معرفی
Professor Kate Seear is a leading Australian legal scholar at Deakin Law School, holding an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. A practising solicitor with expertise in family and sexual violence law, she serves as Deputy Chair of Victoria’s Inquiry into Women’s Pain and co-editor of Contemporary Drug Problems. Her multidisciplinary work spans law, sociology, feminist theory, STS and posthumanism, focusing on drug policy, health, gender, stigma and multispecies justice.
Education:
- PhD, Monash University
- LLB (Hons), Monash University
- BA (Hons), Monash University
- Admitted as Barrister & Solicitor, Supreme Court of Victoria & High Court of Australia (2003–present)
Research Interests:
Seear’s research interrogates how law governs alcohol and other drugs, health, gender and the body. She examines harm-reduction legal frameworks, drug-related stigma, overdose, hepatitis C, family violence, feminist lawmaking, legal ethics and emerging “post-human rights” approaches to drug policy. Her theoretical toolkit includes Science & Technology Studies, feminist, posthuman and new materialist thought.
Publication Trends:
Recent articles (2024-25) cluster around three themes: (1) gendered and posthuman critiques of drug policy (Colombian peace process, parliamentary scrutiny, “more-than-human rights”); (2) stigma and healthcare structures (EHR systems, space-time stigma, hepatitis-C complaint mechanisms); and (3) legal ontologies of drug use (narco-necropolitics, “dope-sick ontology”, rights assemblages). Outputs traverse law, sociology, health policy, criminology and feminist theory journals.
Scientific Awards & Recognition:
- 2020 UK Socio-Legal Studies Association Theory & History Book Prize
- Monash Dean’s Award for Research Impact (2016, 2018, 2019)
- Monash Vice-Chancellor’s Research Impact Award (2019)
- Monash Faculty of Law Early Career Researcher of the Year (2015)
Grants & Funding:
Seear has secured over AUD 7.5 million in competitive funding. Highlights include a 2026-31 ARC Mid-Career Industry Fellowship (AUD 1.18 M) on a “Reform Collaboratory” for drug harms; an ARC Future Fellowship (2021-24, AUD 1.03 M) developing a world-first “post-human rights” drug-policy framework; and ARC Discovery projects on hepatitis-C discrimination and performance-enhancing drug injecting.
Supervision & Teaching:
She welcomes HDR candidates in socio-legal studies, drug law & gender, stigma, feminist legal theory, legal ethics and multispecies justice. She has supervised nine doctoral/masters projects to completion and currently co-supervises studies on GHB use in pregnancy and young women’s prescription stimulant use. She teaches units MLL427 and MLP720 at Deakin.
