Margaret Somerville is Professor of Education (Learning and Development) and Research Director of the Institute of Regional Studies located at Monash University’s Gippsland Campus in Latrobe Valley. She is a recognised leader in the field of place studies in Australia, since the publication of the major community collaborative study, Ingelba and The Five Black Matriarchs (1990), described as ‘the best politically informed oral history ever produced in Australia’ (The Age, Paul Carter, 1990).
She has since published four sole-authored books in the field of place studies which reach a wide popular audience, are set as readings on a range of academic courses, and which have been reviewed as a body of work (e.g. Hecate, 2004, 30/1, 56-70). Since graduating with her PhD in 1996 she has published three book chapters, 16 refereed articles, six keynote addresses, three exhibitions and led two national symposia in the field of place studies. In addition three articles about place and identity in the workplace have been published in the Swedish language. She has been invited to present to the United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development in the UK in April 2009.