Gorger Wurm - Alara Reborn

Helen Groger-Wurm, birth name Helene Gröger (1921–2005), was an Austrian-Australian ethnologist, anthropologist and linguist. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1946, she married the Hungarian-born linguist Stefan Wurm. In 1954 the couple moved to Australia where they obtained Australian citizenship. They carried out field research in New Guinea and in northern Australia. From 1962 until her 1974, Groger-Wurm was a research officer at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, lecturing in parallel on the Aboriginal way of life at the Australian National University. She went on to take up work a librarian at the Australian National Library until her retirement in 1982. She is remembered in particular for her work in connection with Aboriginal bark painting.