Heather Douglas

Professor Heather Douglas joined Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne in 2021 as a Professor, where she teaches and researches in the area of criminal law and procedure. Her expertise on legal responses to domestic and family violence is internationally recognised. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from Monash University, a Master of Laws from Queensland University of Technology, and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Melbourne. Prior to her current position, she served as a Professor at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland. Douglas has held visiting fellowships at Humboldt University Faculty of Law in 2018, Durham University Institute of Advanced Studies in 2016, and Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in 2004. From 2015 to 2019, she was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, with her project examining women’s engagements with the legal system as part of their response to domestic and family violence. She coordinates the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book and currently leads an Australian Research Council-funded project on the application of non-fatal strangulation offences. Her research also addresses the operation and application of law in the context of Australian indigenous–settler relations.

Douglas is a member of the Melbourne Alliance to End Violence Against Women and Their Children, serves on the editorial boards of Legalities: The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Law and Society and Australian Feminist Studies, and acts as an ambassador for NOFASARD Australia. She contributes to the Australian Selection Committee for the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University since 2018 and assisted in the Indigenous Judgments Project. Her contributions have been honoured with the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2022 for service to tertiary law education and the community, election as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of Law, the University of Melbourne Woodward Medal in 2025 for research excellence, and the 2021 Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand book prize for Women, Intimate Partner Violence and the Law (Oxford University Press, 2021). Other key publications include Indigenous Crime and Settler Law: White Sovereignty After Empire (co-authored with Mark Finnane, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Indigenous Legal Judgments: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making (co-edited with Nicole Watson, Routledge, 2021). Her scholarship has influenced legislative and judicial reforms on domestic abuse.

Professional Email: douglash@unimelb.edu.au