Judith Bessant

Judith Bessant is a Professor at RMIT University. Her fields of research include youth studies, sociology anthropology, politics, history, technology-media studies, planetary and public health and youth participation.

Distinctions and awards.

In 2017 I received an Order of Australia (AM) (Dept Prime Minister and Cabinet & Governor General)

In 2024 I was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Science in Australia

In 2024 my colleagues and I won the Australian Political Science Association’s (APSA) 2024 ‘Mayer Journal Prize for Best Article’ in the journal Australian Journal of Political Science. It was Bessant, J., Collin, P., & Watts, R., 2023, ‘Blah, blah, blah …[not] business as usual’: politics through the lens of young female climate leaders’. 58.4 :477–493 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10361146.2023.2224239

My career included a post-doctoral research fellowship and being a secondary school teacher. Since then, I’ve held various academic, research, teaching and governance positions in Australian universities. This included being appointed the founding Professor of Sociology and Youth Studies at RMIT University Melbourne Australia.

I have worked as a policy development advisor for the UN and as advisor for UNESCO. I have also worked as an advisor for various governments, NGOs and community organizations.  

For a number of years I served as a commissioner for The Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing working on a report titled A Wakeup call: the second Lancet Commission on adolescent health and wellbeing  (2025) https://www.thelancet.com/commissions-do/adolescent-health-wellbeing

I have authored and co-authored 15 books and edited and co-edited another 15 books, as well as many journal articles (ORCID  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7385-5358

I  have also received a number of Australian Research Council grants.

Please direct all mail to her RMIT address. Professor Bessant's CV is available from her on request.