Prof. Megan Cassidy-Welch FAHA FRHistS is the Dean of Research Strategy at the University of Divinity. She leads the University’s development and delivery of its research strategy, leads the administration of internal research support and the implementation of the University’s research budget, leads the development and maintenance of the University’s research culture, including mentoring and other support. Megan’s area of research is the cultural and social history of the Middle Ages and her research has contributed to the history of the crusades, memory and history, and medieval Cistercian monastic life. She is the author of Monastic Spaces and their Meanings (2001), Imprisonment in the Medieval Religious Imagination (2011), War and Memory at the time of the Fifth Crusade (2019) and Crusades and Violence (2023). She has served as President of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Head of the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies (Monash University), Head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry (University of Queensland) and was the first woman to hold the McCaughey Chair in History at the University of Queensland. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was elected to fellowship of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2023. Her current research concerns ideas of spiritual health among pilgrims to the holy land in the high Middle Ages, and she is also developing a large-scale project on ideas and experiences of home and homelessness across time. Megan’s email is mcassidywelch@divinity.edu.au.

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