Tianna Killoran

Tianna Killoran is a Lecturer in History at James Cook University, Australia. Her research focuses on the history of Japanese Australian migrants and their communities, particularly in northern Australia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Tianna is currently collaborating with researchers in Japan and Australia on a project funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The project focuses on reconstructing the histories of Japanese Australian migrants in regional northern Australia, including the digitisation of valuable historical materials relating to prewar and postwar Japanese migration.

She recently completed a project funded by the Australia-Japan Foundation that focused on local historical sites of shared Australia-Japan history, including the creation of a historical walking trail through Townsville that has been digitised in a bilingual format.

Her research has been shared widely with public audiences through platforms including Vida! Blog of the Australian Women’s History Network, Nikkei Australia, and ABC Radio North Queensland. In 2021, she was awarded the Vera Mackie Prize for Best Blog for her article 'Japanese Businesswomen in North Queensland’s Commercial Landscape, 1887-1941.'

She has published in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, History Australia and Lilith: A Feminist History Journal. She was a 2023 Scholar in Residence for the Past Wrongs, Future Choices project in Victoria, Canada, and a National Library of Australia Summer Scholar in 2020. Tianna was a member of the Lilith Editorial Collective from 2023 to 2026.

Tianna has a Bachelor of Education – Bachelor of Arts (Hons) (2017) and a PhD in History (2023) from James Cook University. Her PhD thesis, entitled The Near North and the Far North: The Nikkei Community in North Queensland, 1885-1946, focused on the history of the Nikkei Australian community in north Queensland.