Key people
- 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)
- Director of Clinical Legal Education
Dean of Law
Professor Anna Cody
Anna Cody is the Dean of the School of Law, Western Sydney University. Anna Cody has a PhD in Law from UNSW, awarded with ‘excellence’ and a Masters in Law from Harvard University and Bachelor of Arts and Law from University of New South Wales. She was previously an Associate Professor and Director of Kingsford Legal Centre, University of New South Wales. She worked at the Centre for over 20 years which is a leader of Australian clinical legal education. Anna is the winner of the 2016 Human Rights Commission Law award and 2007 Community lawyer award from the Women Lawyers Association NSW. She has also won numerous teaching awards including a 2010 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. During her time at UNSW the Centre won various awards including the 2001 Australian Awards for University Teaching, Law and Legal Studies and the UNSW ViceChancellor’s award for teaching. From 2011 to 2013 Anna was the Chair of CLCNSW and member of the Board of Law Access. She was also the Deputy Chair of the NSW Legal Assistance Forum. She is currently the Chair of Community Legal Centres Australia and on the NSW Legal Aid Commission Board. Her areas of research are in legal education, particularly clinical legal education as well as human rights and ethics. She has made numerous submissions to United Nations human rights committees when they have reviewed Australia’s fulfilment of its human rights obligations.
She has also worked in human rights in Mexico, specialising in disability and migrant rights, in international development work in East Timor and Indonesia, and for 2 years with the Center for Economic and Social Rights in New York developing their program on the right to health, focussing on mining and human rights issues. Anna has previously worked with Indigenous women in Alice Springs establishing a domestic violence service, and in community legal education in El Salvador.
Deputy Dean, Associate Dean Teaching and Learning
Director of Academic Program
Ms Elen Seymour
Elen is the Deputy Dean and the Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching (Law) for the School of Law, and a Fellow of the Tax Institute and Deputy Chair of the University's Academic Integrity Working Party.
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 and Deputy Dean since 2 May 2022.
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
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)
Dr Caroline Compton
Caroline is a lecturer at the Western Sydney University School of Law. Caroline studies the operation of plural normative systems, employing an interdisciplinary approach and ethnographic methods.
She has two current research projects. The first examines the adaptation of property regimes as a result of climate displacement. The second explores the ways the use of digital data is transforming developmental and humanitarian governance. Caroline received an Endeavour Postgraduate Scholarship to undertake doctoral fieldwork in the Philippines. She has been a Visiting Research Associate at the Institute of Philippine Culture at Ateneo de Manila University, a Visiting Researcher at the University of Coimbra, and spent the 2017-8 US academic year at Yale University as a Fox Fellow. Caroline has published in journals including Regulation and Governance, Critical Asian Studies, and NYU Journal of International Law and Politics.
Director of Academic Program, First Year Studies
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.
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.
Director- Clinical Legal Education
Dr Jennifer Whelan
Jenni Whelan has lectured in discrimination and human rights law for over 20 years. Most recently, Jenni was the Co-Director of Experiential learning at UNSW Law and a Senior Lecturer in the UNSW Faculty of Law. As co-Director of the Australian Human Rights Centre’s Migrant and Refugee Rights Project in the UNSW Human Rights Clinic, Jenni has led and supervised international and domestic clinic projects in partnership with community and other stakeholders. These clinic projects have focused on testing aspects of law, policy or practice to strategically advance the rights of refugees, migrant workers and other vulnerable groups.
Jenni has also practiced extensively as a government and not for profit Legal Counsel. In the last five years she has worked in the domestic not for profit sector as the Director of Legal, Complaints and Safeguarding Children at the St Vincent de Paul Society NSW. Prior to that, Jenni worked in the international NFP sector as Legal Counsel for the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions and, before that, at the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Jenni has been a Member of the Guardianship Tribunal of NSW and a Guardian Ad Litem of the Children’s Court. She has also provided advice as a consultant to Government, Non-Government Organisations and Corporations in relation to the implementation of Australia’s human rights and non-discrimination obligations. Additionally, Jenni has previously been appointed an expert on the Rights of the Child (Australian Defence Force Cadets) and worked in International capacity building work including liaising with the Commission on Gender Equality (Johannesburg) regarding running public interest litigation. Jenni also acted as counsel assisting on the Stolen Children Inquiry and the Inquiry into Sexual Harassment and Sex Discrimination at the Australian Defence Force Academy. She has also been the instructing solicitor in numerous pieces of litigation including the High Court 'Malaysian Solution' litigation on behalf of the AHRC as intervener.
Our Staff
Academic Staff
- Professor Anna Cody, Dean
- Dr Amira Aftab, Lecturer
- Professor Sonia Allan
- Dr John Azzi, Senior Lectuer
- 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
- 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 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, Senior Lecturer, Deputy Dean, Associate Dean Learning and Teaching
- Ms Shreeya Smith, Associate Lecturer
- Associate Professor Liesel Spencer
- Dr June Wang, Associate Professor
- Dr Jennifer Whelan, Senior Lecturer, Director Clinical Legal Education
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
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