Professor Alistair Paterson is an ARC Future Fellow in archaeology at the University of Western Australia. His research examines the historical archaeology of colonial coastal contact and settlement in Australia’s Northwest and the Indian Ocean. His key interests are Western Australia and Indian Ocean history, Aboriginal Australia, Dutch East India Company, colonialism and exploration, rock art, and the history of collecting in Western Australia in collaboration with the Western Australian Museum, State Library, Art Gallery, and the British Museum.

He is CI on several ongoing ARC projects: (1) Collecting the West: Reimagining Western Australia from its collections; (2) Coastal Connections: dynamic societies of Australia's Northwest frontier, (3) Collecting at the Crossroads: Anthropology, Art & Cultural Change (1939-85), and (4) Entangled Knowledges in the Robert Neill Collection.

He is the author of A Millennium of Cultural Contact (Left Coast, 2011), The Lost Legions: Culture Contact in Colonial Australia (Alta Mira, 2008) and editor with Jane Balme of Archaeology in Practice: A Student Guide to Archaeological Analyses (2nd edition, Blackwell Publishing, 2013).

In 2015-2016 was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. In 2009 he was a visiting researcher ay the University of Copenhagen and at the National Museum of Denmark. He is past President of the Australian Archaeological Association (2005-2007), past Head of the School of Social Sciences (2013-15), and past Archaeology Discipline Chair (2010-2012). He has been involved with editing for, and publishing in, key archaeology journals including Antiquity, World Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Archaeology in Oceania, Australasian Historical Archaeology, Internet Archaeology, and Australian Archaeology.

Current only:
Collecting the West: How collections created Western Australia
ARC Linkage Project LP160100078. Administering Organisation: The University of Western Australia (UWA). Project leader: Prof Alistair Paterson. Investigators: Prof Andrea Witcomb, Adj/Prof Alec Coles, Prof Jane Lydon, Prof Stephen Hopper, Prof Jenny Gregory, Dr Shino Konishi, Dr Jacqueline Van Gent, Dr Toby Burrows, Dr Tiffany Shellam, Dr Jeremy Hill, Dr Sarah Longair, Dr Gaye Sculthorpe, Dr Katherine (Kate) Gregory, Mr Damien Webb, Ms Corioli Souter, Ms Amy Wegerhoff, Ms Patricia McDonald, Dr Moya Smith, Ms Diana Jones, Ms Melissa Harpley. ($750,000)

Coastal Connections: dynamic societies of Australia's Northwest frontier
ARC Future Fellowship FT150100168. Administering Organisation: The University of Western Australia (UWA). Investigators: Prof Alistair Paterson ($917,637)

Collecting at the Crossroads: Anthropology, Art & Cultural Change (1939-85). ARC Linkage Project LP200100045.     Administering Organisation: Deakin University. Project leader: Dr Jason Gibson. Investigators: Prof Alistair Paterson, Prof John Carty, Ms Carly Lane. ($487,222)

Entangled Knowledges in the Robert Neill Collection. ARC Linkage Project: LP200200239. Administering Organisation: Deakin University. Project leader: Dr Tiffany Shellam. Investigators: Prof Alistair Paterson, Dr Shino Konishi, Miss Shona Coyne, Dr Glenn Moore, Dr Alison Clark, Dr Ian Coates, Dr Ross Chadwick, Dr Andrew Kitchener.