Associate Professor Mandy Downing is identified through maternal lineage to the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people of the Lerrumugudu (Roebourne) area. However, as the granddaughter of a Stolen Generation survivor, she was raised off-Country on Wadjuk Noongar Boodjar.

Mandy is the Dean of Indigenous Futures, responsible for ensuring Australia’s Indigenous futures across the nation’s culture and economy are supported and considered in the learning, research, and partnership activities of the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University.

Mandy is an applied scientist in Indigenous Australian research with research interests in institutional racism and the first Aboriginal person appointed as a Dean in the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University. Nationally, Mandy is the Senior Indigenous Facilitator for the National Environmental Science Program Sustainable Communities and Waste Research Hub and is the Co-Chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies National Research Ethics Committee. In the community, Mandy co-designed an emerging leadership program through the Western Australian Aboriginal Leadership Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth and has voluntarily facilitated this since its inception in 2019.

Further, Mandy was recognised by the Western Australian Women’s Hall of Fame as a 2023 inductee for her contributions to education for more than 20 years. Most recently, Mandy is a co-editor of the newly published book The Routledge Handbook of Human Research Ethics and Integrity in Australia.

Mandy originally joined Curtin University in 2012 as a Research Ethicist to ensure the university meets their ethical obligations in conducting human and animal research and continues to be a staunch advocate for the development and promotion of an ethical and compliant research culture.