Tracey Bunda's family are the Wakka Wakka and the Goenpul people. Her career in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander higher education began in 1986 at the Gippsland Institute in Victoria. She later became the convenor of the Weemala Centre, Australian Catholic University, the Director of the Wollotuka Centre at Newcastle University and the Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education at Ngunnalwal Centre at the University of Canberra. Associate Professor Bunda was appointed Director of the Yunggorendi First Nations Centre in Flinders University of South Australia in 2005. She later became Head of the College for Indigenous Studies, Education and Research at the University of Southern Queensland.
Tracey has been chairperson for the Research Ethics Committee, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and also the Indigenous Tertiary Education Policy Committee of the National tertiary Education Unit (NTEU). In 2004 she gave the Duguid lecture 'Self Determination : Actualising the Space' and in the following year she was the keynote speaker at the Indigenous Higher Education conference in Queensland. In 2005 and 2006 Tracey held the positions of Secretary and Treasurer of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association and during that time she was also a member of the National Indigenous Higher Education Council.
Tracey was a member of the AustLit Advisory Board and and advisor on the BlackWords project in its establishment years.
In 2019, she moved to the University of Queensland to become Director of the ATSIS Unit’s academic team and convener of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies major in the Bachelor of Arts.
