Hon Julia Gillard

Julia Gillard is a former Australian politician who served as Prime Minister of Australia and leader of the Labor Party from 2010 to 2013. She was deputy prime minister of Australia in the Kevin Rudd administration from 2007 to 2010, and is the first and only woman in Australian history to hold either of these offices. Her experience and profile as a world-leading politician and public intellectual will be of enormous benefit to the Learned Society.
Ms Gillard was born in Barry, south Wales, in 1961 and emigrated with her family in 1966 to Adelaide in South Australia. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Laws in 1986 and Bachelor of Arts in 1989. After graduation, Ms Gillard became a partner in the law firm of Slater and Gordon in 1990, where she specialised in industrial law, until her election to parliament, for the Victorian seat of Lalor, in 1998.
Following her resignation as Prime Minister in 2013, Ms Gillard has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Adelaide, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Chair of the Global Partnership for Education. She is currently Chair of the Wellcome Trust. Her autobiography, My Story, was published in 2014.