Academics celebrated as AFR Women of Influence
The 100 Women of Influence list announced today celebrates the contribution women make across Australian society and is committed to increasing the visibility of women’s leadership in Australia. Women are recognised for using their skills and talents to advocate for change and to benefit society.
This year a record 833 entries were received for the awards.
The women from the University of Sydney making the final list of 100 are:
Professor of Public law at Sydney Law School, recognised in the category of Diversity and Inclusion.
Professor Crock is best known for her research interest in the treatment and plight of migrants in vulnerable circumstances, including children and persons with disabilities. Her work on unaccompanied child asylum seekers saw her shortlisted in 2007 for the Human Rights Medal.
She was awarded the National Ethnic Disability Alliance Medal for her work on refugees with disabilities in 2015 and the Affinity Intercultural Foundation Award for Contributions to Social Justice and Human Rights in 2016.
She has published 13 books including a leading text on Australian immigration and refugee law.
She has worked as adviser to the Australian Senate (Inquiry into Australia’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program, 2000); consultant to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (on immigration detention); and consultant to the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse (on children in immigration detention).
She is Australia’s lead researcher in a comparative law database project on international migration law and policy. Her research has been cited frequently in Australia’s federal courts and High Court and she has given evidence before many parliamentary hearings.
Professor Crock’s expertise spans immigration, citizenship and refugee law, administrative and constitutional law, public international law, particularly human rights and international refugee law, and comparative law.
Professor Leask from the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, recognised in the Global category, studies what people think, feel and do about vaccination. She is chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group on Measuring Behavioural and Social Drivers of Vaccination. She sits on the Immunization and Vaccines related Implementation Research advisory committee of WHO.
Professor Leask chairs a working group developing tools for countries to diagnose and address the causes of low vaccination rates. The group is globally recognised for research in social and behavioural aspects of vaccination.
She is a visiting professorial fellow at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance and established its social science program. In 2015 she won the Public Health Impact Award and the Sax Institute Research Action Award.
She has advised the Global Vaccine Action Plan, UNICEF, the US President’s Cancer Panel US Centers for Disease Control, ECDC, the US and Australian governments in vaccination program and policy issues.
With four international colleagues Professor Leask founded the Vaccination Acceptance Research Network aiming to strengthen the evidence base for increasing vaccine acceptance. She co-authored a commissioned review paper on the Psychology of Vaccination for the prestigious journal Psychological Sciences in the Public Interest. The paper has been used by UNICEF and WHO in program planning.
Professor Long from the Faculty of Medicine and Health, Co-Medical Director of the Melanoma Institute of Australia, has been recognised in the Social Enterprise and Not-for-Profit category.
Named as Outstanding Cancer Researcher of the Year in 2018 Professor Long is dedicated to investigating how immunotherapy drugs can tackle melanoma. She leads an extensive clinical trials team and laboratory with a focus on targeted therapies and immuno-oncology, including trials in patients with active brain metastases.
Professor Long was the first woman and the first Australian to be president of the prestigious international body Society for Melanoma Research.
The Melanoma Institute Australia is a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Sydney, based at the Poche Centre, which focuses on prevention of and cure for melanoma through research, treatment and education programs. Together with Professor Richard Scolyer she was awarded the Excellence in Translational Cancer Research award in the 2017 NSW Premier's Awards for Outstanding Cancer Research.
Professor Long is Chair of Melanoma Medical Oncology and Translational Research at MIA and Royal North Shore Hospital, The University of Sydney.
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research, recognised in the Innovation category.
Professor Troy’s research focuses on documenting, describing and reviving Indigenous languages. She is a passionate advocate for reconstructing Australian languages and keeping them alive through education and memorialisation.
She has two Australian Research Council Discovery Projects, on the history of Aboriginal missions and reserves in eastern Australia, and on the practice of 'corroboree' by Aboriginal people in the 'assimilation period' of mid-20th century Australia. She is interested in the use of Indigenous research methodologies and community- engaged research practices. She has done linguistic anthropology research all over the world.
Jakelin Troy is a Ngarigu woman from the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. She is the author of The Sydney Language, written to revive interest the Aboriginal language of the Sydney district and is Editor in Chief of ab-Original: Journal of Indigenous Studies and First Nations and First Peoples’ Cultures.