Designation: Director, Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Investment and Philanthropy, Swinburne University of Technology

    Resume:John FITZGERALD joined Swinburne University in 2013 as Director of the Asia Pacific Centre for Social Investment and Philanthropy after serving for five years as China Representative of The Ford Foundation in Beijing where he directed the Foundation’s operations in China. Before that, he was Head of the School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University and, before that again, Director of the International Centre of Excellence in Asia-Pacific Studies at the Australian National University. In Canberra he served for as Chair of the Education Committee of the Australia-China Council of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as chair of the Committee for National and International Cooperation of the Australian Research Council, and as International Secretary of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His book, Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia (UNSW 2007) was a finalist in the Prime Minister’s History Prize in 2008 and awarded the Ernest Scott Prize of the Australian Historical Association for the most distinguished book on Australian History published that year. His publications have also won international recognition, including the Modern China prize of the American Association for Asian Studies, the Joseph Levenson Prize. John has a Ph.D. from ANU and held a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a graduate of Sydney University.