Savitri Taylor

Associate Professor Savitri Taylor is a leading international scholar on refugee law and asylum policy having worked and published in the area for almost 30 years.

Savitri holds a Bachelor of Law (First Class Honours), Bachelor of Commerce and PhD from the University of Melbourne. She is also a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria (admitted in 1991).

Savitri’s family migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka when she was nine years old. Initially, her family lived in Bundoora and she attended Kingsbury Primary School close by.  Later Savitri’s family moved to Melbourne’s eastern suburbs and she attended Methodist Ladies’ College.

Savitri joined La Trobe in 1995 as a lecturer and since then has gone on to teach several subjects and supervise Honours, Masters and PhD degrees. She has also held various administrative roles including Director of Research of the Law School.

Like many other women, Savitri has had to juggle career and family. During the period July 1996 to December 2003, she took two years of maternity and other leave and was on a 0.5 fractional appointment the rest of the time in order to manage the juggle.

Savitri has authored numerous academic papers and is active contributor to the Conversation and other media on the topic of Australian refugee and asylum seeker policy.

Savitri is also very involved with the refugee sector in Australia. She is a current member of the Management Committee of Refugee Legal in Victoria and has served on other professional and community sector committees in the past.

Recently, Savitri worked with other senior academic women to deliver the inaugural La Trobe University Women’s Academic Promotions Support Program. The Peer Support Program for academic women seeking promotion has been a massive success with over 200 women taking part as either mentees or mentors.