Director

Professor Michelle Foster

Michelle Foster is a Professor and Director of the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness at Melbourne Law School. Elected in 2022 as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, Michelle is a leading international authority on refugee law, human rights and statelessness. Her key publications include International Refugee Law and Socio-Economic Rights: Refuge from Deprivation (CUP, 2007, Winner of the University of Melbourne’s Woodward Medal), with James C. Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status, Second Edition, (CUP 2014), with Hélène Lambert, International Refugee Law and the Protection of Stateless Persons (OUP 2019) and with Cathryn Costello and Jane McAdam, The Oxford Handbook of International Refugee Law (OUP 2021). Michelle teaches Refugee Law and International Refugee Law at Melbourne Law School, and directs the annual Statelessness Intensive Course at Melbourne Law School.  She is a recipient of the University of Melbourne’s Barbara Falk Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Michelle has undertaken consultancy work for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and training of refugee tribunal members in New Zealand and Australia. She is Founder and Editor in Chief (with Laura van Waas) of the Statelessness and Citizenship Review. Michelle is also an Advisory Board Member of the Melbourne Journal of International Law and an Associate Member of the International Association of Refugee and Migration Law Judges. From 2013-2023 Michelle was a Board member of AMES Australia (Deputy Chair 2020-2023).

In 2022 Michelle was appointed a member of the Global Alliance Taskforce which is responsible for developing the foundational elements of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness, a new initiative which seeks to accelerate solutions to statelessness through a collective multi-stakeholder approach