Indigenous Evaluation Committee members

Professor Maggie Walter is a member of the Briggs/Johnson family and a descendant of the pairrebeenne people from tebrakunna country in North Eastern Tasmania. Professor Maggie Walter is a sociologist whose research is focused on race relations, inequality, research methods and methodologies. She is the inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor of Aboriginal Research and Leadership at the University of Tasmania. Professor Walter is passionate about improving the position of Indigenous peoples in Australian society and changing the dynamics around race relations. Professor Walter is widely published in her fields of research. She is the editor and co-author of the best-selling Social Research Methods and co-author of Inequality in Australia: Discourses, Realities and Directions and Indigenous Statistics: a quantitative methodology.

Professor Walter has a long pre-academic career in the public service, working in the Department of Social Security and other Federal Government Departments from 1980 until 1999. During this time she obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Social Welfare) from Charles Sturt University in 1994 and a Bachelor of Social Work (1st Class Honours) from the University of Tasmania in 1998.  Professor Walter was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology) from the University of Tasmania in 2003 and joined the University of Tasmania as an academic in 2002, first in Aboriginal Studies, and then in 2004 moved to the School of Social Sciences.

Professor Anderson is the Deputy Secretary for Indigenous Affairs, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Professor Anderson was previously the Foundation Chair, Indigenous Higher Education; Pro Vice-Chancellor (Engagement) at the University of Melbourne.  He was previously the Foundation Chair of Indigenous Health at the University of Melbourne and has held a number of academic, policy and practice roles in Indigenous health over a thirty-year period. 

In this work he has been an Aboriginal health worker, general practitioner, Chief Executive Officer for the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service and Medical Adviser for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health for the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Health.

Other roles include the Director of Research for the Lowitja Institute and related Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health; Chair of the National Indigenous Health Equality Council, Council Member for the National Health and Medical Research Council and a Co-Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Council.

Professor Anderson was awarded the Order of Australia medal in 2017 for distinguished service to the Indigenous community, particularly in the areas of health equality, aged care and education, as an academic, researcher and medical practitioner, to policy reform, and as a role model. 

His family are Palawa Trowerna from the Pyemairrenner mob in Tasmania which includes Trawlwoolway and Plairmairrenner and related clans.

Originally from Queensland, Anthony is a registered psychologist and currently works as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.

Dr Dillon is proud of both his Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal ancestry and is actively involved in research into the areas of mental health and Indigenous well-being. This has enabled him to lecture to university students and different community groups on a range of Indigenous topics. He is active as a social commentator on Indigenous issues, having had several thought provoking articles published in The Australian Newspaper, The Conversation, and the ABC Drum online.

Dr Wendy Jarvie is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Business, University of New South Wales Canberra where she undertakes research in public policy and learning from evaluation, as well as working for the World Bank in the Pacific on early childhood development and vocational education programs.

Dr. Jarvie has extensive experience in monitoring and evaluation in the Australian Government and in the World Bank in Washington. She spent seven years (2001- 2008) as a Deputy Secretary in the Commonwealth Departments of Education, Science and Training and Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. In the World Bank (1998-2001) she was a manager of corporate evaluations in the Operations Evaluation Department.  

She has had long engagement with Indigenous communities, policy and programs, including seven years’ oversight of Australian Government Aboriginal education programs, and five years (2003–2007) as co-chair of the steering committee for the COAG trial in Murdi Paaki. She is currently chairing the steering committee for the evaluation of the Opportunity, Choice, Healing, Responsibility, Empowerment (OCHRE) program for the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs.