Emeritus Professor Judy Atkinson identifies as a Jiman / Bundjalung (Aboriginal Australian) woman who also has Anglo-Celtic, and German heritage.  With a PhD from QUT, her primary academic and research focus has been in the area of violence and relational trauma, and healing for Indigenous, and indeed all peoples. She was awarded the Carrick Neville Bonner Award in 2006 for her curriculum development and innovative teaching practice.  In 2011 she received the Fritz Redlich award for Mental Health and Human Rights from the Harvard University Global Mental Health Trauma and Recovery program.  Her book:  Trauma Trails – Recreating Songlines: The transgenerational effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia, provides context to the life stories of people who have experienced generational patterns of violence in families and communities, and the changes that can occur in the work of recovery.

She delivered the Kungas Stopping Violence Program in Alice Springs Prison for four weeks twice a year, worked in a team to co-ordinate and deliver the Wollongong University Indigenous Trauma Recovery Practice Graduate Certificate, has just supported development of the training packages for the 14 Family Violence Prevention Legal Services across Australia.  Judy retired from academic work so she can focus on working with communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea educational – healing work, what she calls educaring.

She is an Emeritus Professor at Southern Cross University.