Program speakers

Dr Virginia Marshall

Inaugural Indigenous Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr Virginia Marshall, Wiradjiri Nyemba yinaa. Virginia is Principal Solicitor/Director in her law firm, Triple BL Legal practising in native title, and advocates on Traditional Knowledge protection and human rights. Virginia is duty solicitor at the Downing Centre Sydney, formerly a criminal defence solicitor with NSW Legal Aid and Associate/Researcher for the Federal Court Sydney. She is a financial member of the NSW Women’s Lawyers Association. Virginia is also the Inaugural Indigenous Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University, with the Schools of Regulation & Global Governance & Fenner Environment and Science. Virginia is the leading legal scholar on Indigenous Australian water rights and recognised by the University of Victoria BC as a Distinguished Woman Scholar. National winner of the AIATSIS WEH Stanner Prize for best Indigenous thesis. Author of the award winning seminal book Overturning Aqua Nullius (2017). Co-Chair of the national Committee on Aboriginal Water Interests to reform the National Water Initiative. She is a member of the Australian National University’s ‘Climate Change Institute’, Human Research Ethics Committee ANU, inaugural Chair of the Indigenous Research Advisory Group ANU, Water Expert for the World Economic Forum, the Australia Capital Territory Champion, human rights adviser and Executive Board member with the Indigenous Peoples Organisation (Australia), member of the Advisory Panel for an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and ‘Water Justice Hub’. Virginia was appointed as a UN Pacific Delegate to COP26 in Glasgow 2021 for the Indigenous Peoples Platform meetings. Virginia was awarded the 2022 ARC Indigenous Discovery Grant ($1,000,000) to research the opportunities and barriers for Aboriginal Australian medicines.