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Katelyn Barney is an Associate Professor in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit and also affiliated with the School of Music. Her research focuses on improving pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into and through higher education and advancing understanding about the role of collaborative research and music making between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people. She has published across these areas and her latest edited book is Musical Collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous People in Australia: Exchanges in the Third Space. She is also Managing Editor of The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education.

She was an Equity Fellow with the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (formerly NCSEHE) and her fellowship explored effective evaluation of university outreach with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander secondary school students. Katelyn co-hosts a podcast with her colleague Professor Tracey Bunda: "Indigenising Curriculum in Practice" and co-hosted a previous series "Indigenous Success: Doing it, Thinking it, Being it". Katelyn has also collaborated with Professor Bronwyn Fredericks and colleagues across five universities to undertake a ACSES funded project to build the evidence to improve completion rates for Indigenous tertiary students.

Katelyn is an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow and her National Teaching Fellowship focused on developing pathways for Indigenous students from undergraduate study into Higher Degrees by Research.

As a music-maker and language revivalist from the south coast Noongar region of Western Australia, I am interested in the connections between song, language, and landscapes. My work intersects with applied linguistics, ecomusicology, Australian studies, and Indigenous studies.

I am lead Chief Investigator for ARC DI project 'Restoring on-Country Performance' and a Chief Investigator for ARC LIEF project 'Nyingarn: A platform for primary sources in Australian Indigenous languages', ARC DI project 'The role of First Nations’ music as a determinant of health', and ARC Linkage project 'Life After Digitisation: Future-Proofing WA's Vulnerable Cultural Heritage'.

After working as an ESL and music teacher, I helped establish the major in Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Western Australia, where I completed a PhD in Noongar song. At the University of Sydney I co-developed the major in contemporary music for Sydney Conservatorium of Music, before returning to Western Australia at Edith Cowan University to bolster humanities research in my home state. Recent arts-language projects I have collaborated on include a mainstage production of Shakespeare's Macbeth in Noongar (Hecate 2020), a Bruce Lee film dubbed in Noongar (Fist of Fury Noongar Daa 2021), and the multi-sensory ‘Noongar Wonderland’ performance installation in Perth Festival 2022.

I serve as Deputy Chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and received the 2020 Barrett Award for Australian Studies.