Professor Kevin Blackburn is a historian teaching at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has taught in Singapore since 1993, when he left the History Department of the University of Queensland to take up his present teaching position. He teaches and researches the history of Southeast Asia and Australia. He focuses on the history of the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia. His work covers the themes of war, memory and the nation, oral history and heritage, as well as the history of education and sport.

Kevin Blackburn is the author of the award winning book 'The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory' (NUS Press, 2022). On the study of war and commemoration, he has co-authored with Karl Hack, ‘Did Singapore Have to Fall?’ (Routledge, 2004) and ‘War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore’ (NUS Press, 2012), as well as co-edited with him ‘Forgotten Captives in Japanese Occupied Asia’ (Routledge, 2008). On the relationship between war, sport and education, he is the author of ‘The Sportsmen of Changi’ (University of New South Wales Press, 2012) and ‘War, Sport and the Anzac Tradition’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). In the area of the history of education, he is the author of ‘Education, Industrialization and the End of Empire in Singapore’ (Routledge, 2017) and co-author with Wu ZongLun of ‘Decolonizing the History Curriculum in Malaysia and Singapore’ (Routledge, 2019). He is editor of the book series ‘Routledge Studies in Educational History and Development in Asia’.

He worked as a historical consultant with the Singapore Tourism Board in 2000 and 2001 on the creation of the Changi Chapel and Museum and the Johore Battery. In addition, he has also been a historical consultant on a number of documentaries on the Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia, including the History Channel's 2009 productions – ‘Sook Ching Massacre' and 'Changi’.

In 1998, he introduced the beginnings of an oral history programme for History at NIE. At the height of the oral history programme (2003-2005) there were over 500 students a year doing oral history assignments as their main piece of assessment. The programme has been an important part of doing History at NIE.