About Sarah
Sarah has recently been appointed Associate Professor of History and Western Civilisation at Australian Catholic University in North Sydney, as part of the Western Civilisation Program.
Sarah was born in Sydney, Australia to Susan and Terry Irving, a prominent radical historian. History was always part of the conversation in the Irving household. Like her mother, Sarah was educated at Wenona School, North Sydney. She attained her Bachelor of Arts Degree in History from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours, and was awarded the University Medal in 2003.
Sarah was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Cambridge where she was a member of King’s College. She was awarded her Doctor of Philosophy in History from the University for Cambridge in 2007.
In 2006, Sarah was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, University of Oxford.
In 2008, Sarah was appointed as Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.
Her first book, Natural Science and the Origins of the British Empire, investigates the way that England’s colonial empire became tied to the Protestant redemptive project of restoring humanity's original dominion over nature, and was awarded The Royal Society of Literature and Jerwood Foundation Award for Non-fiction.
In 2012, Sarah took up a position as Senior Lecturer at Western Sydney University, where she teaches in the History and Political Thought major.
Sarah and her husband, Johnathan, have three children, Madeleine, Charlotte, and James. Sarah and her family live in the Hawkesbury region outside of Sydney, where her husband practises law at Stonebraker Lawyers, and they are active members of a Sydney Anglican Church.