Barry Golding

Dr Barry Golding AM is an Honorary Professor with Federation University in Ballarat, Australia. He self-describes as a ground-up, community-oriented, polymathic, place-based researcher and story teller. His degrees span four disciplines: geology, arts, environmental sciences and education. Barry has researched and published internationally about vocational, adult, community, First Nations and informal learning. He has published widely about Men’s and Women’s Sheds in community settings, including two definitive international books: The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men (2015) and Shoulder to Shoulder: Broadening the Men’s Sheds Movement (2021). Barry is honorary Patron of the Australian Men’s Shed Association (since 2009) and Ambassador of the Australian Women’s Sheds Association (since 2024). Barry is former President of Adult Learning Australia and in 2016 was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM). Since retirement from paid academic work in 2015, Barry has actively researched and written about the interactions between the geology, environment, unsettlers and First Nations people in central Victoria, focussed on  the first five years of invasion and contact, 1836-41. In 2023 Barry undertook a State Library Victoria Creative Fellowship, researching and writing a book, Six Peaks Speak: Unsettling legacies in southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country, published in 2024.