Robyn Ballinger has been writing and researching histories on regional Victoria for the past ten years. She is currently building on her interest in how the dynamic forces of culture and nature inform attitudes toward water use as a PhD candidate in the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Belinda Robson is the author of Recovering art: a history of the Cunningham Dax Collection (2006) and holds a PhD in History from the University of Melbourne. Her doctoral thesis was a biography of Eric Cunningham Dax and she has published several articles on the Cunningham Dax Collection and on the role of Dax in reforming mental health services in Victoria. She has also worked in social research and policy in government and non-government sectors.

Annamaria Davine is an honorary research fellow in the School of Historical Studies at the University of Melbourne, and a member of the Professional Historians’ Association. Her main area of interest is Italian migration, particularly that of small groups. In 2006, her book ‘Vegnimo da Conco ma simo Veneti’: a study of the immigration and settlement of the Veneti in Central and West Gippsland 1925-1970 was published by the Italian Australian Institute at La Trobe University, Bundoora.

Anna Kyi is a historian at the Sovereign Hill Museums Association. Her articles expand on research she undertook for the redevelopment of Sovereign Hill’s Chinese Camp.

Ken James is a secondary teacher in Melbourne who has an interest in the history of small rural districts in Central Victoria.

Anne Herdman Martin is a great-niece of Robert Herdman and lives in Yorkshire England.

Marilyn Kenny is a member of the Essendon Historical Society in Victoria.

Louise Blake has been mining her family history for interesting stories since she was a teenager. She has a post-graduate diploma in Cultural Heritage Management from the University of Canberra and a masters in Biography and Life Writing from Monash University. She has previously worked for the National Library of Australia, National Museum of Australia, Public Record Office Victoria and the City of Whitehorse.

Dr Liz Rushen completed a PhD in history at Monash University in 1999, and was then appointed executive director of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Now an independent scholar, she is a member of the Professional Historians’ Association and an adjunct research associate in the School of Historical Studies, Monash University. Liz is widely published and is currently working with Dr Perry McIntyre on a project which explores the experiences of pre-Famine Irish immigrants to Australia, particularly in the context of the wider diaspora of this period.

Dr Helen Dehn is originally from Melbourne, where she worked as a property manager. She moved with her husband to Beremboke in 1985 and commenced studies at the University of Ballarat, gaining degrees in librarianship, literature and history. Researching Ballarat and its social history led to an interest in family history, particularly among families who immigrated to Victoria during the1850s.