Jo Kijas

Biography

Jo Kijas is a consultant historian and Adjunct Fellow at SCU. Her recent consultancies have been focused around water, rivers and wetlands. She established the history major at SCU in 1995. Her PhD was on a history of internal migration and place contestation in northern NSW. Working as part of a dynamic team on her return to the Far North Coast in 2006, she was the historian who designed and developed content for the extensive Lismore City Council’s heritage interpretation walk The Wilson River Story Sites.

Research

Jo has researched and published in three key areas: environmental, community and Indigenous history, specialising in oral history practice and methodology. Since 2002 Jo has built her consultancy business, Kijas Histories, which includes the publication of nine commissioned histories, with five National Trust and Museums & Galleries awards, and over twenty reports and articles.

Community engagement

With her colleague Associate Professor Adele Wessell, Jo won the 2018 SCU Excellence In Engagement Award: Engaged Learning for sustained commitment to authentic student history research projects undertaken collaboratively for community partners to achieve mutual goals and benefits that have an ongoing legacy.