Written by Anushka Vineet
In an email sent to the university community on Monday September 15 2025, Professor Rebekah Brown was announced as the interim Vice-Chancellor (VC) of ANU. It is expected that she will remain the interim VC “until at least the end of next year”.
This follows the resignation of Genevieve Bell on Thursday, 13 September. Though there were many reports that Brown was tipped to take over Bell’s position, little is known about interim VC Brown. So who is Rebekah Brown?
Brown holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours) from Monash University and a PhD in Environmental Studies from UNSW. She describes herself as “a multi-award-winning educator, researcher and academic leader in environmental studies”. With a background as an “award-winning and practising civil engineer”, she specialises in “urban water, sustainable development, and transdisciplinary methods”. She has been a part of multiple “mega infrastructure projects” across Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa.
Brown has not been at ANU for long, joining the community in June 2024 as the Provost and the Senior VC. The Provost is the chief academic officer of the university, overseeing academic programs, faculty, research, and curriculum development. This follows an extensive career at Monash University, where in 2005 she commenced her career as a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies. She was at Monash for over 18 years, ending her time there as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Senior Vice-President.
She has served on boards for multiple organisations, including the Climateworks Centre, the Victorian Environment Protection Authority and the Monash European Research Foundation. She is currently a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Brown is the founder of the Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) program, which is “a multi-country health research program supported by the Wellcome Trust”. The program works with “communities, governments and local leaders” to help “integrate green infrastructure… to strengthen the whole-of-life water and sanitation infrastructure”.
She is heavily involved in academia, having published 220 papers and having served on five international editorial boards across her career. In her former role at Monash, she led the “implementation of the University’s academic mission” and ensured the “strategic integration of education and research activities”.
Since her appointment, Brown’s leadership has already been impactful, with her announcement just two weeks later that “forced redundancies will cease immediately”. She conceded at the Town Hall last Thursday that ANU’s reputation has had a “significant impact on our [ANU’s] rankings”. The goal of her tenure is to ensure that ANU returns to the number one national university by 2032.
With Julie Bishop’s term ending at the end of 2026, it is expected that Rebekah Brown will serve out her tenure alongside Bishop’s. One question persists: will Rebekah Brown remain as the permanent VC post-2026?
Graphic from Rebekah Brown’s Linkedin
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