Professor Megan Jane Davis

Scientia Professor Dr Megan Davis is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Society (PVCS) at UNSW Sydney. Professor Davis is also a UNSW Scientia Professor and holds the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law and the Whitlam Fraser Harvard Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University and is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. She has also been appointed a Penn Carey Law Bok Visiting International Professor, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (Penn Carey Law).

Professor Davis is a renowned constitutional lawyer and public law expert, specialising on Indigenous peoples and the law, the constitutional recognition of First Nations and democracy.

Professor Davis is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Prof Davis is an Acting Commissioner of the NSW Land and Environment Court.

She has been the leading Australian lawyer on constitutional recognition of First Nations peoples for two decades and designed the Referendum Council’s deliberative process that led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

From 2022-2023 she served on the Referendum Working Group, the Referendum Engagement Group and the Attorney General’s Constitutional Expert Group. She was a member of the Prime Minister’s Referendum Council (2015-2017) and the Prime Minister’s Expert Panel on the Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution (2011-2012). She is the Co-Chair of the Uluru Dialogue – the group of First Nations leaders who led the Uluru Statement from the Heart work.

Professor Davis was a Commissioner on the QLD Commission of Inquiry into Youth Detention Centres in 2016 alongside Kathryn McMillan KC. Many of their inquiry recommendations have been implemented. Professor Davis was also the Chair and author of ‘Family is Culture’, an inquiry into NSW Aboriginal Children in Out of Home care (2017-2019). Many of the recommendations in her Family is Culture report are being implemented and monitored by the NSW government.

She is a globally recognised expert in Indigenous peoples legal rights and was elected by the UN Economic and Social Council as an expert member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2011-2016). Professor Davis was also appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous peoples twice (2017-2022).

Professor Davis is actively involved in sports governance and sports administration in Australia for the National Rugby League. Prof is a Commissioner on the Australian Rugby League Commission, a director on the North Qld Cowboys Community Foundation Board, a Commissioner for South Australian Rugby League and formerly director on the Western Australia Rugby League Commission.

Professor Davis is a Sydney Peace Prize Laureate for the Uluṟu Statement from the Heart, and was awarded a 2024 PeaceWomen Award by the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF).

In 2023 Professor Davis was named on TIME Magazine’s TIME NEXT100 list of the Next Generation of Global leaders. She was also named Marie Claire “Powerhouse of the Year” in 2023. She is a previous Overall Winner of the AFR Women of Influence (now AFR Women of Leadership) awards in 2018 and was previously named on the AFR Annual Cultural Power list and AFR's Australia's top 5 Legal Powerbrokers list.