Professor Alistair Thomson completed his BA degree in Arts at Melbourne University in 1982, followed by an MA and DPhil in History at the University of Sussex in England.  He was active in the community history and oral history movements, and taught for 16 years at the University of Sussex where he became Professor of Oral History, Director of the Centre for Life History Research and a Trustee of the Mass-Observation Archive.  Between 1991 and 2007 he co-edited Oral History, the Journal of th Oral History Society of Great Britain, and is currently President of the International Oral History Association.  He returned in 2007 to take up a position at Monash University.