Growing up just east of San Francisco, Shirley was already a curious ‘traveller’, exploring local landscapes during her formative years. Finding bone fragments and stone tools, artifacts of Native Californians, her interests were piqued.

Shirley has specialized in studying the anthropology of art, convinced that understanding the ways people represent their ideas through art, in its broader contexts, provides valuable insight into people’s perceptions and relationships with the world around them. She maintains a keen eye on history, knowing the past helps us make sense of the present.

Living in England, Australia, Papua New Guinea and the United States, Shirley became fluent in Italian and in the Vakutan language. She’s led groups of Italian tourists around England, sailed in ocean-going outrigger canoes when living in the Trobriand Islands. Following university study in both Missouri and London, she moved to Australia to pursue her Doctorate of Philosophy in Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra.

More than three decades of academic research and university teaching have led to a sound knowledge and understanding of many cultures around the world and the theoretical foundations that human societies share. Now widely travelled, she has had firsthand experience of the ways in which communities form and develop distinct, yet interrelated cultures, delighting in sharing some of her insights with others.