'Laura Donati has a long association with history. Having completed a MA (Public History) at the University of Melbourne in 2002, she commenced a career as a freelance professional historian which resulted in the publication of six books exploring various aspects of Victoria’s history. In 2014, she was awarded an Australian Research Council funded PhD scholarship with Monash University to complete a PhD titled “Free Wives of Convicts: ‘The Really Forgotten Women of Botany Bay.” The thesis is an exploration of the lives and experiences of free wives of convicts, a recognised yet historically neglected group of colonial women in early New South Wales.' (Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia (JEASA), Vol.7 No.2, 2016.)
