The ANU Australian Studies Institute (AuSI) is pleased to welcome Dr Rhonda Evans as our next Visiting Fellow from our 2022 – 23 Visiting Fellowship Program.

“I extend a warm welcome to Rhonda who is the Director of the Edward A. Clark Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. This important Institution is one of the world’s foremost Australian Studies Centres and one of the Centres collaborating with us on our 2023 International Fellowship Program for ANU staff. We are delighted to have Rhonda join us at AuSI.”

- Professor Paul Pickering, Director, ANU Australian Studies Institute

During her Visiting Fellowship at AuSI, Dr Evans will engage in research activities and writing related to her book manuscript, tentatively titled “Agenda-Setting and the Australian Human Rights Commission”.

Whilst at ANU, she will be the external host at the October Visiting Fellows Dinner speaking on her research on ‘Human Rights in Australia’. She will also speak at a lunchtime seminar with the ANU School of Politics and International Relations on 3 November and collaborate with colleagues in the ANU College of Law.

“I’m honored to be a part of the Australian Studies Institute’s inaugural class of Visiting Fellows and to contribute to its important mission. Having spent considerable time at the ANU as a graduate student, I’m delighted to be back on campus for an extended period of time. This Fellowship allows me to access important resources for my research, reconnect with colleagues, and share my work with leading experts in the field. I’m very grateful for this terrific opportunity.”

- Dr Rhonda Evans, Visiting Fellow, ANU Australian Studies Institute

Rhonda Evans directs the Edward A. Clark Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, a position she has held since 2012, and is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Government. Prior to joining the faculty at UT-Austin, she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at East Carolina University. Dr. Evans holds a Ph.D. in Government from UT-Austin, a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and a B.A. in Political Science from Kent State University, graduating phi beta kappa from its Honors College. As a lawyer in her home state of Ohio, she served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Tuscarawas County and as a Staff Attorney with Southeastern Ohio Legal Services.

Reflecting her training in law and political science, Dr. Evans’ research is interdisciplinary in nature. She serves as a principal investigator for the Australian Policy Agendas Project and is using datasets created in that capacity to examine the politics of agenda-setting with respect to the Australian Human Rights Commission, the Federal Parliament of Australia, and the High Court of Australia. Dr. Evans also has projects that analyse newspaper coverage of apex courts in Australia and New Zealand; and, she is currently editing a volume on immigration politics and policy in Australia and the United States. In addition to contributing to edited volumes, her research appears in the Journal of Democracy, Australian Journal of Political Science, Congress and the Presidency, Osgoode Hall Law Review, and Journal of Common Market Studies. She is co-author of Legislating Equality: The Politics of Antidiscrimination Policy in Europe with Oxford University Press (2014).

Dr. Evans has held leadership positions in the Australian and New Zealand Studies Association of North America since 2005 and currently serves as its Secretary and Treasurer. In 2021, she became Convenor of the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee (09) on Comparative Judicial Studies. The National Science Foundation awarded her a grant to support an RC09 conference on “Courts under Pressure: Threats to Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law across the Globe” at Georgetown University in 2022. Dr. Evans regularly teaches undergraduate courses on Australian politics and human rights. In 2022, she launched a new course entitled “Australia, the United States, and the Rise of China” and created a study-abroad course that takes UT-Austin students to Queensland to study the politics of protecting the Great Barrier Reef. Dr. Evans has received several teaching awards over the course of her career. The Jean Holloway Award for Excellence in Teaching, bestowed in 2022, is the most recent.