Susan Dodds

Biography

Professor Emerita Susan Dodds is a philosopher a philosopher with expertise in the areas of ethics, social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy and bioethics. From 2019-2024 she was the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Industry Engagement) at La Trobe University.

Susan was an undergraduate in philosophy and political science at the University of Toronto (B.A., 1984) and moved to Australia for postgraduate study (Ph.D. from La Trobe University, 1993). She was a long-time member of the philosophy program at the University of Wollongong (1989-2009) where she became Head of the School of English Literature, Philosophy and Languages. In 2009 She became Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Tasmania and later Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UNSW (2013-2019).

Professor Dodds was a Chief Investigator on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES, 2006-2021) and had held ARC Discovery Project and Linkage Grants. Her publications include articles and book chapters as wells as co-edited collections such as Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy (OUP, 2014, co-edited with Catriona Mackenzie FAHA and Wendy Rogers FAHA) and Big Picture Bioethics: Developing Democratic Policy in Contested Domains (Springer, 2016, co-edited with Rachel A. Ankeny, FASSA).

Susan is the Deputy Chair of the newly establised Australian Research Council Board and has previously served on the Australian Research Council Advisory Committee. She was a member of the three-person panel – chaired by Professor Margaret Sheil, AO, FAA, FTSE Chair, with Professor Mark Hutchinson completing the panel – that undertook the Review of Australian Research Council Act (2001) (Professor Margaret Sheil, AO, FAA, FTSE Chair, Professor Susan Dodds, FAHA, Professor Mark Hutchinson). The report of the review Trusting Australia’s Ability was released in April 2023.