American-Australian Bruce Rigsby was born in 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Louisville and obtained a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Oregon. He worked at the University of Toronto (1964-1966) and the University of Mexico (1966-1975) before taking up the new Chair of Anthropology at the University of Queensland, now the School of Social Science, in 1975. He specialised in languages and ethnography of Indigenous peoples in both the United States and Australia. He worked at UQ until his retirement in 2000, and in 2001 was was made Emeritus Professor of Anthropology. He was a member of the Australian Anthropological Society and the American Anthropological Association. He died on 19 March 2022.