Bodean Hedwards (Co-Chair)

Dr Bodean Hedwards has been leading international social impact initiatives across government, civil society and most recently, the higher education sector for over a decade. She is currently the social impact and partnership leads with UNSW Engineering and was previously the Director of the multi-award-winning Global Immersion Guarantee (GIG) with Monash University’s Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor Education. A skilled partnership broker and strategy expert, Bodean has developed network of government and non-government organisations across the Indo-Pacific that are committed to collective, sustainable global change.

Bodean is also the Co-Chair of the Australia India Youth Dialogue - the pre-eminent track II dialogue in the Australia-India bilateral relationship.

With a background as a criminologist, Bodean has specialised in research on human trafficking, slavery and irregular migration, having spent much of the last decade working alongside leading organisations such as the Global Initiative Against Transnational and Organised Crime, the Walk Free Foundation, Monash University's Trafficking and Slavery Research Group, the Rights Lab at Nottingham University and various UN agencies, on how to best respond to these issues.

Bodean has a PhD from Monash University, during which she was a Visiting Study Fellow at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre and a Bachelor of Criminology (Honours) from Deakin University.