Vincent Backhaus

Vincent completed his doctoral degree at The University of Cambridge in Psychology & Education with a core focus within Indigenous Research. He matriculated from Trinity College, as the first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander to complete a PhD at Cambridge. He has also completed a Master of Philosophy in Psychology and Education at Cambridge prior to his doctorate studies. He also holds a first class honours (BA) majoring in Anthropology and Psychology from James Cook University. Vincent’s doctoral research looked at the relationship between Indigenous Stories and Learning through a critical lens of Indigenous knowledges and relationships to Country together with Learning theory. His research informs Indigenous Education, Educational Psychology and broadly Indigenous Research.

Vincent is currently a research fellow with The Cairns Institute where he co-investigates with Professor Stewart Lockie and colleagues, the engagement of Reef Traditional Owners across the Great Barrer Reef (GBR) and the ways Traditional Owner Values inform, lead, and govern Crown of Thorns (CoTS) research and management. This research supports the development of co-design strategies in line with Traditional Owner community priorities, needs and capacities as well as intergenerational learning and agreement making challenges across the governance of the GBR.

Prior to this as a senior lecturer he taught across the suite of Indigenous Studies subjects offered through the Indigenous Education and Research Centre (IERC), James Cook University and continues to supervise Masters and Doctoral candidates. He is also part of the operation group and Indigenous working group for the James Cook University - The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (JCU-CSIRO) strategic partnership which has a key focus on Building Indigenous Research Capacity in the North (BIRC).

Vincent maintains connections with colleagues with the University of Cambridge faculty of Education working on teacher-student relationships, educational climate and social and emotional mental health. Vincent held the position of Senior Teaching Fellow Department of Psychology and Human Development - UCL Institute of Education, London. In this role he supervised MSc students towards completion of their dissertations. Vincent has held visiting fellowship to Trinity College, University of Melbourne. He holds professional associations with the British Psychological Society (BPS), The Australian Psychological Society (APS) as well as The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). He also continues to be active with colleagues devoted to the development of the next generation of anthropology scholars and practitioners from James Cook University as well as supporting the current cohort of doctoral students in the Cairns Institute where he works.