Alumni Highlights
Dr Joanne McCarthy
Exceptional Community Service Award - 2017
Dr Joanne McCarthy
Honorary Degree - Doctor of Letters 2015
Bachelor of Arts 2003
Award-winning Newcastle Herald journalist Dr Joanne McCarthy’s work transcends traditional journalism to extraordinary depths of advocacy. Delivered under extreme pressure and public scrutiny, Joanne’s work is empathic, courageous and composed. In 2006, she started writing about child sexual abuse in Newcastle and Hunter Valley institutions, primarily the Catholic Church. In 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard acknowledged Joanne’s role in her decision-making as she announced the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Since then, Joanne has given hundreds of speeches and won many accolades, including the Gold Walkley Award 2013, for her writing on this issue. Joanne won her third Walkley Award in 2015 for the Herald’s coverage of the Williamtown RAAF Base contamination scandal, and has more recently turned her attention to the problems affecting thousands of Australian women after surgery to insert a class of products known as transvaginal mesh.
Dr Joanne McCarthy
Honorary Degree - Doctor of Letters 2015; Bachelor of Arts 2003
Alumni Excellence Awards
Exceptional Community Service Award
The University of Newcastle acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands within our footprint areas: Awabakal, Darkinjung, Biripai, Worimi, Wonnarua, and Eora Nations. We also pay respect to the wisdom of our Elders past and present.