, humanitarianism, and indigenous responses to empire. In 2018, I returned to the University of Melbourne to work in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies."