Daniel May is an environmental historian and historian of science with a particular focus on fire and Indigenous histories. He recently completed his doctoral thesis at the Centre for Environmental History.

Daniel’s thesis investigated the political and cultural history of Indigenous burning and fire management policy in Australia and the Western United States. His work has taken him to the Top End, to Perth, across Victoria, and for four months in 2018, all over the United States. Daniel’s work has been generously supported by an Endeavour Research Fellowship, the Moran Award for History of Science Research, and an Australian Postgraduate Award. He has participated in prescribed burns, worked with Indigenous fire practitioners, and presented to policymakers through bodies including the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre and the Australian Policy and History Network.

Daniel has tutored courses on global imperial histories and the Second World War, and lectured for courses from multiple faculties. He has worked as a Writing Coach for the ANU Academic Skills and Learning Centre, an Assistant Editor for the ANU Undergraduate Research Journal, and as a Research Assistant for projects on predictive modelling and Antarctica. He was the Executive Officer for the Australian Historical Association (2020) and now works for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library. He can be reached on twitter.

Research interests & associated publications

• Indigenous burning: practices, barriers, discourses, policies
  • 2020     Taking Fire: The Historical and Contemporary Politics of Indigenous Burning in Australia and the Western United States, PhD thesis.
• Fire management and prescribed burning: policies, debates over efficacy, tracing an intellectual history of its development
  • 2020     ‘Shallow Fire Literacy Hinders Robust Fire Policy: Black Saturday and Prescribed Burning Debates’. In Disasters in Australia and New Zealand: Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe, eds. Scott McKinnon and Margaret Cook (Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore), pp. 139-158.
• Predictive modelling: in collaboration with Timothy Neale (Deakin University)
  • 2020     (with Timothy Neale), ‘Fuzzy boundaries: simulation and the cultural dimensions of expertise in bushfire prediction’, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 50 No. 6, pp. 837-859.
  • 2017     (with Timothy Neale), ‘Bushfire simulators and analysis in Australia: insights into an emerging sociotechnical practice’, Environmental Hazards, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 200-218.

Recent online publications

2020                 Leonard, Kelsey, Jared D. Aldern, Amy Christianson, Darren Ranco, Casey Thornbrugh, Philip A. Loring, Michael R. Coughlan, et al. 2020. “Indigenous Conservation Practices Are Not a Monolith: Western Cultural Biases and a Lack of Engagement with Indigenous Experts Undermine Studies of Land Stewardship.” EcoEvoRxiv. July 24. doi:10.32942/osf.io/jmvqy.

2020                 ‘To burn or not to burn is not the question’, Inside Story, https://insidestory.org.au/to-burn-or-not-to-burn-is-not-the-question/ (Republished in multiple magazines including Fire Australia No. 2 2020)

2018                 ‘Why Australian retailers should respect the past and rename their ‘Black Friday’ sales’, The Conversation,   https://theconversation.com/why-australian-retailers-should-respect-the-past-and-rename-their-black-friday-sales-107015 (16,800 readers as of 2/12/18)