Nina Hudson is a Senior Research Fellow (McBurnie Fellowship) at the Tasmania Law Reform Institute in the Faculty of Law, College of Arts, Law and Education. The Joy and Don McBurnie Postdoctoral Fellowship was funded by a donation from Dr Suanne Lawrence in memory of her parents Joy and Don McBurnie. The fellowship is aimed at generating research that promotes the legal rights and interests of older Tasmanians.

Nina has a background in law and criminology, with over 15 years of research, policy and law reform experience in criminal, mental health, disability, family violence, and child safety and protection sectors. Her doctorate in law at the University of Tasmania explored therapeutic jurisprudence and judicial court-craft in communicating sentencing decisions to intimate partner violence offenders in Tasmanian and Victorian courts. Her academic and policy work intersect in examining legal, policy and practice responses to behaviour in a range of systemic contexts, including criminal justice, civil justice, child protection, and education. She has a particular interest in approaches that draw on therapeutic, restorative and trauma-informed frameworks for behaviour-change and those that promote the rights, voices, safety and wellbeing of children and young people. In addition to her part-time role as Senior Research Fellow, Nina works part-time in policy focusing on responses to behaviour in education settings in the Inclusion and Wellbeing Directorate, Department for Education (SA), and as an expert consultant researcher, writer and content editor in law and policy.

Biography

Nina’s career objective is to contribute to the community through the development and communication of high-quality policy and research outcomes that support human-centred and effective justice, health and human services systems. Nina’s PhD contributed to this objective, by comprising an original and substantial contribution to the literature on legal responses to intimate partner violence. Professionally, she has pursued roles that support evidence-based law reform and policy development in the areas of family violence, criminal and sentencing laws, criminology, civil mental health and disability laws, and the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.

In recent years, Nina has been regularly engaged an expert consultant researcher, writer and content editor on legal and regulatory projects and socio-legal, criminological research in both academic and government contexts, and policy submissions to government and parliamentary inquiries. Nina has also provided professional copy-editing and publication services. Last year, Nina was a Principal Policy Officer for the Commission for Children and Young People in Victoria. Also in 2022, Nina held numerous short-term research appointments at the University of Tasmania, including Assistant Acting Director of the Tasmania Law Reform Institute, Investigator on the Sexual Violence in Southern Tasmania project, and Research Fellow on Evaluation of Baptcare’s Implementation of the Caring Dads™ and Mothers in Mind® Programs in Tasmania. While undertaking her PhD, Nina held numerous research assistant and teaching roles in the Faculty of Law.

Prior to her commencing her PhD in 2016, Nina worked in a range of senior roles in independent advisory bodies in the South Australian and Victorian public service providing advice on legal policy and law reform, conducting research and evaluation and undertaking consultation. Between 2012 and 2015, Nina held two Team Leader roles: leading an independent review commissioned by the Minister for Corrections on the management of serious sex offenders under the Serious Sex Offenders (Detention and Supervision) Act 2009 (Vic), and the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s review of the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997 (Vic). From 2009, Nina conducted legal policy and criminological research at the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council on a broad range of issues across sentencing and criminal law, including parole, confiscation, appeals, family violence, specialist courts, offence seriousness and sentencing guidance. Between 2006 to 2008, Nina worked as a Senior Evaluation Officer in the South Australian Office of Crime Statistics and Research, primarily conducting evaluations of youth alcohol and drug diversion programs. Following her admission to practice in the Supreme Court of South Australia in 2003, Nina worked as a Judge’s Associate in the District Court of South Australia between 2003 and 2005.

Career summary

Qualifications

• PhD, ‘Straight-Talking, but from the Heart: Exploring Judicial Court-Craft in Sentencing Offenders for Intimate Partner Violence’, University of Tasmania, Australia, 2022
• Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Criminology, ‘Offender Decision Making and Rational Choice: A Review and Critical Discussion of Theories Underlying Severity in Deterrent Sentencing Policies’, University of Cambridge, England, United Kingdom, 2006
• Honours Degree of Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours (Criminal Law), ‘The Magistrates Court Diversion Program: Rights or Interests? A Cost/Benefit Analysis, University of Adelaide’, Australia, 2002
• Bachelor of Arts (English), University of Adelaide, Australia, 1999

Memberships

Professional practice

Associate Member, Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd)

Ordinary member, Society of Legal Scholars

Committee associations

Editorial Assistant, Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (journal)

Member, ANZAPPL (Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law)

Administrative expertise

Nina has experience in providing professional editing and proofreading services for a range of legal and policy publications and is currently undertaking a professional editing course through Capstone Editing. Nina has extensive experience in project management of legal policy research and law reform projects (2008­–2015). Nina has been the Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law since 2016.

Teaching

Family violence, criminal law, criminal procedure

Teaching expertise

Nina’s past academic teaching experience includes the following:

• Examiner: Harrison J, ‘The Court’s Application of the “De Facto Relationship” Definition in Parentage Matters Under S 60H(1) of the Family Law Act’ (Honours Research Paper, University of Tasmania, 2022)
• Responding to Family Violence Realities (LAW479): unit development and approval, drafting unit content and assessments, online teaching via lectures and discussion boards, assessment and administration.
• Advanced Law for Police Officers (LAW260): online teaching via discussion boards, administration and assessment

Research Appointments

• Assistant Acting Director (part-time), Tasmania Law Reform Institute (TLRI), Faculty of Law (2022)
• Investigator, Sexual violence in Southern Tasmania, funded by Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS) (2022); and
• Research Fellow, Evaluation of Baptcare’s implementation of the Caring Dads™ and Mothers in Mind® programs in Tasmania (partnership with and funded by Baptcare) (2022)
• Research assistant, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania on the following projects:
  • SPSS coding of data from serious injury cases sentenced in the Supreme Court of Tasmania to form a database of sentencing factors.
  • Articulating Legal Scholarship within the Creativity, Culture and Society Theme, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania: interviewing legal scholars, qualitative data analysis and report writing.
  • National Study on Public Opinion on Bail, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania: literature review on methods to adopt in gauging public opinion.
• Research Fellow, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne (2020)