Dr Rebecca Ananian-Welsh

Dr Rebecca Ananian-Welsh is a constitutional law scholar and Senior Lecturer at UQ Law with combined expertise in courts, national security and press freedom. She has published widely in these fields, including two edited collections as well as articles in Australia's leading journals. In 2019, Rebecca was awarded the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia’s Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research and a UQ BEL Faculty award, in recognition of her research in national security, press freedom and fair trial rights. Her book 'The Tim Carmody Affair: Australia's Greatest Judicial Crisis' (co-authored with Gabrielle Appleby and Andrew Lynch), was shortlisted for a 2017 Queensland Literary Award and her Sydney Law Review article 'The Inherent Jurisdiction of Courts and the Fair Trial' has been shortlisted for a 2020 Australian Legal Research Award.

Rebecca’s current research combines legal and empirical approaches to examine the impact of national security law on press freedom and edits the Press Freedom Policy Papers.

Rebecca writes regularly for The Conversation, has given evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, and has contributed to numerous submissions to government with respect to national security, human rights and constitutional issues. Prior to joining UQ Law, Rebecca held positions with the Laureate Fellowship Project 'Anti-Terror Laws and the Democratic Challenge' and the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law's Terrorism & Law Project at UNSW and, previously, as a litigation solicitor at DLA Piper, Sydney, and legal officer with the Federal Attorney-General's Department, Canberra.