Kimberley experiences reshaping research – Panel: Bobbie Chew Bigby and Willi Lempert
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
29-5-2026 9:00 AM
Description
In this session we will hear from two Nulungu adjuncts who conducted multi-year PhD research with Kimberley Aboriginal people for their doctorates. Both graduated within the last five years, and both now work in the USA. We are interested to hear about their ongoing academic work post-PhD.
Willi Lempert is the Osterweis Family Associate Professor of Anthropology at Bowdoin College. His research projects are united by a focus on the implications of Aboriginal Australian representations for the future of their communities. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous media organizations in the Kimberley region of Northwestern Australia, his book Dreaming Down the Track: Awakenings in Aboriginal Cinema (2025, University of Minnesota Press) traces the dynamic process of filmmaking as a critical mode of political transformation, as well as a social process through which Aboriginal futures are collectively imagined and called forth.
Bobbie Chew Bigby was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. She recently completed her PhD at Nulungu Research Institute, University of Notre Dame Australia focused on Australian and US Indigenous tourism models and cultural resurgence. Bobbie is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Waterloo (Canada), an adjunct Research Fellow at UNDA Nulungu and teaches about Oklahoma Native arts at NYU Tulsa. Bobbie is particularly passionate about tourism’s potential for connecting people with traditional culture, the environment and community. Her past research fellowships and work have taken her to Indigenous Australia, Asia, Latin America, Canada and across US Indian Country.
Recommended Citation
Bigby, Bobbie Chew and Lempert, Willi, "Kimberley experiences reshaping research – Panel: Bobbie Chew Bigby and Willi Lempert" (2026). Nulungu Research Week. 1.
https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/nulungu_researchweek/2026/schedule/1
Kimberley experiences reshaping research – Panel: Bobbie Chew Bigby and Willi Lempert
https://notredame-au.zoom.us/j/89665945110
Passcode: 021896
In this session we will hear from two Nulungu adjuncts who conducted multi-year PhD research with Kimberley Aboriginal people for their doctorates. Both graduated within the last five years, and both now work in the USA. We are interested to hear about their ongoing academic work post-PhD.
Willi Lempert is the Osterweis Family Associate Professor of Anthropology at Bowdoin College. His research projects are united by a focus on the implications of Aboriginal Australian representations for the future of their communities. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork with Indigenous media organizations in the Kimberley region of Northwestern Australia, his book Dreaming Down the Track: Awakenings in Aboriginal Cinema (2025, University of Minnesota Press) traces the dynamic process of filmmaking as a critical mode of political transformation, as well as a social process through which Aboriginal futures are collectively imagined and called forth.
Bobbie Chew Bigby was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. She recently completed her PhD at Nulungu Research Institute, University of Notre Dame Australia focused on Australian and US Indigenous tourism models and cultural resurgence. Bobbie is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the University of Waterloo (Canada), an adjunct Research Fellow at UNDA Nulungu and teaches about Oklahoma Native arts at NYU Tulsa. Bobbie is particularly passionate about tourism’s potential for connecting people with traditional culture, the environment and community. Her past research fellowships and work have taken her to Indigenous Australia, Asia, Latin America, Canada and across US Indian Country.
Comments
Session Facilitator: Assoc Professor Melissa Marshall