Maddy McAllister

Dr Maddy McAllister is the Senior Curator of Maritime Archaeology at Queensland Museum, based at the Queensland Museum Tropics campus in Townsville. Her position is co-appointed with the College of Arts, Society and Education at James Cook University.

As a maritime archaeologist, Maddy’s work is varied and throughout her career she has worked on numerous projects including the American whaleship excavations in Bunbury, the Maritime Archaeological Survey of Oman, the Shipwrecks of the R40s field research on the wreck of Batavia in the Abrolhos Islands and small-scale archaeological projects on shipwrecks across Australia.

She has completed a PhD at The University of Western Australia in conjunction with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project “Shipwrecks of the Roaring Forties: A maritime archaeological reassessment of some of Australia’s earliest shipwrecks.” Her research focused on 3D photogrammetric modelling of underwater shipwrecks for interpretation and communication.

In 2016, Maddy was awarded the Cecelia Connelly Memorial Scholarship in Underwater Archaeology from the Women Divers Hall of Fame. The award funded her PhD research fieldwork recording the Batavia (1629) shipwreck in the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, Western Australia.

Maddy is the representative for the UNESCO UNITWIN Network of Underwater Archaeology for both the museum and JCU. She is also the Vice President of the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology. Maddy is an active voice for maritime archaeology, blogging about the discipline and enlightening the public on the daily life of underwater archaeologists through her blog and social media platform – the Shipwreck Mermaid.