Achievements

Emilie McDonnell graduated from the University of Tasmania in December 2015, being awarded a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours in Law, and was also the law cohort’s Valedictorian. Having worked as a Tutor as well as a Research, Teaching and Administrative Assistant with the Faculty of Law since 2013, Emilie commenced as an Adjunct Researcher with the Faculty in November 2015.

In 2016, Emilie was awarded the Tasmanian Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford. She is currently a DPhil in Law candidate at Hertford College. Her thesis focuses on protecting the right to leave and related human rights of asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants when migration control is conducted extraterritorially and has been outsourced to states of origin and transit, private actors and international organisations. Prior to the DPhil, she read for the Bachelor of Civil Law, which she completed with Distinction in 2017 and completed the MPhil in Law at University College.

During her studies at UTAS, Emilie was awarded the Zoe Ewart Memorial Scholarship in Law from 2012 to 2015 for outstanding academic achievement and a commitment to social justice, the Val Haynes Federation Scholarship in Law in 2014 to pursue overseas studies at the University of Copenhagen, and the Sandy Duncanson Social Justice Bursary in 2014 for her work with the Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service. She was also placed on the Dean's Roll of Excellence with Honours in the Faculty of Arts, where she majored in Criminology. In 2014, she was awarded the Tasmanian Human Rights Youth Award.

Between 2013 and 2016, Emilie undertook a variety of teaching, research and administrative roles for the faculty. This included tutoring in Foundations of Private Law, lecturing in Human Rights and Global Justice and Law of Nations, teaching and marking for Sentencing Law, marking for International Law and Evidence Law and was the Unit Facilitator for Ethics and Social Responsibility. She was also a research assistant at the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute and for Professor Margaret Otlowski, former Dean of the Law Faculty.

Whilst studying at UTAS, Emilie was involved in a wide range of activities. Notably, in 2013, while in her third year of university, she co-founded and was a Director of Tasmania’s first community legal centre for refugees, the Tasmanian Refugee Legal Service. She held positions with Tasmania University Law Society (TULS) and the Tasmanian University Arts Society. She also volunteered with Oaktree Tasmania, an organisation working to end extreme poverty, the Community Engagement Tasmania Society which works with disadvantaged Tasmanian youth, and in Fiji with VESA Abroad. In 2015, Emilie represented the University of Tasmania at the National Student Leadership Forum in Canberra and at the Castan Centre Human Rights Moot in Melbourne.