Robin, Elizabeth Anne de Quetteville (Libby) (1956 - )

Summary

Elizabeth Anne de Quetteville (Libby) Robin is a Historian of Science and the Environment who has published extensively on an international level. She is the author of The Flight of the Emu (2001), Defending the Little Desert (1998) and many other publications, for which she has received several awards.

Details

Robin was a Senior Fellow (ANU) and Senior Research Fellow (NMA) at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, and was subsequently appointed Professor there.

She has also been a Guest Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden (2011-2014).

Chronology

1994

Career position - Lecturer, School of Environmental Planning - University of Melbourne

1995 - 1996

Career position - Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Politics Department, La Trobe University, Bundoora

1997 - 1998

Career position - Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra

1998 - 1999

Career position - Curator, People and the Environment Section, National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

1999 - 2006

Career position - Fellow (from 1999-2002 Research Fellow) Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra

2002

Award - Crosbie Morrison Memorial Lecturer, Nature and Nation, Museum Victoria

2003

Award - Winner, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, inaugural biennial Science Writing Prize (2003) for Flight of the Emu

2007

Award - Winner, New South Wales' Premier's History Awards, Australian History Prize for How a Continent Created a Nation

2007 - 2011

Career position - Senior Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra

2007 - 2013

Career position - Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Historical Research, National Museum of Australia, Canberra

2009

Award - Winner, Whitley Medal for Landmark Zoological Publication (Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales) for Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country

2010 - 2015

Career position - Joint Editor, Historical Records of Australian science

2011 - 2014

Career position - Guest Professor, Division of History of Science and Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Building, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm

2012

Career position - Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra

Related entries

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Books

• Brash, Stuart; Conde Anne-Marie; Robin, Libby; McCarthy, Gavan; Sherratt, Tim, A Guide to the Records of Philip Crosbie Morrison (Melbourne: Australian Science Archives Project, 1993), 178 pp. Details
• Martin, M.; Robin, E.; and Smith, M., Strata: Deserts Past, Present and Future (Mandurama: Mandy Martin with Land and Water Australia, 2005). Details
• Robin, Libby, Building a Forest Conscience: an Historical Portrait of the Natural Resources Conservation League of Victoria (NRCL) (Melbourne: Natural Resources Conservation League of Victoria, 1991), 155 pp. Details
• Robin, Libby, Defending the Little Desert: the Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1998), 215 pp. Details
• Robin, Libby, The Flight of the Emu: a Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001), 492 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby, 'Towards and understanding of the environment' in Understanding the Environment, Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson, R.J., ed. (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), pp. 1-7. Details
• Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby, 'Bridging the divides' in Understanding the Environment, Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson, R.J., ed. (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), pp. 184-201. Details
• Robin, A. de Q., 'Penfold, William James (1875-1941), Bacteriologist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Geoffrey Serle, ed., vol. 11 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1988), pp. 197-198. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110202b.htm. Details
• Robin, L.; and Smith, M., 'Science in place and time: archaeology, ecology and environmental history' in Animals of Arid Australia: Out on their Own?, Chris Dickman, Daniel Lunney and Shelley Burgin, eds (Mosman: RZSNSW, 2007), pp. 188-196. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'New Science for Sustainability in an Ancient Land' in Nature's End: History and the Environment, SÖRLIN, Sverker and WARDE, Paul, eds (London: Palgrave Macmillan, ), pp. 188-211. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Of Desert and Watershed: the Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Victoria, Australia' in Science and Nature: Essays in the History of the Environmental Sciences, Michael Shortland, ed. (Oxford: British Society for the History of Science, 1993), pp. 115-150. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Isaac, Cyril Everett (1884-1965), Schoolteacher, Politician and Conservationist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, John Ritchie, ed., vol. 14 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1996), pp. 537-538. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140611b.htm. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Ecology: a Science of Empire?' in Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin, eds (Edinburgh/Melbourne: Keele University Press/Melbourne University Press, 1997), pp. 63-74. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Migrants and Nomads' in A change in the weather: climate and culture in Australia, Sherratt, Tim; Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby, ed. (Sydney: Halstead Press, 2004). Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Migrants and Nomads' in A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia, Sherratt, Tim; Griffiths, Tom; and Robin, Libby, eds (Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2005), pp. 42-53. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'The Platypus Frontier: Eggs, Aborigines and Empire in nineteenth-century Queensland' in Dislocating the frontier: essaying the mystique of the Australian outback, Deborah Rose and Richard Davis, eds (Canberra: ANU Press, 2005), pp. 99-120. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Frith, Harold James (1921-1982), Wildlife Biologist and Conservationist' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 17 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2007), pp. 413-415. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/frith-harold-james-harry-12517. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Ecology and Identity: Australians Caring for Deserts' in Australia: Who Cares?, Callahan, D., ed. (Perth: API network/EASA, 2007), pp. 85-105. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Introduction: Boom and Bust' in Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, E. Robin, R. Heinsohn and L. Joseph, eds (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2009), pp. 1-5. Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Emu: National Symbols and Ecological Limits' in Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, E. Robin, R. Heinsohn and L. Joseph, eds (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2009), pp. 241-66. Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Conservation and Preservation' in Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier, eds (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 191-194. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Wattle' in Symbols of Australia: Uncovering the Stories behind the Myths, Melissa Harper and Richard White, eds (Sydney: UNSW Press/NMA Press, 2010), pp. 114-119. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Desert Channels: A Continental Perspective' in Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, Libby Robin, Christopher R. Dickman and Mandy Martin, eds (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2010), pp. xii-xvii. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Conservation Science: Here and Beyond' in Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve, Libby Robin, Christopher R. Dickman and Mandy Martin, eds (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2010), pp. 300-316. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Perceptions of place and deep time in the Australian desert: using art in environmental history' in Thinking through the Environment, Timo Myllyntaus, ed. (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 2011), pp. 81-99. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'History for Global Anxiety Germany' in The Future of Environmental History: Needs and Opportunities (RCC Perspectives 2011, Issue 3), Coulter, Kimberly and Mauch, Christof, eds (Munich, Germany: 2011), pp. 41-44. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Australia in Global Environmental History' in A Companion to Global Environmental History, McNeill, J. R. And Stewart, Eri, eds (2012), pp. 182-95. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Conservation Through Knowledge: a Short History of the First National Ornithologists' Society in Australia' in Contributions to the History of Australasian Ornithology, volume 2, Davis, William E., Recher, Harry F. and Boles, Walter E., eds (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Nuttall Ornithological Club, 2012), pp. 1-49. Details
• Robin, Libby and Connell, Daniel, 'History and the environment' in Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides, Grafton, R. Q., Robin, L. and Wasson, R. J., eds (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), pp. 8-22. Details
• Robin, Libby and Leo Joseph,, 'The Boom and Bust Desert World: A Bird's Eye View' in Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country, E. Robin, R. Heinsohn and L. Joseph, eds (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2009), pp. 6-34. Http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6009.htm. Details
• Robin, Libby and Sherren, Kate, 'A Curriculum for a Cause?' in Sustainability in the University Context, Walter Leal Filho and David Carpenter, eds (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Publishers, ), pp. 33-44. Details
• Robin, Libby; Connell, Daniel, 'History of the Environment' in Understanding the Environment, Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson, R.J., ed. (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), pp. 8-22. Details

Edited Books

• Grafton, R. Q.; Robin, E.; and Wasson, R. J. eds, Understanding the Environment: Bridging the Disciplinary Divides (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005). Http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/086840912X.htm. Details
• Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson R.J. ed., Understanding the Environment (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2005), 229 pp. Details
• Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby ed., Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies (Edinburgh/Melbourne: Keele University Press/Melbourne University Press, 1997), 248 pp. Details
• Martin, Mandy; Robin, Libby; Smith, Mike ed., Strata: Desert past, present and future. An environmental art project about a significant cultural place (Canberra: ANU Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, 2005), http://cres.anu.edu.au/strata/contents.html. Details
• Robin, Libby ed., How a Continent Created a Nation (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), 259 pp. Details
• Robin, Libby, Dickman, Christopher R.; and Martin, Mandy eds, Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve (Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing, 2010), 352 pp. Details
• Robin, Libby, Heinsohn, Robert and Joseph, Leo eds, Boom and Bust: Bird Stories for a Dry Country (Collingwood (Vic.) : CSIRO, 2009), 312 pp. Details
• Sherratt, Tim; Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby ed., A Change in the Weather: Climate and Culture in Australia (Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press, 2005), 216 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Carruthers, J.; Robin, L.; Hattingh, J.; Kull, C.; Rangan, H.; and van Wilgen, B.W., 'A native at home and abroad: the history, politics, ethics and aesthetics of Acacia', Diversity and Distributions, 17 (5) (2011), 810-821. Details
• Carruthers, Jane and Robin, Libby, 'Taxonomic imperialism in the battles for Acacia: Identity and science in South Africa and Australia', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, 65 (2010), 48-64. Http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00359191003652066. Details
• Carruthers, Jane and Robin, Libby, 'Taxonomic Imperialism in the Battles for Acacia: Identity and Science in South Africa and Australia', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, 65 (2010), 48-64. Details
• Dickman, Christopher R.; and Robin, Libby, 'Putting Science in its Place: the Role of Sandringham Station in Fostering Arid Zone Science in Australia', Historical Records of Australian Science, 25 (2) (2014), 186-201, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR14014. Details
• Dovers, S.; Kanowski, P.; Robin, L.; and Sherren, K., 'Escaping the disciplinary straitjacket: Curriculum design as university adaptation to sustainability', Journal of Global Responsibility, 1 (2) (2010), 260-278. Details
• Duckworth, J. W. Sweet, P. R.; Trombone, T. J.; and Robin, L., 'The Hall collections of birds from Wonsan, central Korea, in Spring 1903', Forktail, 23 (2007), 129-134. Details
• Fischer, J.; A.D. Manning, W. Steffen, D.B. Rose, K. Daniell, A. Felton, S. Garnett, B. Gilna, R. Heinsohn, D. Lindenmayer, B. MacDonald, F. Mills, B. Newell, J. Reid, L. Robin, K. Sherren and A. Wade, 'Mind the Sustainability Gap', Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 22 (12) (2007), 621-624. Details
• Maroske, Sara, Robin, Libby and McCarthy, Gavan, 'Building the history of Australian science: five projects of Professor R. W. Home (1980 - present)', Historical Records of Australian Science, 28 (1) (2017), 1-11, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR16018. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Visions of Nature: Wild Life, 1938-1954', The Victorian naturalist, 102 (5) (1985), 153-61. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Thomas Sergeant Hall (1858-1915): Scholar and Enthusiast', Historical Records of Australian Science, 6 (4) (1987), 485-492. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9870640485. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'The Professor and the journalist: Crosbie Morrison and John Turner, scientists in popular conservation campaigns', Victorian Historical Journal, 65 (1994), 154-68. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Radical Ecology and Conservation Science: an Australian Perspective', Environment and History, 4 (2) (1998), 191-208. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Fleecing the Nation', Country and Calling: The Journal of Australian Studies, 62 (1999), 150-158 and 254-256. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Paradox on the Queensland Frontier: Platypus, Lungfish and Other Vagaries of 19th Century Science', Australian Humanities Review (2000). http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-September-2000/robin1.html. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'School Gardens and beyond: Progressive conservation, moral imperatives and the local landscape', Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 21 (2) (2001), 87-92. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'International Ornithology Comes to Australia', Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (3) (2001), 233-254. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR0011330233. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Birds and Environmental Management 1901-2001', Australian Journal of Environmental Management, 8 (2) (2001), 105-113. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Nationalising Nature: Wattle Days in Australia', Journal of Australian Studies, 73 (2002), 13-26. http://cres.anu.edu.au/people/wattle-day.pdf. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'An Emu for a nation: A centenary reflection on the journal and its discipline', Emu, 102 (1) (2002), 1-7. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Collections and the Nation: Science, History and the National Museum of Australia', Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (3) (2003), 251-289. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02013. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Weird and wonderful: The first objects of the National Historical Collection', reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, 1 (2) (2006), 115-129. http://recollections.nma.gov.au/ejournal_library/attachments/volume_1_number_2_/weird_and_wonderful/files/16634/WeirdandWonderful.pdf. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Back home to ecology', Australian Humanities Review (2007). Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Home and away: Australian sense of place', Australian Humanities Review (2007). Details
• Robin, Libby, 'The Eco-humanities as literature: a new genre?', Australian Literary Studies, 23 (3) (2008), 290-304. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Dead Museum Animals: Natural Order or Cultural Chaos?, 4(2), October', reCollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia, 4 (2) (2009). http://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/vol_4_no_2/papers/dead_museum_animals/. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Battling the Land: Environment and Identity in Settler Australian Society', PAN (Philosophy, Activism, Nature), 7 (2010), 3-9. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'The rise of the idea of biodiversity: crises, responses and expertise', Quaderni (Journal of l'Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales du CNRS); Special Issue: Les promesses de la biodiversité, 76 (1) (2011), 25-38. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Wilderness in a Global Age, Fifty Years On', Environmental History, 19 (2014), 721-7. Details
• Robin, Libby, 'Soil in the air', Historical Records of Australian Science, 33 (2) (2022), 110-21, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR21014. Details
• Robin, Libby and Carruthers, Jane, 'National Identity and International Science: the Case of Acacia', Historical Records of Australian Science, 23 (1) (2012), 34-54, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR12002. Details
• Robin, Libby and Donaldson, Ian, 'Introduction to Desert Gardens', Australian Humanities Review (2005). Http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-July-2005/01Robin.html. Details
• Robin, Libby and Jane Carruthers, 'Introduction: Environmental History and the History of Biology', Journal of the History of Biology (Special Issue on Environmental History), 44 (1). Details
• Robin, Libby and Smith, Mike, 'Australian Environmental History: Ten Years On', Environment and History, 14 (2) (2008), 135-143. Details
• Robin, Libby and Steffen, Will, 'History for the Anthropocene', History Compass, 5 (5) (2007), 1694-1719. Details
• Robin, Libby, Morton, Steve and Smith, Mike, 'Writing a History of Scientific Endeavour in Australia's Deserts', Historical Records of Australian Science, 25 (2) (2014), 143-52, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR14011. Details
• Robin, Libby; and Day, Jon C., 'Maxwell Frank Cooper Day 1915 - 2017', Historical Records of Australian Science, 31 (1) (2020), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1071.HR19007. Details
• Robin, Libby; Griffiths, Tom, 'Environmental History in Australia', Environment and History, 10 (4) (2004), 439-474. Details
• Robin, Libby; with Day, Max, 'Changing ideas about the environment in Australia: learning from Stockholm', Historical Records of Australian Science, 28 (1) (2017), 37-49, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR17004. Details

Resources

• Brash, Stuart; Condé, Anne-Marie; Robin, Libby; McCarthy, Gavan; Sherratt, Tim, Philip Crosbie Morrison Guide to Records, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 2004, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/guides/morr/morrison.htm. Details
• 'Robin, Elizabeth Anne de Quetteville (1956-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1474010. Details
• Robin, Libby, Official CRES home page: Dr Libby Robin, ANU Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, 2002, http://cres.anu.edu.au/people/userprofile.php?user=libbyr. Details

Reviews

• Sherratt, Tim, Griffiths, Tom, Robin, Libby (ed.) A change in the weather: climate and culture in Australia (2005)
  Anderson, Warwick, Historical Records of Australian Science, 16 (2), (2005), 251-253. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR05012. Details
• Macleod, Roy (ed.), 'Nature and Empire: Science and the Colonial Enterprise', Osiris, vol. 15, 2000.
  Branagan, David; Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (2), (2002), 236-237. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02011. Details
• Grafton, R.Q.; Robin, Libby; Wasson R.J., ed., Understanding the Environment (2005)
  Burgman, Mark, Historical Records of Australian Science, 16 (2), (2005), 255-256. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR05012. Details
• Sherratt, Tim; Griffiths, Tom; Robin, Libby, ed., A change in the weather: climate and culture in Australia (2005)
  Noble, Ian, Australian Book Review, (2005), 50-51. Details
• Humphreys, L.R., Wadham: Scientist for Land and People, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2000, 240 pp.
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (1), (2002), 102-104. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02901B_BR. Details
• Bowen, James, and Bowen, Margarita, The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage (2002)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (4), (2003), 555-557. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR03010. Details
• Pawson, Eric and Brooking, Tom (eds) Environmental Histories of New Zealand (2002)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (3), (2003), 383-386. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR03901. Details
• Johnson, David, The Geology of Australia (2004)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 15 (2), (2004), 285-287. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR04007. Details
• McEwen, Mary, Charles Fleming: Environmental Patriot (2005)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 17 (1), (2006), 117-119, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR06003. Details
• Anderson, Warwick, The Collectors of Lost Souls: Turning Kuru Scientists into Whitemen (2008)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 20 (1), (2009), 138-142, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR09005. Details
• MacMillen, Richard E. and MacMILLEN, Barbara J., Meanderings in the Bush: Natural History Explorations in Outback Australia (2008)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 20 (2), (2009), 285-287, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR09018. Details
• Here on earth : an argument for hope
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 21 (2), (2010), 295-7, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR10012. Details
• Colloff, Matthew, Landscapes of our hearts: reconciling people and environment (2020)
  Robin, Libby, Historical Records of Australian Science, 32 (1), (2021), 101-2, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR21902. Details
• Cross, Roger T., Fallout: Hedley Marston and the British bomb tests in Australia, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, South Australia, 2001, 226 pp.
  Robin, Libby; Jenkin, John, Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (2), (2002), 209-210. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02011. Details
• Collis, Brad, Fields of Discovery: Australia's CSIRO, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, New South Wales, 2002, 520 pp.
  Robin, Libby; McCarthy, Gavan, Historical Records of Australian Science, 14 (2), (2002), 211-214. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR02011. Details