Dr Vanessa Finney

Dr Vanessa Finney is Head, World Cultures, Archives and Research Library. At the Australian Museum she leads the team responsible for the care, digitisation and research of these collections, as well as for their access, exhibition and public engagement.

Vanessa is a museum public historian, exhibition curator, archivist and collection specialist, who has worked with the Australia Museum archives, library and world cultures object, paper and photography collections for more than 17 years. She has written and presented extensively on museum practice, on the history of object collections and archives, and on the sometimes hidden histories of women's work in museums. 

She is the author of two award-winning books on the art and science of Australian natural history, Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, colonial Sydney’s finest natural history artists (UNSWPress, Sydney, 2018) and Capturing Nature: Early Scientific Photography at the Australian Museum, 1857-1893 (UNSWPress, Sydney, 2019). Vanessa's current research interest is in the growth and changing exchange value of museum natural history collections through the nineteenth century. She is  writing a book on colonial-era curator Gerard Krefft and the colonial history of the Australian Museum.

She has a PhD in History of Science from the University of Sydney and has held research fellowships at the Royal Society (2019), London and the Max Plank Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (2019 and 2024). She is a Research Affiliate in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Sydney.