Elspeth Nina Tilley is an Australian playwright, actor and academic and is a full professor at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand.

Tilley earned a BA(Hons) in 1996 at the University of Queensland with a thesis called More than one and solo: subjectivity in contemporary Australian and Canadian monodrama, which she followed with a PhD in drama and literature in 2007.

[1] Her doctoral thesis, also at Queensland, was titled White vanishing: a settler Australian hegemonic textual strategy, 1789-2006.

[4] Tilley's research covers theatre, performance, literature, media and public communication, examining ethics and social justice.

[5] She has published four books, including White Vanishing and Creative Activism: Research, Pedagogy and Practice.