Dr Sally Montgomery

Sally Montgomery is an anthropologist of political ecology, multispecies relations, conservation, belonging, and islands. She completed her PhD and MRes in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

Sally’s work is currently based on Lord Howe Island, Australia where she combines political ecology, more-than-human anthropology, and historical-ethnography perspectives to unpack contestations over belonging and conservation on the Island. Her work engages with topics of kinship, eradication, bureaucracy, science as well as non-human histories.  

Sally engages with creative research methodologies, particularly as a multispecies ethnographer, using drawing, painting and image-making to explore different modes of representation and engagement. She is also passionate about public engagement and applied anthropology and has been featured in Sapiens Magazine and was shortlisted for the Best of Australian Science Writing Award 2025 for her piece about freediving and belonging.

Sally is currently working with Professor Rebecca Cassidy on a project entitled Multispecies Succession and developing new research foci on the evolutionary and social history of the Lord Howe Island Kentia Palm.