Sandy O'Sullivan

Sandy is a Wiradjuri transgender/non-binary Professor of Critical Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University. They were a 2020-2025 ARC Future Fellow, with a project titled Saving Lives: Mapping the influence of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ creative artists. The project explored the unique contribution and influence of queer First Nations artists to understand how modelling complex identities contributes to the wellbeing of all First Nations' peoples.

Since 1991 they have taught and researched across museums, gender and sexuality, the body, performance, design and First Nations’ identity. Sandy was the inaugural director of the Centre for Collaborative First Nations’ Research at Batchelor Institute in the Northern Territory and was Deputy Head of School of Creative Industries at the University of the Sunshine Coast. They completed a decade-long internationally-focused Australian Research Council program examining the representation and engagement of First Nations’ Peoples across 470 museums and Keeping Places, and an ARC Linkage project mapping creative practice across the Barkly Region of the Northern Territory (Creative Barkly). Sandy's work is often across both industry and the academy, and in 2020 they completed a national review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance and theatre makers for the Australia Council for the Arts.

In addition to their academic work, Sandy has been a musician, performer and sound artist since 1982 and has held national and international arts residencies and performed and exhibited in a range of venues.