PhD (McGill) MLArch (Res) (Adel) BLArch (Hon) (Adel) BDesSt (Adel)

Assistant Professor, University of Canberra, Australia | Research Associate, Arctic Studies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C | Research Associate, Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies, Trent University, Canada

Biosketch | Image for Media


Dr Scott Heyes is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra. His is also the Convenor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Canberra. Scott was the 2010-2011 Roberta Bondar Postdoctoral Fellow in Northern and Polar Studies at Trent University's Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies.

Previously (2007-2010) he held a position at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. He is also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History. In 2010 Scott was awarded a three-month Visiting Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arctic Studies Center. Scott holds a PhD in geography from McGill University, Canada, as well as master and bachelor degrees in landscape architecture from the University of Adelaide, Australia.

He has been conducting research on Indigenous conceptions of landscape for nearly a decade, including fieldwork with the Inuit of Nunavik (Arctic Quebec). Scott is currently co-editing a book (with Dr K. Helgen, Smithsonian Institution) about Arctic mammals that draws on historical material by Arctic explorer and naturalist, Lucien M. Turner, as well as knowledge and stories of mammals by present day Inuit. Other project include investigating how Aborigines in Southern Australia have historically modified the land to facilitate fishery enterprises and how Inuit have been involved in the design and determination of Arctic parks in Northern Quebec.

Scott grew up beside the coast in South Australia where he developed an appreciation of the sea and ways of knowing the maritime environment. He is a keen fisherman and photographer.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Virtual storytelling
  
• Indigenous people and national parks/protected areas
  
• Indigenous, cultural and heritage landscapes and seascapes
  
• Historical modification of the land by Indigenous Australians
• Landscape/environmental perception
• The poetics of coastal settings
• Landscape stories
  
• Indigenous mapping and navigation/way-finding
• Mythical landscapes of Indigenous peoples
• The spatial dynamics and lifestyle adaptations which result from the design and planning of remote indigenous communities
• Ethnographic research methods
  
• Anthropology of landscape