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.

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.