Judith Bessant

Judith Bessant is a Distinguished Professor at RMIT University, Australia https://www.rmit.edu.au/profiles/b/judith-bessant. She is also a 'Member of the Order of Australia', (AM) awarded in 2017 for her 'Significant service to education as a social scientist, advocate and academic specialising in youth studies research'.

In 2024 she was elected as a ‘Fellow of The Academy of Social Sciences in Australia’.
She researches and publishes in the fields of sociology, politics, youth studies, policy, media-technology studies, public and planetary health and history and has published many books, chapters and journal articles. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7385-5358.

Professor Bessant served as a commissioner on the second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing and co-lead the ‘Social-Ecological Systems Approach to Intergenerational Justice’ workstream in that project to produce A Wakeup call: the second Lancet Commission on adolescent health & wellbeing (2025) https://www.thelancet.com/commissions-do/adolescent-health-wellbeing

She has advised Australian and international governments and a number of NGOs on a range of policy issues, and has worked as a policy consultant for the UNDP, and UNESCO. She has been an advisor for various governments, NGOs and community organizations and has developed secondary school curriculum in Victoria.