Treena Clark

Treena Clark (Kokatha/Wirangu) is a Senior Research Fellow within the Aboriginal Communities and Families Health Research Alliance (ACRA) team, SAHMRI Women and Kids theme.

She recently completed her four-year postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Technology Sydney. Her project, Ad(dressing) Indigeneity: identity, healing, and social change through clothing, fashion, and style, aimed to unpack the stories behind First Nations fashion, art, and dress, focusing on urban areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ ways of dressing in these environments.

Her University of Technology Sydney PhD thesis (2021) explored the field of Indigenous Australian public relations and contributed to the decolonisation of Australian public relations. Specifically, the research aimed to assert Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of conducting public relations and privilege the stories, roles and contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have made within it.

Prior to working in research, Treena worked at Recognise as both a Media Officer and Digital Campaign Assistant in the Communications Team. Recognise was the campaign to raise awareness of the need to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution and deal with the racial discrimination within it. She also worked for AIME at the University of South Australia as the Program Manager. AIME’s goal is to encourage and empower Indigenous high school students to finish school and enrol in university, TAFE or gain employment.