Lisa Singh is a former Australian Senator and was the first woman of South Asian heritage to be elected to the Australian Parliament. She is also a former Tasmanian Member of Parliament and Minister in the Tasmanian Government. She is currently the CEO of the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne, a leading research and policy thinktank advancing Australia-India relations at the government, business, diaspora and academic levels. She has previously served as Deputy Chair on the Australian Government’s Australia-India Council and currently sits on the advisory board of Asialink at University of Melbourne. She is also a Board director of Beyond Blue, Australia’s well known mental health organisation.

In 2014 she was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the President of India for building friendly Australia-India relations, the highest civilian honour for a person of Indian origin. Representing Australia as an influential professional, Lisa has been advancing Australia’s social and economic ties with the Indo-Pacific region for over a decade. In 2016, representing Australia, Lisa was seconded to the United Nations General Assembly as an Australian government delegate. She continues to actively participate in inter-country dialogues and hosts and co-chairs the track 1.5 Australia India Leadership Dialogue. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Social Geography from the University of Tasmania and a Master’s degree in International Relations from Macquarie University.