Treena Clark is an Aboriginal Kokatha and Wirangu woman based in Adelaide/Kaurna Country. She is a UTS Adjunct Fellow in the Faculty of Design and Society, focusing on Indigenous Australian public relations, activism, fashion, style, cultural practice and wellbeing.

She recently completed her UTS postdoctoral research fellow project, titled, Ad(dressing) Indigeneity: identity, healing, and social change through clothing, fashion, and style. This project aimed to unpack the stories behind First Nations fashion, art, and dress, focusing on urban areas and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ ways of dressing in these environments. Story and research collection were achieved through an Indigenous qualitative method (interviews, visual materials, historical texts). Research outputs were delivered through academic journal articles and book chapters, conference presentations, lectures, exhibition reviews, non-academic book chapters, media articles, radio interviews, a website, and an Instagram page.

Treena completed a Bachelor of Public Relations and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degrees from the University of South Australia and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Her 2021 PhD thesis explored the field of Indigenous Australian public relations and contributed to the decolonisation of Australian public relations. Specifically, the research aimed to assert Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of conducting public relations and privilege the stories, roles and contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have made within it.

Prior to working in research, Treena worked at Recognise as both a Media Officer and Digital Campaign Assistant in the Communications Team. Recognise was the campaign to raise awareness of the need to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution and deal with the racial discrimination within it. She also worked for AIME at the University of South Australia as the Program Manager. AIME’s goal is to encourage and empower Indigenous high school students to finish school and enrol in university, TAFE or gain employment.