Born in Armidale and raised in the LaTrobe Valley in Victoria, Catharine Coleborne holds undergraduate and masters qualifications at the University of Melbourne and a PhD from LaTrobe University. The latter dissertation, on gender and the confinement of the mentally ill in colonial Victoria, set the pattern for Coleborne's later research interests, which look at intersections of mental health, illness, trauma, mobility, gender, law, colonialism, families, and medical institutionalisation.
In 1998, the year after she obtained her PhD, Coleborne took up a post at the University of Waikato, in New Zealand, where she remained for sixteen years, before returning to Australia, where, as of 2018, she is Head of the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle.
