Ben Mathews

Dr Ben Mathews is a Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, a Member of QUT's Australian Centre for Health Law Research, and an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

His key field of research expertise is in the prevention, detection, and response to child abuse and neglect by legal and social systems, with further particular focus on child sexual abuse. His publications include 6 books and edited collections, 25 government reports, 125 refereed articles, and 50 law reform submissions. He is the Lead Investigator of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study, which identified for the first time the national prevalence of all five forms of child maltreatment, and their associated mental health disorders, health risk behaviours, and burden of disease. The ACMS is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, with further funding from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Social Services, and the Australian Institute of Criminology.

He has consulted with governments in multiple jurisdictions in Australia and overseas. He was a Professorial Fellow to Australia’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and conducted three research projects for the Commission. In 2019 he delivered keynote seminars to the England and Wales Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse, and in the UK House of Lords. He has also served on two World Health Organization Guideline Development Groups for health sector responses to child maltreatment. His research has influenced legislative and policy reforms, especially in the abolition of civil statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse claims, mandatory reporting laws, and child protection system policy and practice.