Professor Chris Dixon has been appointed interim Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the lead-up to Professor Martina Möllering’s departure on 27 May 2022.

Currently Dean of the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Professor Dixon came to the University in 2016. Prior to that he held appointments at the University of Sydney, Massey University, the University of Newcastle, and the University of Queensland.

Professor Dixon’s research focuses on American history, including African American history, US military history and American cultural history. His most recent book, African Americans and the Pacific War: Race, Nationality, and the Fight for Freedom, was published by Cambridge University Press in late 2018. Professor Dixon is currently researching the part played by African Americans in the Korean War, and American servicemen on R & R in Australia during the Vietnam War.

He has served two terms as President of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association, as well as President of the International Society for Cultural History. He has been the recipient of grants from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and the Australian Research Council. In 2016 he held the Fulbright Scholarship in Australian-US Alliance Studies.

A search process for an Executive Dean of the Faculty will be undertaken in the coming months. Professor Greg Downey, Professor of Anthropology in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, will take the position of Interim Dean, Macquarie School of Social Sciences. Professor Downey came to Macquarie in 2006, and has been involved with major projects linked to PACE and Open Universities Australia, as well as helping to design core curriculum for the Masters of Research in the Faculty of Arts. His principal research interests are in sports, dance, the senses, and skill acquisition, where he tries to bring together research from anthropology and the brain sciences with evolutionary theory, neuropsychology, and sports science.