Prof. Carolyn Evans (Griffith University) Australia

Professor Carolyn Evans commenced her appointment as Vice Chancellor and President of Griffith University in February 2019, leading one of Australia’s fastest-growing and most progressive tertiary institutions, ranked in the top 2% of universities worldwide. In 2019, Carolyn was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and became a member of the organisation, Chief Executive Women. She is President of the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association, and was Chair of the Innovative Research Universities from 2021-2022, former board member of Open Universities Australia from 2019-2023 and current Board member of Universities Australia.

Prior to joining Griffith, Professor Evans was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Graduate and International) and Deputy Provost (2017-2018) at the University of Melbourne, and Dean and Harrison Moore Professor of Law, University of Melbourne Law School (2011-2017).  Professor Evans has degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Melbourne and a doctorate from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar and held a stipendiary lectureship for two years.  In 2010, Carolyn was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholarship to allow her to travel as a Visiting Fellow to American and Emory Universities to examine questions of comparative religious freedom.  She has also taught in the human rights summer school at European University Institute.

Throughout her career, Carolyn has promoted the importance of universities combining excellence in teaching and research with a commitment to social justice and inclusion.

Carolyn is the author of Legal Protection of Religious Freedom in Australia (Federation Press 2012), Religious Freedom under the European Court of Human Rights (OUP 2001) and co-author of Australian Bills of Rights: The Law of the Victorian Charter and the ACT Human Rights Act (LexisNexis 2008) and Open Minds: Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Australia (Black Inc. 2021). She is co-editor of Religion and International Law (1999, Kluwer); Mixed Blessings: Laws, Religions and Women's Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region (2006 Martinus Nijhoff) and Law and Religion in Historical and Theoretical Perspective (CUP 2008). She is an internationally recognised expert on religious freedom and the relationship between law and religion and has spoken on these topics in the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, Greece, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Malaysia, Nepal and Australia.