Her career bridges scholarship and public history. Ros has developed exhibitions, interpretive frameworks and publications for national cultural institutions and community organisations in Australia and internationally. Her work combines archival research, curatorial practice and narrative writing, with a particular interest in how histories are constructed, remembered and communicated.

 

Ros has longstanding connections with the Caribbean, especially Barbados, where she has contributed to museum interpretation and cultural heritage projects. She is also widely recognised for her work on documentary heritage and significance assessment. She is co-author of Significance 2.0: a guide to assessing the significance of collections, a foundational text in Australian heritage practice.

 

Her publications span Australian history and heritage, nineteenth-century travel and empire, museum studies, and literature. She has written on the cultural relationships between Australia and Britain, and on the movement of people, ideas and objects across oceans. Alongside her historical work, she maintains an enduring interest in literature, including the novels of Jane Austen.

​

Ros serves as Chair of the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee and has previously served on the International Advisory Committee of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme. She is also Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Intangible Heritage (IJIH) (until September 2027) and a member of the Editorial Committee of the International Journal of Documentary Heritage (IJoDH). She has conducted workshops and delivered presentations internationally on documentary heritage and heritage policy.

​

Through her writing and consultancy, Ros explores how stories travel, across time, across cultures, and across institutions, and how they continue to shape the present.