Anna is an Associate Professor in Public Policy and Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney. From 2023-2024, she was Chair of Discipline, where she managed 47 full-time and part-time staff.
As well as being an academic, she is an admitted solicitor and has undertaken legal work at Clayton Utz Law Firm and Violet Co & Legal. A frequent public speaker, she undertakes considerable work in public and legal policy:
She sits as VP (Independent) on the Executive Committee of The Australian Institute of Employment Rights, the Immigration Minister of Australia’s Migration Advisory Council on Skilled Migration Expert Sub-Committee and was from 2023-4 on the Advisory Panel of the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner. She is on the academic advisory panel to the British Department of Labour Market Enforcement on labour abuse. She is also an academic consultant to Outside Opinion.
Her tertiary education encompasses political science, law and research methods at the University of Sydney and the London School of Economics and Political Science and she holds six qualifications in these fields. She is a former Commonwealth Scholar, University Medalist, Zeit Ebelin Bucerius Scholar in Migration Studies, Laffan, DECRA and SOAR Fellow. Her research, teaching and policy practice focuses on unsurfacing, documenting and ultimately solving subterranean political and social phenomenon. She is a frequent media commentator and government advisor on these topics.
Her leadership style is humanistic, engaged, transparent, creative, caring, yet exacting. She has been nominated for, and won, many awards, most recently in 2024, the Faculty Teaching Leadership Award for excellence in mentoring and leading others in their teaching and completed the Future Shapers training in 2025.
Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=annakboucher
Current research.
Current projects cover migration exploitation and the labour market, immigration backlogs, sexual violence and migration, comparative industrial relations and immigration policy and immigration policy design
Current research
Boucher is currently working on diverse research on the following topics:
The intersection between immigration regimes, industrial relations and migrant worker exploitation (single-authored).
The productivity of immigration and migrants’ economic (and gendered) outcomes (with Bob Breunig and Peter Varela).
International law and migrant rights; migrant intervention in court cases (two papers, both with Eda Gunaydin, Wollongong).
Trauma-informed analysis of migration and sexual violence (single-authored).
Race and migration (global consortium led by Professor Terri Givens, UBC).
She has recently undertaken commissioned research for Settlement Services International and the Sydney Policy Lab.
Contact.
Email: anna.boucher@sydney.edu.au
Website link: https://sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/anna-boucher.html
Twitter link: https://twitter.com/DrAnnaBoucher1
LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-boucher-50477465/