Ben Mathews

Queensland University of Technology

Prof Mathews holds a law degree from James Cook University and a PhD from QUT. He is Professor of Law and Principal Research Fellow in Law at QUT, and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. He leads QUT’s cross-faculty Childhood Adversity Research Program.

He conducts research into child maltreatment, public health, and social and legal systems, with a focus on sexual abuse. He has successfully completed six major funded studies for the Australian Government including three studies for the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He led a recent systematic review and analysis of child maltreatment prevalence studies. He was lead author on the 2016 Scoping Study for Research Into the Prevalence of Child Abuse in Australia, co-authored with Professor Dunne and Associate Professor Higgins for the Royal Commission; this evaluated different approaches and developed a preferred method for the Australian setting. This work underpinned the Royal Commission’s 2017 Final Report recommendation to conduct a study using the ACMS approach. He has >125 publications and 58 in the last 5 years. He has broad experience in engaging with legislatures and professions to translate research outcomes into policy reform.