Siobhan McDonnell

Career Highlights:

-  Pacific negotiator on Loss and Damage United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), Conference of the Parties negotiations (representing Vanuatu and Fiji) (2019-ongoing).

- Awarded an ARC DECRA: "Not drowning, fighting?: UN climate governance and Pacific Island countries" to conduct event ethnography of UN climate governance alongside a team of Pacific Islander researchers.

- Special Advisor on Resettlement/ Relocation, Republic of Vanuatu (2024).

- Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery Project on Climate Change and Gender in the Pacific (2018- 2023);

- Launched the loss and damage fund text for the Pacific (while negotiating for Fiji) at the Glasgow United Nations Framework Convention Conference of the Parties meeting (2021);

- Appointed to the G8 Taskforce advising Australia's Chief Medical Officer on COVID meansures (2020);

- Lead negotiator for the Republic of Vanuatu on climate change and regional political issues (West Papua) Pacific Island Forum and international forums (2019-2021);

- Chief Investigator on the evaluation of a $8.25 million project looking at the use of family dispute resolution in the context of family violence in Indigenous and refugee families (2017-2020);

- Awarded the Australian Anthropology prize for the best thesis in Anthropology in Australia (2017);

- Awarded the Gender Institute prize for the thesis that most contributed to the advancement of gender studies (2017);

- Chief Investigator on a project for the Solomon Islands Government to develop a land reform pathway (2015);  

- Principal drafter of a new set of land laws in Vanuatu, as well as amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Vanuatu (2013-14);

- Legal/policy Advisor Central Land Council (2003-2008);

- Project Manager Reconciliation Australia (2001-2003);

- Research Officer Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (1999-2003).