Professor Nakata is a Torres Strait Islander who graduated with a Bachelor of Education with honours from James Cook University where he subsequently was awarded his PhD in 1998. He is Chair of Australian Indigenous Education,and Director of Nura Gili at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). He is also a Board member of the Collections Councils of Australia Ltd. He has presented eighteen plenary and keynote addresses at national as well as international conferences in ten countries, and published over seventy articles on Indigenous Australians and education in various academic journals and books in Australia and abroad. He is a former member of the editorial board of The Australian Educational Researcher and current member of the editorial board of the Journal of Indigenous policy and Balayi