Jo McDonald is the Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at UWA. She has held the Rio Tinto Chair in Rock Art Studies (2012-2023) funded by RioTinto’s Conservation Agreement with the Commonwealth for the Dampier Archipelago National Heritage Listed Place. Jo completed an ARC Future Fellowship (2011-2016), comparing rock art, social and environmental change in two of the great deserts of the world: the Western Desert in Australia and the Great Basin in the USA. She has completed two ARC projects in the Dampier Archipelago - Murujuga Dynamics of the Dreaming and Deep History of Sea Country.

She is leading two current ARC linkage projects.  The first is Dating Murujuga’s Dreaming: a multidisciplinary project aimed at direct dating the engravings and stone features, refining models of climate change and chronology through a series of different techniques.  The other Project is Desert to the Sea: Managing Rock Art, Country and Culture - a multidisciplinary two-way knowledge project working with three Aboriginal communities with huge heritage estates and three industry partners, working on intergenerational information transfer and Western: Indigenous knowledge exchanges. 

She is the Western Node Leader and CI for the Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures CIEHF (commencing July 1 2024), and is co-designing research collaborations with Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation to occur over the next 7 years.

In October 2023 Jo and Amy Stevens (Heritage Manager, MAC) co-hosted the Murujuga Cultural Landscapes Symposium at the ICOMOS General Assembly held in Sydney. This international event, hosted for the first time in the southern hemisphere, showcased the work being done on the World Heritage nomination at Murujuga and brought together indigenous custodians from Murujuga, Australian World heritage properties and international cultural landscape properties to discuss the pros and cons of world heritage listing. CRAR+M UWA and MAC were  strategic partners to ICOMOS Australia, and financial support was received from industry stakeholders to facilitate the travel and accommodation expenses of the traditional owners.

Prior to being Director of CRAR+M, Jo was Managing Director of a leading cultural heritage practice based in Sydney. She has almost 40 years’ experience in managing Indigenous archaeology and has been researching rock art throughout this time.

Director, Centre for Rock Art Research + Management
Rio Tinto Chair of Rock Art Studies
Deputy Head of School (2019-June 2022)

2017 UWA Innovation Champion

ARCY2004 Co-Ordinator 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022
ARCY2005 Co-ordinator 2012-2023
ARCY3011 Co-Ordinator 2019, 2020, 2021
ARCY3100 Co-ordinator 2024-

Australian Archaeology- Editorial Board (2019- )

CRARM Editorial Board

Rock Art of the Pilbara
Kimberley and Western Desert art connections
Pilbara and Western Desert art connections
Great Basin rock art
Rock art of the early Americans and Australians

AIATSIS Grant for dating arid zone rock art 2005 Canning Stock Route ARC Linkage Project (Rock Art and Jukurrpa) 2007-2011
Jo was Principal Investigator and JMcD CHM was a Partner organisation.
ARC Future Fellowship: Arid zone rock art of the Western Desert and Great Basin 2011-2016
Lead Chief Investigator - Murujuga: Dynamics of the Dreaming ARC Linkage Project (2015-2018)
Chief Investigator - Deep History of Sea Country (2015-2018)
Lead Chief Investigator - Dating Murujuga's Dreaming ARC Linkage Project (2020-2025)

Lead Chief Investigator - Desert to the Sea ARC Linkage Project (2022-2027)

Chief Investigator, WA Node Leader, ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures 2024-2031

As a long term cultural heritage practitioner, Jo has good links with Industry and government, and is well versed in the practicalities of heritage management in Australia. This long term experience has seen her involved as an expert witness in Native Title and Land and Environment Court actions, as well as providing advice to government (State and Commonwealth) on heritage matters.

Jo currently sits on the Murujuga Stakeholder Reference Group (WA) which oversees the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Project.  Jo also sits on the Murujuga Heritage Committee (WA), charged with preparing the WHL nomination dossier for the Murujuga cultural landscape, lodged in February 2023 in Paris and accepted by the World Heritage committee in September 2023.

ARCY2004 - Archaeology of Rock Art Undergraduate course 2012, 2019, 2020, 2021
ARCY2005 - Rock Art Field school (2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023)
ARCY3011 - Australian Archaeology 2019, 2020, 2021

ARCY3100 - Advanced Rock Art Fieldschool 2024