Duane Hamacher

Duane Hamacher is an American-Australian astronomer and ethnologist, working as Associate Professor of Cultural Astronomy in the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He earned degrees in physics, astronomy, and Indigenous studies, studying humanity’s connection to the stars. He completed a Discovery Early-Career Research Fellowship through the Australian Research Council to document the star knowledge of communities in the Torres Strait and spent a year at the University of Heidelberg in Germany as a CAPAS Fellow in the Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies, where he studied meteorite impacts and the end of the world in global cultural traditions. 

Hamacher is a TEDx speaker, appeared in National Geographic’s The Story of God with Morgan Freeman and Warwick Thornton’s film We Don’t Need a Map, consulted with Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer on the film Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, and appeared on numerous other high profile local and international programs. He serves as an expert consultant for UNESCO and published over 60 academic works, including the best-selling book, The First Astronomers: how Indigenous Elders read the stars. 

He currently serves as President and Founder of the Australian Association for Astronomy in Culture, Vice-President and President-Elect of the International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC) and is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.