Professor Eleanor Bourke

Professor Eleanor Bourke is a distinguished Wergaia/Wamba Wamba Elder, whose leadership and dedication advancing Aboriginal education and communities has spanned over 40 years. Eleanor has contributed to the Victorian Aboriginal Treaty Working Group as a member and Co-Chair. She has provided strategic guidance and advice to the Treaty Commissioner supporting the establishment of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria.

Eleanor has been instrumental in Aboriginal research, human rights and Aboriginal development throughout her extensive career in academia. She contributed to higher education generally, but especially at the University of Melbourne (late 1970s), the University of Canberra (then the Canberra CAE 1980s), the University of South Australia and Monash University.

Eleanor continues to raise awareness of Aboriginal history including Aboriginal people’s experience of dispossession. She emphasises the importance of recognition of sovereignty and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights to respect, identity, and self-determination.