Key people
- (Interim) Dean of Law
- Deputy Dean, Associate Dean Teaching & Learning, Director of Academic Program
- Associate Dean of Research
- Associate Dean of HDR
- Director of Academic Program First Year Studies
- Academic Program Advisor
- Associate Dean (International)
- (Acting) Director of Clinical Legal Education
Elen is the (Interim) Dean of the School of Law, a Fellow of the Tax Institute and Deputy Provost of Parramatta South Campus.
Elen has worked in tax for two decades after graduating from the University of Sydney with a double degree in Arts and Law. Elen started her tax career with the Australian Taxation Office in their Graduate Program. After completing the Graduate Program, Elen was promoted to a position in the International Tax team in the Sydney office. Elen worked in the Transfer Pricing team on the Transfer Pricing Record Review audit team and assisted the High Wealth Individual Trust review team. Elen was subsequently recruited as a tax consultant by PricewaterhouseCoopers Sydney Australia to work in their Transfer Pricing team predominantly in audit defence work. Elen later transferred to PricewaterhouseCoopers Ottawa, Canada as a Senior Associate in their International Tax continuing to specialise in Transfer Pricing issues and worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers Montreal and Toronto on several projects.
Returning to Australia Elen commenced teaching as a sessional lecturer for the University of Western Sydney (and Wollongong University) in 2003 teaching tax and commercial law subjects at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Elen also commenced part-time study in a Masters of Law with a tax and administrative law focus at the University of Sydney's Law School, completing her studied in 2008.
In 2010 Elen accepted a full-time position as Lecturer in Taxation Law and Financial Services with the School of Law and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018.
Elen has been a Director Academic Program in the School of Law since July 2017, Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching since 2020, Deputy Dean since 2 May 2022 and (Interim) Dean since September 2023.
Elen's research interests encompass the regulation and taxation of charities, the use of technology and social media in legal education and academic integrity in higher education. Elen is currently operating the School of Law's Twitter account at https://twitter.com/westsydlaw
(Interim) Deputy Dean
Dr Sandy Noakes
Sandra is the Director of Academic Program, First Year and Lecturer in Law at Western Sydney University School of Law. She has worked as a tutor, lecturer and Unit Coordinator for over 15 years in Law Schools at Western Sydney University, Macquarie University and the University of Wollongong. From 2005 -2007 she was a Visiting Fellow at Macquarie University. Since 2005, she has held the position of Revising Examiner in Real Property Law for the Legal Profession Admission Board. Whilst in legal practice, Sandy was a Senior Associate with Phillips Fox (now DLA Piper) and a consultant to McArdle Legal, an employment and industrial relations law firm in Sydney. Her main areas of interest are legal education, employment law, labour law, work health and safety law, and property and trusts.
Associate Dean (Research)
Professor Catherine Renshaw
Catherine Renshaw is a Professor in the School of Law at the Western Sydney University. Her research focuses on human rights and democracy in Southeast Asia. She has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Regulatory Institutions Network, Centre for International Governance and Justice, Australian National University. Catherine acts as an advisor to several human rights NGOs in the Asia Pacific region. Catherine completed her law degree at the University of New South Wales, her Master of Laws at the University of Sydney and her PhD at the University of Sydney. Catherine has ongoing research interests in Myanmar and Southeast Asia . Catherine is admitted to practice as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia. She has practiced as a solicitor for major law firms in Sydney and Newcastle and for the Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales.
Associate Dean (HDR)
Professor Rehan Abeyratne
Rehan Abeyratne is a Professor at the School of Law. His primary research area is comparative constitutionalism. He serves as co-chair of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) Committee on New Directions in Scholarship, Subject Editor at the Asian Journal of Comparative Law, and Book Reviews Editor at Comparative Constitutional Studies. Professor Abeyratne is the author of Strategic Cosmopolitanism: LGBTQ Rights in an Age of Judicial Retrenchment (forthcoming with Oxford University Press). He is a co-editor of Towering Judges: A Comparative Study of Constitutional Judges (Cambridge University Press 2021), The Law and Politics of Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendments in Asia (Routledge 2021), and the Routledge Handbook of Asian Parliaments (Routledge 2023). Professor Abeyratne has authored articles in leading journals including the International Journal of Constitutional Law (I-CON), Yale Journal of International Law, and Global Constitutionalism, as well as chapters in edited volumes published by Hart, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press.
Academic Program Advisor
Dr Patrick Foong
Patrick has taught law for many years in different countries and the last fifteen years, in the Australasian region. He has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate courses including LLB and LLM. He also supervise HDR students. He has extensive experience in designing curriculum, setting assessments and moderation. He has consistently achieved excellent teaching evaluation and was rated as outstanding lecturer by Swinburne university students. He is familiar with the use of modern technologies such as Blackboard, Collaborate, Echo 360 and Audacity software.
Both of his postgraduate qualifications are by research and they are in critical areas at the time. His LLM thesis was on HIV/ AIDS and discrimination. In his PhD thesis, he conducted analysis and made comparisons between the Australian regulatory regime on human embryonic stem cell research and the Malaysian regime against the backdrop of the regulatory theories of Professor Roger Brownsword (Kings College London, UK) and Professor John Braithwaite (Australian National University). He publish in leading peer-reviewed journals, national (eg UNSW law journal and the Journal of Law & Medicine) and international (eg Asian Bioethics Review and Biotechnology Law Review). He is a regular contributor of opinion pieces to BioNews and BioEdge and I have also contributed to The Conversation (see 'Media'). In late 2021, He was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) law school.
Currently, he is the academic program advisor for the law school. He was a member of the School’s Research and Higher Degree Committee for several years.
Associate Dean (International)
Grace Borsellino
Grace Borsellino is a Lecturer and Course Convenor in Corporate Law and Governance at Western Sydney University, School of Law. Grace has been an invited international speaker to universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong delivering conference speeches in areas of Corporate Law, Corporate Culture and the Regulation of FinTech, the Digital Economy, and Blockchain related Cryptocurrencies. Grace has delivered comparative corporate law classes in Malaysia to one of the university’s law school partners and co-convenes two legal technology units entitled Technology, Innovation and The Law and Designing Law Apps for Access to Justice.
(Acting) Director- Clinical Legal Education
Rebecca Dominguez
Rebecca Dominguez (BA Hons, MLLP Hons) is Principal Solicitor / Clinical Supervisor with the Western Sydney University Justice Clinic and (Acting) Director, Clinical Legal Education in the School of Law. The WSU Justice Clinic is a community legal service where practicing lawyers and academics work on client cases and law reform and access to justice projects, run health justice outreach clinics, provide community legal education, operate the university's Student Legal Service, and teach the university's clinical legal and internship subjects. Prior to joining WSU, Rebecca was a senior lawyer in the Pro Bono Practice Group of Baker McKenzie specialising in human rights and social justice cases involving modern slavery, human trafficking, forced marriage, family violence, elder abuse, disability discrimination, employment, and refugee and asylum seeker claims.
In addition to individual case work and representation, Rebecca partners with clients to conduct research on domestic and international human rights issues including examining the introduction of civil protections against forced marriage in Australia, Canada and the UK, and analysing the intersection between family violence, forced marriage and modern slavery legislation in Australia. She assists community and other stakeholders to draft legal and policy submissions to federal and state government inquiries, including the review of victims rights and support schemes in NSW and Victoria; the introduction of coercive control legislation in NSW; review of the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the Modern Slavery Act NSW; the Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence; the Queensland parliamentary inquiry into the Human Rights Act; and the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Elder Abuse inquiry.
Rebecca has also worked as a criminal defence lawyer in the Supreme, District, Local and Children’s Courts of NSW, representing clients of the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) and Legal Aid NSW, and in-house in legal and compliance, and in private practice in worker’s compensation and public liability matters. She was an inaugural member of Baker’s McKenzie’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) Working Group and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement Committee.
Rebecca was an original contributor to the Australian Pro Bono Centre’s Client Management & Self-Care Guide for pro bono practitioners in Australia. She received the national 2019 Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year award in recognition of her family violence work. Her practice’s work with the Refugee Advice and Casework Service was acknowledged in the 2020 Humanitarian Award for Best Refugee Project in NSW for RACS’ Women At Risk Program. Rebecca is an invited member of the Commonwealth Government's Forced Marriage Protection Order Consultation Group, the Australian Institute of Criminology's Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Research Network, and the NSW Law Society's Human Rights Committee. She received the 2022 WSU Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Indigenous Teaching and Learning, and the 2022 UTS Alumni Award for Excellence in Law.
Our Staff
Academic Staff
- Professor Rehan Abeyratne
- Dr Amira Aftab, Lecturer
- Dr John Azzi, Senior Lecturer
- Dr Maria Bhatti, Lecturer
- Ms Grace Borsellino, Lecturer, Associate Dean (International)
- Mr Michael Brogan, Senior Lecturer,
- Dr Caroline Compton, Associate Dean HDR
- Mrs Meda Couzens, Lecturer
- Professor Azadeh Dastyari
- Ms Rebecca Dominquez, Principal Solicitor/Clinical Supervisor, (Acting) Director of Clinical Legal Education
- Dr Jason Donnelly, Senior Lecturer
- Dr Souheir Edelbi, Lecturer
- Dr Beatriz Garcia, Senior Lecturer
- Mr Bradley Gooding, Associate Lecturer
- Ms Francine Feld, Senior Lecturer
- Dr Patrick Foong, Lecturer, Academic Program Advisor
- Dr Sarah Hook
- Dr Jeremy Kingsley
- Professor Michael Head
- Dr Rob Mezyk, Associate Lecturer
- Dr Sandy Noakes, DAP First Year Students
- Dr Rangika Palliyaarachchi, Lecturer
- Dr Thilla Rajaretnam, Lecturer
- Professor Catherine Renshaw, Associate Dean Research
- Dr Lucy Robinson, Lecturer
- Ms Elen Seymour, (Interim) Dean
- Ms Shreeya Smith, Associate Lecturer
- Associate Professor Liesel Spencer
- Dr June Wang, Associate Professor
Professional Staff
- Louella Almeida, School Manger
- Adrian Buckland, Business Coordinator
- Dylan Conceicao, Administration Officer
- Farzana Mannan, Project Officer
- Rinu Mathew, Administrative Assistant
Student Experience Staff
- Sophia Cassimatis, Student Experience Officer
- Kerrie Manning, Student Experience Officer
- Manu Cherian, Student Experience Officer
Contact Us
Contact details for the School of Law.
Office Location
Parramatta Campus Building EK
Campbelltown Campus Building 22
Postal Address
School of Law
Western Sydney University
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith NSW 2751
Australia
Email Contact Addresses
lawenquiry@westernsydney.edu.au - Student and General Enquiries
Law.Research@westernsydney.edu.au - Research Enquiries
Dean.Law@westernsydney.edu.au - Office of the Dean, School of Law
Course Enquiries
Australian Students
Tel: 1300 897 669
Fax: + 61 2 9678 7160
Course enquiries form
International Students
Tel: + 61 2 9852 5499
Fax: + 61 2 9685 9298
International course enquiries form
School of Law Staff
See Staff Directory
Mobile options:
