Catherine Althaus is ANZSOG Deputy Dean (Teaching and Learning) and the ANZSOG Chair of Public Service Leadership and Reform at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. She has a passion for creatively serving the public interest as a practitioner-academic. Her academic training is in economics and politics and public policy.

Before coming to ANZSOG, she spent nine years teaching and researching in Canada, culminating in her position as Director of the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Prior to that, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Australian National University, and she held a number of policy posts with the Queensland Treasury department and Queensland Office of the Cabinet.

Professor Althaus continues to act as a curriculum, economics and public policy consultant for a range of clients across Australia and Canada. She has been a co-author of the popular textbook The Australian Policy Handbook since its fourth edition in 2007. Since 2017 she has been an editor of the Australian Journal of Public Administration. 

Catherine is a University Medallist and has won several awards, including the 2012 Sam Richardson Award for the most influential article in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, and an Australia Day Medallion for service to the Queensland Treasury.