Michael Roe (historian)

He became a professor of history at the University of Tasmania, retiring in 1996. He published several history books during his career, including A Short History of Tasmania and Australia, Britain and Migration 1915-1940.

Roe's fields of research primarily focuses on Australian history, British history, North American history, historical archaeology, heritage and cultural conservation, and industrial archaeology. Furthermore, his research objectives include understanding Australia's past and history alongside expanding knowledge in psychology, history, heritage, human history, and archaeology. Roe has been funded a total of 5 grants from the University of Tasmania under his name. His funded projects include research on a wide range of Tasmanian individuals and history. From 1985 to 1987, he received a grant to research Herbert Gepp, an Australian industrialist, his zinc company the Electrolytic Zinc Company, and the development and migration commission in the 1920s. Later in 1994, he received another research grant for Roe's own published book Immigration policy and experience in Australia, 1915-1940 which was completed in 1994. In 1999, two grants were also given to his research on the 1901 General Australian Federal Election as well as research on notable Tasmanian Jane Franklin's personal journals and correspondence. In 2003, a grant was given to finance the book project Companion to Tasmanian History, a collaborative effort with the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies at the University of Tasmania.

Educated at Caulfield Grammar School (he was dux of the school in 1948), Roe attended the University of Melbourne and began studying a combined BA/LL.B. degree. He discontinued law after his first year, and after graduating from his arts degree he studied history at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. While studying in Cambridge, Roe was taught by Derek John Mulvaney, an Australian archaeologist known as the "father of Australian archaeology".

Owen Michael Roe (born 5 February 1931) is an Australian historian and academic, focusing on Australian history.