Professor Mary Spongberg is the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Academic Capability) at Southern Cross University, where she has strategic responsibility for all research functions, including government and industry partnerships and research training.  She was Head of Modern History at Macquarie University between 2008 and 2010 and Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Arts 2010-2013.

She was Dean of Arts at the University of Technology Sydney, 2013-2018.  During her tenure in this position, she oversaw the establishment of the Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges, the Centre for Climate Justice, the Centre for STEM education Futures and the History Lab.

She is author of Writing Women’s History since the Renaissance (2002) and the principal editor of the Companion to Women’s Historical Writing (2005).

Her most recent book is Empathetic Histories: Women Writers and the Nation’s Past was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. She is currently working on an ARC funded project on Jane Austen and her maternal kin.