Dr Emma Shaw

Dr Emma Shaw is a Lecturer in the School of Education, and teaches into both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. She is a member of the HERMES History Education Research Network and an Assistant Editor of Historical Encounters: A Journal of Historical Consciousness, Historical Cultures, and History Education. Emma completed her Bachelor of Teaching/Bachelor of Arts (Social Science) degree at the University of Newcastle where she graduated with Class I Honours, the University Medal (2012), the Education and Arts Faculty Medal (2012), the HG Duncan Prize (2012), the University of Newcastle Certificate for Bachelor of Teaching/Bachelor of Arts - Social Sciences (2011), and the Sir Edward Parry Memorial Prize (2009). Emma completed her doctoral studies in 2018.

Emma’s work explores how history manifests, is understood, and is produced by adults in public pedagogic spaces through the lens of a philosophical hermeneutic methodological framework. Examining metahistorical and disciplinary understandings of history more broadly, Emma’s research focuses on learner acquisitions of historical research methodologies and practices, and considers the access to, and re-framing of, historical narratives through the increasing democratisation of historical records and the personalisation of the past. Her current research projects explore the impacts of DNA testing on personal, national, and global identities; and examines how familial trauma narratives are displayed and treated in public spaces in an age of mass migration and displacement.