The author and producer of ‘Australian Journey’, Professor Bruce Scates is based in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. An award-winning historian and teacher, the author/co author of 12 highly regarded books and a host of innovative studies, his work is distinguished by academic rigour, engagement and accessibility. Bruce, like Susan Carland, is also present in the media. Through opinion pieces, public broadcasts and a leading role in major documentaries he has helped to lift the profile of history in the wider community.

Professor Scates is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and his many publications include Return to Gallipoli, A New Australia, the Cambridge History of the Shrine of Remembrance and the recently republished Women and the Great War (co-authored with Raelene Frances). The last of these won the NSW Premier’s History Award. Professor Scates is the lead author of Anzac Journeys (also published by Cambridge University Press and shortlisted in the Ernest Scott Prize for 2014) and a contributor to the Cambridge History of the First World War. He has also written a novel, On Dangerous Ground, retracing CEW Bean’s steps across Gallipoli. Described by Tom Kennelly as ‘eloquent and engrossing’, it was listed on Australia’s first national curriculum for literature, set on university courses in Germany, Turkey and Australia, and awarded special commendation in the Christina Stead Awards. Other titles include The One Hundred Stories: A History of the First World War (with Rebecca Wheatley and Laura James) and The Last Battle: A History of Soldier Settlement in Australia (with Melanie Oppenheimer).

Committed to communicating history to the widest possible audience, Bruce Scates played a leading role in the production of the recent ABC mini series ‘The War that Changed Us’. The doco drama has met with popular acclaim and been described as ‘fresh and brilliant’ by reviewers. He was also featured in an ABC Compass program examining pilgrimages to Gallipoli. Journeys to the battlefields of the Great War are one of his areas of research expertise; his work in this field is generally considered a benchmark in the discipline. He was a historical consultant to the new interpretive centre at the Australian National Memorial at Villers Bretonneux, advised the National Museum of Australia and the National Anzac Centre on the content of their galleries and served on a host of high-level state and national committees advising government on the history of commemoration and military heritage. This engagement with cultural institutions has proved highly influential: Professor Scates’ submissions to government agencies led to the mass digitisation of repatriation records, opening up a vast archive to a global community and effecting a sea change in how the Great War will be remembered.

Professor Scates’ appointments include Chair of the Military History and Heritage Committee, Anzac Centenary Advisory Board (2011-2013); historian advising the National Committee investigating the missing of Fromelles (2008-9). He is a member of the Army History Unit (2008-) and has chaired the judging panel of the CEW Bean Prize awarded by Chief of Army for the best thesis exploring Australia’s military history. Bruce Scates also serves on the Research Committee of the Historial de la Grande Guerre in France and leads an internship program with ‘In Flanders Field Museum’ in Belgium. On the Centenary of the Gallipoli Landings, his work was featured in the French Journal, l’Histoire and was disseminated across the globe through Reuter’s World Picture of the Day. He was awarded a Mevlana Fellowship to foster scholarly collaborations with Turkey in 2015.

Professor Scates’ other areas of research include Aboriginal history (his study of frontier violence was profiled in the first report of the Council for National Reconciliation), environmental history, labour history and utopian movements He is a longstanding member of the Editorial Board of the journal Labour History.

Bruce Scates is the recipient/ co-recipient of University, State and National Awards for University Teaching Excellence. He has received a similar award from the History Teachers’ Association, acknowledging his service to schools and bridging role between secondary and tertiary education. Professor Scates is a frequent contributor to writer’s festivals, history events and diverse public forums. In 2005, he delivered the Tenth Annual History Lecture at Government House, Sydney, marking the 90th anniversary of the Gallipoli Landing; in 2008 he delivered the Sir Keith Sinclair address at the University of Auckland on Australia’s and New Zealand's shared experience of war; he has also delivered the Alan Martin and Russel Ward lectures on forgotten aspects of Australia’s military past. Many of these addresses have been broadcast and Professor Scates’ interviews have been podcast by the ABC (Hindsight, Margaret Crosby), the BBC, and The Guardian. In 2015, he delivered both the Menzies Lecture in London and the Annual History Lecture in Sydney. Professor Scates has been a keynote speaker at several international forums and presented his work at the Sorbonne and UNESCO sponsored forums. An advocate of teaching innovation and public engagement, he led the development of a MOOC (Mass Open Online Courseware) examining the fraught memory of war, and devised a series of digital narratives for public exhibition. He has also presented keynote addresses National conferences of the History Teachers Association of Australia.

Professor Scates is the lead chief investigator on Australian Research Council-funded projects on soldier settlement, World War II pilgrimage, and heads an international team exploring the history of Anzac Day. These grants involve highly successful partnerships with the Department of Veterans Affairs and a host of other government agencies and cultural institutions in Australia and overseas. In 2020 he received a Fulbright Senior Fellowship for a comparative study of how the Anzac Centenary was observed in the United States and Australia.