Professor Ben Mathews

Dr Ben Mathews is a Research Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, Principal Research Fellow in the QUT Faculty of Business and Law, and Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health.  He was a Professorial Fellow to the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Dr Mathews has published 3 books, 20 government reports, 125 refereed scholarly articles and book chapters, and 50 law reform submissions on issues concerning children and the law, and over 100 national and international conference presentations, with a focus on multidisciplinary research at the interface of child maltreatment, public health, and law. He has successfully completed 12 major projects, and has obtained over $5m in external competitive funding from agencies including the Australian Research Council (Discovery and Linkage Projects), the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Government, State Governments, and the WHO.

Dr Mathews is an internationally renowned researcher on child maltreatment, conducting innovative, transformative research to assist in preventing, detecting, and responding to child abuse and neglect.  He is especially recognised for his research into how legal and social systems can best define, prevent, identify, and respond to child sexual abuse.

His research findings are heavily cited and have influenced major reform of legislation, policy and practice in multiple jurisdictions, especially concerning the mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect, and abolition of civil statutes of limitation for child abuse claims. His research was selected as QUT's law discipline impact case study for the 2018 Australian Government Excellence in Research for Australia assessment exercise, which was awarded the maximum rating of high in both impact and engagement.

For more information on Professor Mathews and his publications click here.