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Professor, Moondani Balluk Indigenous Academic Unit at Victoria University
Dr. Gary Foley is an aboriginal scholar, actor, and long-time activist in Australia. Foley is of Gumbainggir descent, one of 500 indigenous nations in Australia and was a lead architect of the Aboriginal Embassy, the six month encampment in front of Parliament in 1972 that led to major political shifts nationally. He was also involved in the establishment of the first Aboriginal self-help and survival organisations including Redfern's Aboriginal Legal Service, Aboriginal Health Service in Melbourne, and National Black Theatre. Throughout his work, Dr. Foley has been director of the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (1981), Aboriginal Arts Board (1983-86) and Aboriginal Medical Service Redfern (1988), senior lecturer at Swinburne College, consultant to the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody (1988), board member of the Aboriginal Legal Service, and on the national executive of the National Coalition of Aboriginal Organisations.
In 1994 Dr. Foley created the first Aboriginal owned and operated website when he created the Koori History website, which remains one of the most comprehensive Aboriginal education resources available today online. Later in life, he completed his BA and then gained first class honours in history in 2002. Between 2001 and 2005 he was also the Senior Curator for Southeastern Australia at Museum Victoria. Between 2005 and 2008 he was a lecturer/tutor in the Education Faculty of University of Melbourne. In 2012 he completed at PhD in History at the University of Melbourne. He has worked at Victoria University since 2008.
Dr. Foley has appeared on ABC News, 60 Minutes, and Tracker Magazine, among others. He published his book, The Aboriginal Tent Embassy: Sovereignty, Black Power, Land Rights and the State in 2014. At Victoria University, Dr. Foley is responsible for scholarship on Aboriginal history and political movements, as well as research supervision.
