PROFILE
Associate Professor Meredith Blake
Started at UWA: 2009
The road to achieving societal impact through community change
Meredith’s interest in Health Law, Ethics and Policy began when she commenced her academic career at King’s College London. Meredith taught in London for nine years before later returning to Perth – to Notre Dame and then UWA. She continues to engage in teaching and research as well as considerable community engagement and education in the field of Community Health.
Associate Professor Meredith Blake has an established partnership with Cancer Council WA and is currently advancing projects related to policy and law reform to improve approaches to obesity in WA and Australia, and is engaged in advanced care planning education at a state government level.
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Jurisprudence, The University of Western Australia
- Bachelor of Laws (Honours), The University of Western Australia
- Bachelor of Arts, The University of Western Australia
- Master of Laws, King’s College London
- Master of Arts (Medical Law and Ethics), King’s College London
External position
- Member of Advance Care Planning Education for Health Professionals and the Community Reference Group (WA Health Department)
UWA Research Centres
- Health Law and Policy group
- ‘Social Isolation and Loneliness in Western Australia’ Research Pursuit proposal.
UWA 2018 Excellence in Teaching Award
Investigator, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant
Member of the UWA Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), 2009 - 2018
News
UWA researchers urge authorities to amp up health warnings
McDonald’s launches Peter Alexander pyjamas range as health experts call for more fast food warnings.
Read moreUWA projects to boost community health
A report by researchers at UWA has called for the introduction of mandatory health warnings on junk food to address Australia’s growing obesity crisis.
Read moreBold plan to tackle Australia’s obesity epidemic with aggressive advertising and mandatory health star ratings
A team of researchers have developed a bold plan to reduce the 62.5 per cent of Australians who are either overweight or obese.
Read moreLaura's Choice
Laura Henkel has decided she wants to end her life on her own terms, and she asks her daughter Cathy and granddaughter Sam, both filmmakers, to make a film about it.
Read moreProjects
Associate Professor Meredith Blake is currently involved in a planning reform project with the Cancer Council WA, Amending Western Australia’s Planning Legislative Frameworks to Address Specific Health Concerns in the Western Australian Community (2020). This project seeks to incorporate community health into the considerations for local councils in making planning decisions.
She is also advancing the project Regulating unhealthy food and drink price and location promotions in WA (2021), a project application that has been shortlisted with Healthway WA. This project builds upon existing partnerships with the Cancer Council and the Obesity Coalition Police Group, and includes research from the School of Population and Global Health at UWA.
Teaching
Associate Professor Blake describes her teaching as engaging, enthusiastic and empathetic. Her units contain thought-provoking and confronting content so she is sensitive in her language and narrative and seeks to balance humour with seriousness.
She administers and teaches the unit Birth, Life, Death and the Law in UWA’s Law and Society undergraduate major as well as units Criminal Law, Health Law and Policy, Advanced Criminal Law and Procedure, and an Internship unit in UWA’s postgraduate Juris Doctor degree.
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority Award (2021)
- UWA Excellence in Teaching Award, Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2018)
- UWA Law School Excellence in Teaching Award, Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2018)
- UWA Student Guild’s Student Choice Award (2016)
Funding
- Cancer Council WA (2020) – reforming planning law to promote community health
- Healthways WA (2018 - 2020), Health Promotion Exploratory Grant, NHMRC, Cognitive Decline Partnership Centre
(2016-2019)
Supervisor opportunities
Associate Professor Meredith Blake has been supervising PhD candidates for eight years on topics of:
- Regulating alcohol in WA
- Restraining Orders – comparative study between Malaysia, Singapore and Australia
- A study of conviction for drug offences in Singapore