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Biographical entry Robin, Elizabeth Anne de Quetteville (1956 - )

PhD, BA(Hons), BSc, Dip Ed.

Born
1956
Occupation
Environmental Historian and Science historian
Alternative Names
  • Robin, Libby (Also known as)
Website
https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/robin-ladq

Summary

Elizabeth Anne de Quetteville (Libby) Robin is a Historian of Science and the Environment who has published extensively on an international level. She is the author of The Flight of the Emu (2001), Defending the Little Desert (1998) and many other publications, for which she has received several awards.

She has been a Senior Fellow (ANU) and Senior Research Fellow (NMA) at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, as of 2012 she will be appointed Professor there.

She is also a Guest Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden (2011-2014).

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Details

Events

1994
Career position - Lecturer, School of Environmental Planning - University of Melbourne
1995 - 1996
Career position - Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Politics Department, La Trobe University, Bundoora
1997 - 1998
Career position - Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra
1998 - 1999
Career position - Curator, People and the Environment Section, National Museum of Australia, Canberra.
1999 - 2006
Career position - Fellow (from 1999-2002 Research Fellow) Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra
2002
Award - Crosbie Morrison Memorial Lecturer, Nature and Nation, Museum Victoria
2003
Award - Winner, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, inaugural biennial Science Writing Prize (2003) for Flight of the Emu
2007
Award - Winner, New South Wales' Premier's History Awards, Australian History Prize for How a Continent Created a Nation
2007 - 2011
Career position - Senior Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra
2007 - 2013
Career position - Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Historical Research, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
2009
Award - Winner, Whitley Medal for Landmark Zoological Publication (Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales) for Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country
2011 - 2014
Career position - Guest Professor, Division of History of Science and Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Building, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm
2012
Career position - Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science Exhibitions

Books

  • Brash, Stuart; Conde Anne-Marie; Robin, Libby; McCarthy, Gavan; Sherratt, Tim, A Guide to the Records of Philip Crosbie Morrison, Australian Science Archives Project, Melbourne, 1993, 178 pp. Details
  • Martin, M., Robin, E., and Smith, M., Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future, Mandurama: Mandy Martin with Land and Water Australia, 2005. Details
  • Robin, Libby, Building a Forest Conscience: an Historical Portrait of the Natural Resources Conservation League of Victoria (NRCL), Natural Resources Conservation League of Victoria, Melbourne, 1991, 155 pp. Details
  • Robin, Libby, Defending the Little Desert: the Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1998, 215 pp. Details
  • Robin, Libby, The Flight of the Emu: a Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2001, 492 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby, 'Towards and understanding of the environment', in Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson, R.J. (ed.), Understanding the Environment, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005, pp. 1-7. Details
  • Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby, 'Bridging the divides', in Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson, R.J. (ed.), Understanding the Environment, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005, pp. 184-201. Details
  • Robin, A. de Q., 'Penfold, William James (1875-1941), Bacteriologist', in Geoffrey Serle (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 11, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1988, pp. 197-198. Also available at http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110202b.htm. Details
  • Robin, L. and Smith, M., 'Science in place and time: archaeology, ecology and environmental history', in Chris Dickman, Daniel Lunney and Shelley Burgin (eds), Animals of Arid Australia: Out on their Own?, RZSNSW, Mosman, 2007, pp. 188-196. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Of Desert and Watershed: the Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Victoria, Australia', in Michael Shortland (ed.), Science and Nature: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences, British Society for the History of Science, Oxford, 1993, pp. 115-150. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Isaac, Cyril Everett (1884-1965), Schoolteacher, Politician and Conservationist', in John Ritchie (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 14, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 537-538. Also available at http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140611b.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Ecology: a Science of Empire?', in Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin (eds), Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, Keele University Press/Melbourne University Press, Edinburgh/Melbourne, 1997. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Migrants and Nomads', in Sherratt, tim; Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby (ed.), A change in the weather: climate and culture in Australia, Halstead Press, Sydney, 2004. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'The Platypus Frontier: Eggs, Aborigines and Empire in nineteenth-century Queensland', in Deborah Rose and Richard Davis (eds), Dislocating the frontier: essaying the mystique of the Australian outback, ANU Press, Canberra, 2005, pp. 99-120. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Migrants and Nomads', in Tim; Griffiths Sherratt and Libby Tom; Robin (eds), A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2005, pp. 42-53. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Ecology and Identity: Australians Caring for Deserts', in Callahan, D. (ed.), Australia: Who Cares?, API network/EASA, Perth, 2007, pp. 85-105. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Conservation and Preservation', in Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier (eds), Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2009, pp. 191-194. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Introduction: Boom and Bust', in E. Robin, R. Heinsohn and L. Joseph (eds), Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 1-5. Also available at Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Emu: National Symbols and Ecological Limits', in E. Robin, R. Heinsohn and L. Joseph (eds), Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 241-66. Also available at Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Desert Channels: A Continental Perspective', in Libby Robin, Christopher R. Dickman and Mandy Martin (eds), Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2010, pp. xii-xvii. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Conservation Science: Here and Beyond', in Libby Robin, Christopher R. Dickman and Mandy Martin (eds), Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2010, pp. 300-316. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Wattle', in Melissa Harper and Richard White (eds), Symbols of Australia: Uncovering the Stories behind the Myths, UNSW Press/NMA Press, Sydney, 2010, pp. 114-119. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Perceptions of place and deep time in the Australian desert: using art in environmental history', in Timo Myllyntaus (ed.), Thinking through the Environment, White Horse Press, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 81-99. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'History for Global AnxietyGermany, pp.', in Coulter, Kimberly and Mauch, Christof (eds), The Future of Environmental History: Needs and Opportunities (RCC Perspectives 2011, Issue 3), Munich, Germany, 2011, pp. 41-44. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Connell, Daniel, 'History and the environment', in Grafton, R. Q., Robin, L. and Wasson, R. J. (eds), Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005, pp. 8-22. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Leo Joseph,, 'The Boom and Bust Desert World: A Bird's Eye View', in E. Robin, R. Heinsohn and L. Joseph (eds), Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2009, pp. 6-34. Also available at Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Sherren, Kate, 'A Curriculum for a Cause?', in Walter Leal Filho and David Carpenter (eds), Sustainability in the University Context, Peter Lang Publishers, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 33-44. Details
  • Robin, Libby; Connell, Daniel, 'History of the Environment', in Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson, R.J. (ed.), Understanding the Environment, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005, pp. 8-22. Details

Edited Books

  • Grafton, R. Q. , Robin, E. And Wasson, R. J. (eds), Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005. Also available at Http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/086840912X.htm. Details
  • Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson R.J. (ed.), Understanding the Environment, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2005, 229 pp. Details
  • Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby (ed.), Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, Keele University Press/Melbourne University Press, Edinburgh/Melbourne, 1997, 248 pp. Details
  • Robin, E., Heinsohn, R. and Joseph, L. (eds), Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2009, 312 pp. Also available at Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby (ed.), How a Continent Created a Nation, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2007, 259 pp. Details
  • Robin, Libby, Dickman, Christopher R. and Martin, Mandy (eds), Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 2010, 352 pp. Details
  • Sherratt, Tim; Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby (ed.), A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2005, 216 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Carruthers, J., Robin, L., Hattingh, J., Kull, C.; Rangan, H. and van Wilgen, B.W., 'A native at home and abroad: the history, politics, ethics and aesthetics of Acacia', Diversity and Distributions, vol. 17, no. 5, September 2011, pp. 810-821. Details
  • Carruthers, Jane and Robin, Libby, 'Taxonomic imperialism in the battles for Acacia: Identity and science in South Africa and Australia', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, vol. 65, 2010, pp. 48-64. Also available at Http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00359191003652066. Details
  • Dovers, S., Kanowski, P., Robin, L. And Sherren, K., 'Escaping the disciplinary straitjacket: Curriculum design as university adaptation to sustainability', Journal of Global Responsibility, vol. 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 260-278. Details
  • Duckworth, J. W. Sweet, P. R., Trombone, T. J. And Robin, L., 'The Hall collections of birds from Wonsan, central Korea, in Spring 1903', Forktail, vol. 23, 2007, pp. 129-134. Details
  • Fischer, J., A.D. Manning, W. Steffen, D.B. Rose, K. Daniell, A. Felton, S. Garnett, B. Gilna, R. Heinsohn, D. Lindenmayer, B. MacDonald, F. Mills, B. Newell, J. Reid, L. Robin, K. Sherren and A. Wade, 'Mind the Sustainability Gap', Trends in Ecology & Evolution, vol. 22, no. 12, December 2007, pp. 621-624. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'School Gardens and beyond: Progressive conservation, moral imperatives and the local landscape', Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 87-92. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Visions of Nature: Wild Life, 1938-1954', The Victorian Naturalist, vol. 102, no. 5, September/October, pp. 153-61. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Thomas Sergeant Hall (1858-1915): Scholar and Enthusiast', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 6, no. 4, 1987, pp. 485-492. Also available at http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR9870640485.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Radical Ecology and Conservation Science: an Australian Perspective', Environment and History, vol. 4, no. 2, 1998, pp. 191-208. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Fleecing the Nation', Country and Calling: The Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 62, 1999, pp. 150-158 and 254-256. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Paradox on the Queensland Frontier: Platypus, Lungfish and Other Vagaries of 19th Century Science', Australian Humanities Review, no. 19, September - November 2000. Also available at http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-September-2000/robin1.html. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Birds and Environmental Management 1901-2001', Australian Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 8, no. 2, 2001, pp. 105-113. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'International Ornithology Comes to Australia', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 13, no. 3, 2001, pp. 233-254. Also available at http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR0011330233.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'An Emu for a nation: A centenary reflection on the journal and its discipline', Emu, vol. 102, no. 1, 2002, pp. 1-7. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Nationalising Nature: Wattle Days in Australia', Journal of Australian Studies, Special issue: 'The Dog of War', vol. 73, 2002, pp. 13-26. Also available at http://cres.anu.edu.au/people/wattle-day.pdf. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Collections and the Nation: Science, History and the National Museum of Australia', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 14, no. 3, 2003, pp. 251-289. Also available at http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/HR02013.htm. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Weird and wonderful: The first objects of the National Historical Collection', reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, vol. 1, no. 2, September 2006, pp. 115-129. Also available at http://recollections.nma.gov.au/ejournal_library/attachments/volume_1_number_2_/weird_and_wonderful/files/16634/WeirdandWonderful.pdf. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Back home to ecology', Australian Humanities Review, no. 41, February 2007. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Home and away: Australian sense of place', Australian Humanities Review, no. 41, February 2007. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'The Eco-humanities as literature: a new genre?', Australian Literary Studies, 23(3): 290-304., vol. 23, no. 3, 2008, pp. 290-304. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Dead Museum Animals: Natural Order or Cultural Chaos?, 4(2), October', reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, vol. 4, no. 2, October 2009. Also available at http://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/vol_4_no_2/papers/dead_museum_animals/. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'Battling the Land: Environment and Identity in Settler Australian Society', PAN (Philosophy, Activism, Nature), vol. 7, 2010, pp. 3-9. Details
  • Robin, Libby, 'The rise of the idea of biodiversity: crises, responses and expertise', Quaderni (Journal of l’Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales du CNRS); Special Issue: Les promesses de la biodiversité, vol. 76, no. 1, 2011, pp. 25-38. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Donaldson, Ian, 'Introduction to Desert Gardens', Australian Humanities Review, no. 36, July 2005. Also available at Http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-July-2005/01Robin.html. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Jane Carruthers, 'Introduction: Environmental History and the History of Biology', Journal of the History of Biology (Special Issue on Environmental History), vol. 44, no. 1. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Smith, Mike, 'Australian Environmental History: Ten Years On', Environment and History, vol. 14, no. 2, 2008, pp. 135-143. Details
  • Robin, Libby and Steffen, Will, 'History for the Anthropocene', History Compass, vol. 5, no. 5, 2007, pp. 1694-1719. Details
  • Robin, Libby; Griffiths, Tom, 'Environmental History in Australia', Environment and History, vol. 10, no. 4, 2004, pp. 439-474. Details

Reviews

Online Resources

Rosanne Walker

Created: 1 March 2002, Last modified: 9 August 2012