Professor Rebekah Brown

The Provost and Senior Vice-President is the senior Deputy to the Vice-Chancellor and leads the implementation of The Australian National University's (ANU) academic mission, and the strategic integration of education and research activities.

Professor Rebekah Brown commenced as Provost of ANU in June 2024.

Rebekah is a multi-award-winning educator, researcher and academic leader in environmental studies, specialising in urban water, sustainable development, and transdisciplinary methods. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has a background as an award-winning and practising civil engineer on mega infrastructure projects across the UK, Europe, South East Asia and Africa.

As chief investigator Rebekah has attracted a career total of $123M in external competitive research funding. She has conceived and led six large-scale research entities across Australia, Europe, South East Asia, and the Pacific as a Program Leader, Research Director, and Chief Research Officer. She was the Founding Director of the ground-breaking $70M RISE program – a multi-country health research program supported by the Wellcome Trust.

She has published 220 papers (H-index = 50, >12,800 citations), including in Nature and Science, and served on five international editorial boards. 

Rebekah has a breadth of ongoing governance experience, including as the recent Board Chair of the Monash European Research Foundation and Ministerial Board Representative of the Victorian Environment Protection Authority. She holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours) from Monash, as well as a PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of New South Wales. Rebekah was previously the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Senior Vice-President at Monash University.