Her research and writing focuses on Indigenous and environmental history and intercolonial networks.
She received a PhD from the same university in 1982 for her thesis "A History of Aboriginal Communities in New South Wales, 1909–1939".
[1][2] Goodall won the inaugural Australian History Prize at the New South Wales Premier's History Awards in 1997 for Invasion to Embassy[3] and a Rona Tranby Award in 1998.
[4] Goodall was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2007.
[3] Goodall was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2024 King's Birthday Honours for "significant service to tertiary education, particularly social science, and to the Indigenous community".