Dr Patty O'Brien's research and teaching interests focus upon Australian history in particular Australian cultural, political, social and foreign relations history. She also specializes in the colonial history of the Pacific, race relations, indigenous histories, British imperial history and mining in Melanesia. Currently she is working on histories of Australian imperial relations in the colonies of Papua and New Guinea, New Zealand colonial relations with Samoa and British colonialism, privateers and indigenous contact in the Caribbean.

In addition she is well grounded in contemporary events and issues in Australia and the Pacific region. She has authored numerous publications in these fields. In 2011 she was elected President of the Australian and New Zealand Studies Association of North America (ANZSANA). In 2011 she was awarded the Jay I Kislak Fellow in American Studies at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress with the project title “Encircling the World: English Colonial Power, Race and Gender from the Caribbean to the East”.

O'Brien was appointed the JD Stout Fellow in New Zealand Studies at the Stout Centre, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand, for 2012, the first Australian to be awarded this prestigious fellowship. During this fellowship, O'Brien has investigated New Zealand's rule over the Mandated Territory of Western Samoa, focusing upon the nationalist leader Ta'isi Olaf (O.F.) Nelson. She is also working upon the connections between Maori passive resistance communities and the Samoan Mau which also espoused a passive resistance stance in its protests against New Zealand's rule in the interwar period.

O'Brien is the first full-time faculty member for the Center of Australian and New Zealand Studies where she has been teaching since 2001. She teaches classes in Australian, New Zealand and Pacific History in conjunction with the Department of History. She is available to advise theses in Australian, Pacific and British imperial history. She has advised numerous theses produced for the Certificate in Australian and New Zealand Studies since 2001 as well as History phds. She was acting director of the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies in 2004.

Before coming to Georgetown Dr O'Brien taught at the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney in her native Australia.

Academic Honors and Fellowships
2012 JD Stout Fellow in New Zealand Studies, Victoria University Wellington New Zealand.
2011-2012 Jay I Kislak Fellow, John W. Kluge Scholars Center, Library of Congress
2011 Fall SFS Faculty Research Grant
2011 Spring SFS Faculty Research Grant
2010 Fall SFS Faculty Research Grant
2008 Spring SFS Faculty Research Grant
2007 Fall SFS Faculty Research Grant
2003 Summer Research Grant, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown
2000 Tempe Mann Fellowship, Australian Federation of University Women
1993-1996 Australian Postgraduate Award
1994 Frazer Travelling Scholarship
1993 Australasian Pioneer's Club Scholarship
Frazer Travelling Scholarship, University of Sydney
Farrington-Thorpe Scholarship, University of Sydney
1992 University Medal in History, University of Sydney
Charles Brunsdon Fletcher Prize for Pacific History, Department of History, University of Sydney