Margaret Anne Jolly AM FASSA (born 12 April 1949), born in Sydney, Australia [1] is an historical anthropologist recognized as a world expert on gender in Oceania. She is professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific and Convenor of the Gender Institute at the Australian National University in Canberra. [2] Jolly is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. [3]
From 2010 to 2015, Jolly held an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, an award valued at $2.7M. [4] She has written extensively on gender in the Pacific, [5] on exploratory voyages and travel writing, missions and contemporary Christianity, maternity and sexuality, cinema and art.
Jolly has held a number of prestigious academic roles including Head of the Gender Relations Centre 1992-2009; Burns Distinguished Visiting Chair, History, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (1998); Visiting Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz (2002); Visiting Professor, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France (2009). [6] Her work is widely held in libraries. [7]
Jolly was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to education, particularly to gender and Pacific studies." [8]