Leadership team
Mathew Trinca
Mathew Trinca AM FAHA is Professor of Museum Practice in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies. He was formerly Director of the National Museum of Australia between 2014 to 2024 and worked in senior roles in the museum from 2003. As Director of the NMA, he was responsible for doubling its visitor numbers and developing its galleries and exhibitions, with a strong emphasis on touring programs across Australia and around the world. Professor Trinca has published on Australian History and Museum Studies in a range of scholarly and popular journals. He has research interests in museology, museum leadership and practice, and the cultural history of Australia. In 2020, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his service to museums.
Yujie Zhu
Yujie Zhu is Associate Professor in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies. Assoc. Professor Zhu is an anthropologist whose research advances critical and interdisciplinary approaches to heritage, memory, and social transformation. His work is shaped by extensive ethnographic research in China and across East Asia, alongside sustained international collaboration across Europe, the Americas, and the Asia–Pacific. His work focuses on the politics of heritage in East Asia, with particular attention to memory politics, conflict and reconciliation, religious spaces, and the political economy of tourism, and examines how heritage and narratives of the past are produced, contested, and institutionalised as political and ethical forces shaping governance, identity, and state–society relations across diverse cultural and geopolitical contexts. Assoc. Professor Zhu has published extensively, and his work has been supported by funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), UNESCO, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the European Union, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Sophie Lewincamp
Dr Sophie Lewincamp, Head of Conservation & Collection Management at the of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia and Honorary Lecturer in the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, will lead the heritage professionals exchange delegation. Dr Lewincamp is a qualified paper conservator with almost 20 years of collection care, conservation, exhibitions/storytelling, project management and community engagement experience. Her work investigates the concepts and approaches for engagement and collaboration with communities associated with the origin, ownership and use of heritage items. She is passionate about community conservation work and has been involved in many community-driven projects. Dr Lewincamp brings expertise in community engagement, conservation training, and cultural sustainability, with a record of building partnerships in diverse cultural contexts.
Project support staff
Dr Kate Bowan
Research Officer, Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies, ANU
Adria Hu
Project Officer, National Museum of Australia
Image Gallery
