Professor Melanie Oppenheimer BA; M. Litt (UNE) 1988, Ph. D. (Macq) 1997.  Formerly at the University of New England, from 1 July 2013, she took up the Chair of History at Flinders University in South Australia.  Like Professor Scates she has an active record of community and academic service.

She is the author of Oceans of Love (Sydney 2006); a powerful story about one  Australian nurse at war, Narelle Hobbes, during World War One and her study of voluntary labour in wartime, All Work, No Pay was short listed for the NSW Premier’s History Prize. Her other books include the landmark study Australian Women at War, commissioned and published by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (2008) and Volunteering:  How we can’t survive without it (UNSW Press 2008). She is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading authorities on civilian voluntary service and war.

In 2010, she was commissioned by Australian Red Cross to write their centenary history. The Power of Humanity: 100 years of Australian Red Cross will be published by Harper Collins in 2014.

Professor Oppenheimer speaks regularly to community groups about her work and has lectured at the invitation of Legacy and the Shrine of Remembrance.  She has helped design major public exhibitions at the Australian War Memorial and the Shrine and was appointed to the Anzac Centenary’s Military and Cultural History Working Group in 2012.  

Professor Oppenheimer appears regularly on ABC Radio with series such as Via Activa, Life Matters and a weekly history spot on ABC New England/Northwest.