Alumni Highlights
Dr Kcasey McLoughlin

Beryl Nashar Young Researcher Award - 2020

Kcasey McLoughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Newcastle Law School. Her research, broadly defined, concerns the extent to which law can be used as a tool for equality. She has contributed to and shaped important and timely public and scholarly debates about the importance of diversity in public institutions and her expertise has been recognised by policymakers, media outlets and community groups.

Dr McLoughlin was awarded the 2017 Australian Political Studies Association Best PhD Prize for her thesis ‘Situating Women Judges on the High Court of Australia: Not just men in skirts?’ Her first book ‘Women Judges and the Gender Order: Lessons from the High Court of Australia’ (Routledge, 2021) further extends her pathbreaking doctoral research.

In the post-doctoral stage of her career Kcasey has extended the reach of her research to strengthening gender justice internationally. Her collaborative research project with leading scholars Prof Louise Chappell (Director, Human Rights Institute, UNSW) and Dr Rose Grey (USyd) advances Australia's commitment to gender justice internationally by addressing the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) poor conviction record for sexual and gender-based (SGB) crimes.

Her status as an emerging research leader was further recognised in 2019 with her nomination for the Academy of Social Sciences Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research.