Vice-Chancellor's Fellows

Professor Dennis Altman AM is the son of Jewish refugees, who first came to attention with the publication of his book Homosexual: Oppression & Liberation in 1972.

His most recent books are God Save the Queen: the strange persistence of monarchies and Death in the Sauna.

Dennis Altman is an Emeritus Professor of Politics and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He was President of the AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (2001-2005) and was listed by The Bulletin as one of the 100 most influential Australians ever. He is Patron of the Australian Queer Archives and the Pride Foundation.

Robert Manne is an Emeritus Professor of Politics, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow and Convenor of the Ideas and Society Program at La Trobe University.

He is the author or editor of twenty-seven books, including The Petrov Affair: Politics and Espionage; The Culture of Forgetting: Helen Demidenko and the Holocaust; In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right; Left, Right, Left: Political Essays 1977-2005; Making Trouble; Cypherpunk Revolutionary-On Julian Assange; The Mind of the Islamic State; and most recently On Borrowed Time. Manne was editor of Quadrant between 1990 and 1997 and has been chair of the boards of both The Australian Book Review and The Monthly. He has been a regular public affairs columnist for several Australian newspapers and magazines since the mid-1980s and a frequent commentator on ABC radio and television. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Professor Graves is the first La Trobe academic to win Australia’s most coveted prize for science, the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science.

She is also the first woman to be individually recognised by this prize. It places her in outstanding company; previous winners include Australian scientists who helped eradicate smallpox, developed the wireless internet and developed the first cancer vaccine.

Her research uses the genetic diversity of Australia’s unique mammals such as the kangaroo, emu and platypus to study how the mammal genome works and how it evolved.

Her life’s work has used marsupials and monotremes, birds and lizards, to understand the complexity of the human genome and to reveal new human genes.

She has transformed our understanding of how sex chromosomes work and how they evolved, predicting the decline and disappearance of the Y chromosome. Her research has contributed to a deeper understanding of many human genes, including those of the immune system, prion diseases and blood proteins. Her work helps to understand the tumour driving the Tasmanian devil to extinction.

Professor Graves has longstanding commitments to women in science, and science education. She won the 2006 international L’Oreal UNESCO prize for women in science, and served as both foreign secretary, and secretary for education in the Australian Academy of Science.

As VC Fellow, Professor Graves will work with La Trobe scientists to integrate genomics into traditional fields of animal biology, ecology and conservation. She will act as a role model and figurehead for La Trobe’s initiatives (including SAGE) to attract more women into STEM disciplines and into senior roles in those disciplines. She will also more broadly help promote women in science.

Ms Cathy McGowan AO is a former politician, former teacher and strong advocate for higher education participation in regional and rural Victoria.

Cathy came to national attention when she won the rural Victorian seat of Indi as an independent in 2013. The community backed her again in 2016. In 2019 Indi made Australian political history when Dr Helen Haines was elected as Indi's second, independent woman.

During her time as a politician Cathy actively worked in Parliament to develop policy around regional development, constitutional change for first nations people and a solution to the indefinite detention of asylum seekers.

In 2019 Cathy was awarded The Accountability Round Table award for political integrity. She was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2004 "for service to the community through raising awareness of and stimulating debate about issues affecting women in regional, rural and remote areas."

Cathy is a La Trobe University Vice-Chancellor's Fellow, a Churchill Fellow and lives very happily on her farm in the Indigo Valley in NE Victoria.

From an international student to a global tech leader, from a career at Google UK to TikTok in China, from an introvert to a TEDx speaker, Dr.Susan Zhang continues to push boundaries and explore outside her comfort zone.

Dr. Susan Zhang holds a PhD in Computing and Information Technology. Her thesis on leveraging AI-powered Educational Influencers in Higher Education received the Examiner’s Commendation for Outstanding Thesis.

Dr. Zhang is recognised as a high-energy business leader and technology serial
entrepreneur. She effectively brings a combination of technical prowess and commercial acumen in her leadership positions at Google, later for ByteDance (TikTok), Amazon and Canva where her career has taken her to Australia, China and the United Kingdom. Currently, she is the Head of Creative and EdTech, Digital Trade for the British Government based in Sydney.

Dr. Zhang is a published author, a TEDx Speaker and a mentor for young entrepreneurs. In 2019, the Australia China Alumni Association named Susan the Young Australia China Alumni of the Year, and in 2022, Susan received a Judges’ Commendation in the Australian Ambassador’s Award for Women in Leadership.

Dr. Zhang believes her research can play a key part in harnessing the capabilities of AI-driven education influencers at the intersection of e-learning technology and pedagogy Digitalisation.