Jon Altman is currently a research professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University and emeritus professor with the School of Regulation and Global Governance at The Australian National University, where he was the foundation director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) 1990–2010. He has a disciplinary background in economics and anthropology and has worked with Kuninjku-speaking people in West Arnhem Land, north Australia, since 1979.