Dr Sarah Engledow was the designated historian and a curator at the National Portrait Gallery from 1999 to 2019. During that period she wrote copiously on Australian art, history and figures represented in Australian portraits. Major exhibitions she curated include So Fine: Contemporary women artists make Australian history (2018); The Popular Pet Show (2016); Arcadia: Sound of the Sea (2014); Paris to Monaro: Pleasures from the studio of Hilda Rix Nicholas (2013); Idle Hours (2009); Open Air: Portraits in the landscape (2008) (with Andrew Sayers and Wally Caruana); and The World of Thea Proctor (2005) (with Andrew Sayers). She has spoken in a great variety of situations about portraits and their historical contexts. Sarah received the University Medal in English from ANU in 1995 and received her doctorate - for a contextual introduction to the novels of Scottish author James Kelman - from ANU in 2003. She has a strong personal interest in many aspects of the history of Canberra and is elated at the prospect of returning to ANU.

Over the course of her visiting fellowship Sarah intends to read widely in contemporary academic writing on Australian history; collate, review, annotate and recombine themes and details of her work over the past 20 years; and recast stories she has presented for popular consumption in an academic idiom. She also hopes to strengthen links between the university and art and social history institutions in Canberra.