Lisa Erlandson

Lisa Erlandson is an Arrernte and Kaytetye woman, born and raised in Alice Springs, with strong cultural ties to First Nations language, knowledge systems and community. She currently works as a Project Officer and Lecturer at Batchelor Institute while also studying a Certificate IV in Teaching and Learning a First Nations Language. Lisa holds a Certificate IV in Project Management and a Certificate III in Business, which support her work in coordinating community-based programs and language initiatives.

Her work focuses on supporting Indigenous communities across Australia, particularly in the Central Desert and Top End regions, through language revitalisation, education and community-driven initiatives.

Lisa has been involved in a range of community language projects that support the preservation and strengthening of First Nations languages. She has contributed to project work in Belyuen, assisting with community language surveys for AIATSIS, the development of language posters, and supporting the creation of language resources and educational materials in collaboration with community members. This work involves engaging with Elders, language speakers and local organisations to ensure that language knowledge is documented, respected and shared in ways that align with community priorities.

Lisa has also been assisting linguist Kate Paynter alongside local community members in Numbulwar to support the development of an online dictionary for the Nunggubuyu (Wubuy) language. This work contributes to the documentation and accessibility of language resources while supporting community-led efforts to strengthen and maintain the use of the Wubuy language for future generations.

More recently, Lisa has been working with the BI-Language Data Commons of Australia (LDaCA) project. LDaCA is a national partnership between the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and a network of universities and organisations across Australia, led by Professor Michael Haugh from the School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland. The project aims to strengthen the infrastructure, systems and practices that support the collection, management and accessibility of language data across Australia.

Lisa has a strong passion for Indigenous Data Sovereignty, particularly in relation to language materials and cultural knowledge. She advocates for the rights of First Nations peoples to control, access and manage their own language data. For Lisa, data sovereignty means ensuring that language recordings, archives, dictionaries and learning materials remain connected to the communities they belong to, and that decisions about their use, storage and sharing are led by Indigenous people. She believes that protecting language data is not only about research and documentation, but about cultural survival, identity, intergenerational knowledge transfer and community empowerment.

With lived experience as an Aboriginal woman and a deep commitment to education, Lisa is passionate about supporting language revitalisation, strengthening cultural capability and empowering First Nations communities through knowledge sharing, education and self-determination.