Professor Carolyn Evans is Vice Chancellor and President of Griffith University, a role which she has held since the start of 2019. Carolyn graduated with degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Melbourne and earned her doctorate from Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar.    

Before joining Griffith University, Carolyn served as Dean of Law and Deputy Vice Chancellor (Graduate and International) and Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne. Her scholarly work focuses on law, religion, and human rights. She received a Fulbright Senior Scholarship in 2010 to undertake comparative religious freedom research. In 2019, Carolyn was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.   

Carolyn has held various leadership roles, including Queensland Chair and national Board member of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia from 2023-2025, President of Australian Higher Education Industrial Association from 2022-2024, Chair of the Innovative Research Universities from 2021-2022 and board member of Open Universities Australia from 2019-2023.  Currently, she is a board member of the Australian-American Fulbright Commission and a member of Chief Executive Women. Carolyn will assume the role of Chair for Universities Australia from June 2025. 

Mr Luke Sheehy commenced as the CEO of Universities Australia in February 2024. He is a highly skilled leader with more than 20 years’ experience shaping the agenda of higher education.

Prior to UA, Mr Sheehy led the Australian Technology Network of Universities for almost five years. He has also held key education roles in government, worked as an education and strategy consultant for the Asian Development Bank and held senior management roles at Swinburne University.

As the first member of his family to graduate from university, Mr Sheehy knows first-hand the power of education to transform lives and is driven to ensure that opportunity is provided to as many people as possible.

Professor Rufus Black is the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Tasmania.

Rufus holds degrees in law, politics, economics, ethics, and theology from the University of Melbourne and Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

Rufus’s research and writing have been published widely, including by Oxford University Press and Routledge. Most recently, he was a coauthor of Ethics at War (Routledge 2024). He has also authored a number of major public reports for the Australian Government, drawing on his expertise in ethics, management, and strategy.

Rufus’s educational and social sector experience includes being President of Museums Victoria, the Deputy Chancellor of Victoria University, Strategic Advisor to the Secretary of Education in Victoria, the founding Chair of the Board of Teach for Australia, a Director of the New York-based Teach for All, a Director of the Cranlana Foundation, and a Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Rufus’s work on economic issues and his commercial experience has included being a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he worked on strategy, organisation, and public sector issues in Australia and Asia, being a Board Member of the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, a Board Member of Innovation Science Australia, and a Director of the national law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

Rufus’ work for government on matters of Defence and Security has included conducting the Black Review into Governance and Accountability in the Department of Defence, Co-Leading the Prime Minister’s Independent Review of the Australian Intelligence Community, being a member of the Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel.

Professor Attila Brungs is the Vice-Chancellor of UNSW. He was previously Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Technology Sydney and has held senior positions with CSIRO and McKinsey & Company.

Professor Brungs is a Rhodes Scholar with a Doctorate in Inorganic Chemistry from Oxford University and a University Medal in Industrial Chemistry from the University of New South Wales.

Some of Professor Brungs’s present key appointments include Group of Eight board; Chair of the Committee for Sydney’s Research Committee; member of the national Equity in Higher Education Panel; Advisor to the NSW Innovation and Productivity Council and ATSE fellow.

Some of Professor Brungs’ present key appointments include ATN Chair; Chair of the National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund Working Group, member of the NSW Government Tech Central Industry Advisory Group; the NSW Innovation and Productivity Council; the Committee for Sydney Board; and ATSE fellow. His experience includes many distinguished past board and committee memberships, including not-for-profit organisations, in addition to numerous state and federal government and institutional appointments.

Professor Hayne has been the Vice-Chancellor of Curtin University since April 2021, prior to this she was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago, in New Zealand, since 2011. She was the Chair of the Australian Technology Network of Universities from April 2023 to April 2025. 

Originally from the United States, Professor Hayne received a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College, and a Master of Science and PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience from Rutgers University.  She spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton before joining the University of Otago in 1992, subsequently serving as Head of the Psychology Department and as Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise before being appointed as Vice-Chancellor.  Professor Hayne has been awarded continuous research funding since 1992 and continues to conduct research and has published widely in the areas of memory development and adolescent risk taking.   

During her tenure at Otago, Professor Hayne was Chair of Universities New Zealand and the Universities New Zealand Research Committee and a member of the Board of Treasury and the Board of Fulbright New Zealand. She has also served on the Board of Fulbright Australia. In 2009 she was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to scientific and medical research.  She received an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from Colorado College, USA, in 2012, and an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Otago in 2021.  In 2022, she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM), in recognition of her services to health and wellbeing. 

 Professor Renée Leon is the Vice-Chancellor and President of Charles Sturt University, a role she commenced in September 2021. 

 Professor Leon holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from the Australian National University and a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge, which she attended as the Menzies Foundation Law Scholar in 1995. 

 Prior to her role in the higher education sector, Professor Leon had extensive experience in Commonwealth and State public administration, covering policy, program management and service delivery.  She was the Secretary of two Commonwealth departments between 2013-2020, and was appointed National President of the Institute of Public Administration Australia in 2022. 

Professor Leon was awarded a Public Service Medal in 2013 for outstanding service to public administration and law in leadership roles in the Australian Capital Territory and the Commonwealth. 

Professor Leon is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia and a member of Chief Executive Women Australia.  

Professor Andrew Parfitt joined UTS in February 2017 as the university’s Provost and Senior Vice-President before being appointed Vice-Chancellor in November 2021.  

Previously Andrew was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Newcastle. He has also held senior leadership roles at the University of South Australia and the CSIRO. 

Andrew has a distinguished career as an educator and researcher in telecommunications engineering, specialising in antennas and radio systems and has made contributions to satellite communications, radio astronomy technologies and space engineering. 

Andrew is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, a Fellow of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He has previously held adjunct academic appointments at Adelaide, Sydney and Macquarie Universities.  

Andrew is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and has served on many boards and committees, including most recently as Chair of the Universities Admissions Centre in NSW.  

Andrew holds a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) from the University of Adelaide.  

Professor Adam Shoemaker has extensive experience in the Australian University sector and is one of the nations leading researchers in Indigenous literature and culture.   

He commenced as the Vice-Chancellor and President of Victoria University in December 2020 after four years as Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University. 

Before these roles, Professor Shoemaker was a senior leader at a number of other Australian universities, including Academic Provost at Griffith University, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) at Monash University and Dean of Arts at the Australian National University.  

He spent his formative years in a diverse range of fields, such as reviewer and columnist for The Australian, an ABC Canberra radio series contributor, and a member of the National Press Club. He served as chair of the Brisbane Writers Festival in the mid-1990s and spent three years with the Delegation of the Commission of the European Committees. He was Deputy Director of the European Community pavilion at World Expo 88 in Brisbane.  

Professor Shoemaker also had positions on the advisory board of Monash University Publishing and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), and Director of Open Universities Australia.   

Canadian by birth, Professor Shoemaker holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Queen’s University and a PhD from the Australian National University. 

AWARDS

• Arrived in Australia as a Commonwealth Scholar  
• Winner of the Walter McRae Russell Award 1990 – Association for the Study of Australian Literature   
• Highly commended in the Human Rights Awards – Australian Human Rights Commission for Paperbark: A Collection of Black Australian Writings (1990) and Black Words, White Page (1989, 1992, 2004) 

PUBLICATIONS

Professor Shoemaker is the author or editor of nine books focused on Indigenous Australian Literature and Culture, including:

• Aboriginal Australians: First Nations of an Ancient Continent (2004)  
  Authors Professor Adam Shoemaker and Stephen Muecke trace the richly diverse and longstanding origins of Australia’s First Nations people through to the present day. 
• Black Words, White Page (2004)  
  This award-winning study – the first comprehensive treatment of the nature and significance of Indigenous Australian literature – was based upon Professor Shoemaker’s doctoral research at The Australian National University and was first published by UQP in 1989.
• A Sea Change: Australian Writing and Photography (Editor, 1998)  
  Commissioned by Andrea Strelton of SBS, Artistic Director of the Olympic Arts Festivals of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, this anthology brought together 25 of Australia’s finest writers and photographers to explore the transformation that took place two years before the Games. 
• Mudrooroo: A Critical Study (1993) 
  A study of all of Mudrooroo’s (Colin Jackson’s) books up to The Kwinkan – his poetry, criticism and unpublished novels. 

Professor Zlatko Skrbis became the fourth Vice-Chancellor and President of Australian Catholic University in January 2021. He previously held senior leadership positions at Australian Catholic University, Monash University, and The University of Queensland.

He holds a PhD in sociology from Flinders University and undergraduate degrees in sociology and philosophy from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

As Vice-Chancellor and President of ACU, Professor Skrbis is leading an ambitious program of transformational change across the university, while displaying an unwavering commitment to ACU’s traditions, values, and Catholic mission.

It is his ambition to ensure that ACU is globally recognised as an institution that adheres to its strong Catholic principles and makes a tangible improvement to the lives of others through excellence in education, research and engagement.