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Dr Heather Burke lectures in the Department of Archaeology at Flinders University, and has participated in and directed numerous surveys and excavations for historic, prehistoric and Aboriginal sites across Australia. Prior to joining Flinders University, she worked for over fifteen years as a consultant on historical and Aboriginal archaeological heritage projects and has worked extensively throughout NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. She graduated with a PhD from UNE in 1996, and has worked on historical and indigenous archaeological sites throughout New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory . Her PhD looked at the construction of social identity through style in architecture and the uses of the past in the present.

Dr Burke’s principal research interests lie in the fields of historical archaeology, the archaeology of Indigenous and European contact, political uses of the past in the present, as well as the public interpretation and presentation of heritage sites. Her current projects include an investigation of Indigenous-settler contact on the mining frontier in western Arnhem Land, and the archaeology of World War II in Adelaide.

Dr Burke is currently a series editor for the Global Cultural Heritage Manuals Series, published by Plenum/Kluwer Academic Press, New York, and the Worlds of Archaeology Series, published by AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California. In 2004, Dr Burke received the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Team Award) with colleague Associate Professor Claire Smith. Their teaching of archaeology promotes student awareness of, and involvement in, social justice issues, particularly in Indigenous communities, and ethical globalisation, with a focus on redressing global inequities between students and scholars.

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