Professor Sharon Friel from the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) has been awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and is one of three academics from ANU who secured the prestigious award this year.
In reflecting on being the first and only person in her family to go to university (until her niece started in 2017), Sharon says that winning the Laureate feels “lovely, a little surreal and an important responsibility.”
“I would like to think that my award of the Laureate shows others from a variety of backgrounds what is possible, remembering the importance of structural and social support that sits behind this success.”