My Profile

Dr Karen Schamberger is an independent historian, museologist and curator. She worked as part of the curatorial teams on the redeveloped environmental history gallery (2021) and ‘Australian Journeys’ gallery (2009) at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. She was the project curator for the ‘Identity: Yours, Mine Ours’ exhibition (2011) at the Immigration Museum, Melbourne. Her PhD ‘Identity, belonging and cultural diversity in Australian Museums’ (2016) examined the ways that objects mediated relations between culturally diverse people in Australian society and museums. She has worked as a Research Assistant at Deakin University and the University of Wollongong. She provided historical advice to ‘The Burrangong Affray’ project for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Arts and has been commissioned for creative non-fiction historical work. She is one of the founders and a convenor of the Australian Migration History Network; the Vice-President of the Dragon Tails Association; and an Exhibitions Reviews editor for Australian Historical Studies. Her research interests are histories of race, Australian migration, Chinese Australian communities, and material culture. As a freelancer she specialises in research, oral histories, practical collection management and curatorial advice, writes grant applications and engages with local communities to create meaningful and engaging exhibitions.