Ruth McCausland

Associate Professor
UNSW

Associate Professor Ruth McCausland’s research focuses on enabling systemic and community-led solutions to incarceration and disadvantage. She is the UNSW Director of Yuwaya Ngarra-li, a long-term multidisciplinary community-led partnership with the Dharriwaa Elders Group that grew from collaboration on a research study about the criminalisation of Aboriginal people with mental and cognitive disability; the partnership aims to improve the wellbeing, environment and life pathways of Aboriginal people in Walgett and build a new model of community-university collaboration. Ruth is and has been an investigator on research projects funded by the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre and philanthropic organisations. She has worked for almost 30 years in the fields of human rights, evaluation, community development and criminology. Ruth’s PhD was on evaluation and the diversion of Aboriginal women from custody, and she also has a Masters in International Social Development. She is on the Board of the Community Restorative Centre and the NSW Committee of the Australian Evaluation Society, and is an Associate of the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute and Australian Human Rights Institute.