ILWS - Institute of Land, Water and Society
Researchers
Dr Dirk HR Spennemann
MA ( Frankfurt ) PhD (ANU)
Associate Professor
School of Environmental Sciences
Dirk teaches Cultural Heritage Management courses.
His primary research interests are
- the management of the threats to cultural heritage posed by natural and human hazards and threats posed by managers in their efforts to counter these hazards.
- cultural heritage ethics, policy and planning ('historic preservation') in Australia and Oceania . He believes that ethical heritage planning and policy are the cornerstones that need to be understood and addressed if our past is to have a meaningful future.
- and German colonial history and heritage in Oceania, in particular Micronesia .
His secondary research interests centre around an exploration of the history of the book and newspaper publishing in regional Australia, as well as an understanding of the role of the newspaper press in the colonial Pacific.
After obtaining his Masters of the Arts in Pre and Protohistory at Frankfurt University , Dirk moved to Australia to take up a scholarship at the ANU. His PhD research dealt with Prehistoric and Early Historic Settlement Patterns in Tonga. From 1989 to 1993 he worked as the Government Archaeologist, and later as Deputy Historic Preservation Officer of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Since moving to Albury in 1993, Dirk has maintained close research relationships with the various Micronesian countries.
Dirk is the author/editor of 24 books, with a lifetime publication track record of over 160 book chapters and refereed academic papers, over 120 unrefereed papers and in excess of 100 technical reports and consultancy studies.
He is the coeditor of the Micronesian Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, serves on the editorial board of CampusWide Information Systems ; and manages the Digital Library 'Digital Micronesia', which delivers in excess of one million pages per year.
Dirk serves on several advisory committees, such as Murray Arts and the Technical Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Government of the Republic of Palau. He is also a Research Associate, Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam and is the immediate pastPresident of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Dirk is the recipient of Governor's Humanities Award for Excellence in Research and Publication, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (2004); Partnership Stewardship Award for Cultural Resources, Pacific West Region, US National Park Service (2000; the first nonUS recipient); Vice Chancellor's Research Excellence Award, Charles Sturt University (1996) and Vice Chancellor's Teaching Excellence Award, Charles Sturt University (1995).