Invited Speakers

Erin O’Donnell

Dr Erin O’Donnell (settler) is Associate Professor and ARC Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, with over 20 years of experience in water law and policy. Her research focuses on the legal rights for rivers and Indigenous water justice. She works in partnership with Indigenous Peoples in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, the USA and the Nordics to amplify their voices and advance legal pluralism in the care of waterways. Since 2018, Erin has been a member of the Birrarung Council, the voice of the Yarra River in Melbourne. In 2023, Erin commenced an Australian Research Council research fellowship to explore the opportunity of treaty to address aqua nullius and create more sustainable and legitimate settler state water laws. She is the author of Legal Rights for Rivers: Competition, Collaboration, and Water Governance (Routlege, 2018) and a new edited collection People, Place and Nature in Indigenous-Settler Relations: Recentring the More-Than-Human World (Springer, 2026).