Dr Simone Ulalka Tur is the from the Yankunytjatjara community, north-west South Australia and has resided in Adelaide on Kaurna Yarta, South Australia.

Simone is a graduate of Flinders University (MEdSt 2002, PhD(CHASS) 2018) and has a background in arts research, Indigenous studies and education. She has held a number of leadership positions at Flinders University including the inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous (from 2020) and Director of Yungkurrinthi First Nations for Higher Education & Research (2011-2015).

A particular focus of her leadership role involves integrating Indigenous Australian perspectives within university topics and promoting a greater understanding between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian peoples and the broader Australian community. She currently lectures to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students each year, representing her educational philosophy of privileging Indigenous cultures, languages and ideologies as a deconstruction and de-colonising educational process. Her work also explores new spaces where all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can re-engage and transform their understandings of Australia and what it means to be Australian from an Indigenous perspective. Simone is also part of The Unbound Collective – a collective of four Aboriginal women academics/artists, who enact critical creative responses to colonial archives.

The Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) through the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement, has responsibility for providing strategic leadership for the University in relation to fostering and affirming Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student educational success, enacting the vision and collective commitment of the University’s Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan, the Indigenisation of its programs through recognition and embedding of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives, the promotion of teaching and research in Indigenous Studies, the employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities priorities and future aspirations.

I welcome you all to Flinders University, the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement and Yungkurrinthi Student Engagement.

Professor
Simone Ulalka Tur