Matthew Birchall Email & Phone Number

Kensington, Nsw, Au

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand

Transport and infrastructure policy

Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand

New Zealand used to get stuff done. From Julius Vogel’s rail network to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, New Zealand was once able to plan, finance, and deliver big infrastructure projects. No more. My job at the New Zealand Initiative is to figure out how we got here, and how we might move forward.

Auckland, New Zealand

I spent my postdoctoral fellowship working on a scholarly edition of Edward Gibbon Wakefield's colonial writings. Wakefield articulated one of the most influential theories of settler colonialism in the nineteenth century. Auckland University Press has sent out my proposal for peer review. A sample of my new work on Wakefield was recently published in a special issue of Global Intellectual History: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23801883.2022.2074508I also contributed to teaching and curriculum redesign for the introductory New Zealand history module. Other highlights include winning the New Zealand Historical Association's 2021 Mary Boyd Prize for best article on any aspect of New Zealand history and leading an honours seminar on settler capitalism.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

My PhD thesis analysed how joint stock colonisation companies reconfigured the British Empire, c. 1820–1840. It was supervised by Professor Alison Bashford and Professor Duncan Bell. It passed with no corrections and was highly commended by the Australian Historical Association.My first article, ‘History, Sovereignty, Capital: Company Colonisation in South Australia and New Zealand’, Journal of Global History, 16, 2020, was awarded the Royal Historical Society’s prestigious Alexander Prize in 2021 for best scholarly article based upon original historical research. The judges' citation can be found here: https://blog.royalhistsoc.org/2021/07/23/rhs-publication-research-and-teaching-awards-2021/For a full list of publications and prizes, see https://cambridge.academia.edu/MatthewBirchall

London, United Kingdom

Created content for Learnerbly, an education technology start-up. In addition to defining the editorial and content strategy of the business, I interviewed high-profile technology and business experts such as Nigel Miller, Sarah Wood and Renaud Visage for Learnerbly's blog. I also led the content marketing and PR of the firm, for example writing the press releases for Rajeeb Dey, Learnerbly's CEO, when he was awarded an MBE in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours.

London

Liaised with digital designers and software developers to ensure website copy was clean and to the point. This included writing email copy, boilerplates for external stakeholders, and building up the company's social media presence. I also shadowed Rajeeb Dey, one of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders, at formal events.

My dissertation examined in detail the intersection between Western political thought and indigenous property rights in South Australia and New Zealand. It required an intensive interrogation of archival material in both New Zealand and Britain.

Master’S Degree, Political Thought & Intellectual History

Master Of Arts (Hons), International Relations And Modern History