Miriam co-directs the Centre for Comparative, European, and Constitutional Legal Studies. In 2024/2025 she is also Programme Manager, Research, Danish Institute for Human Rights, where she leads a project on the legal right to highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in Greenland. Miriam currently serves as Vice Chair of the Expert Group examining the human rights aspects of contraception policies in Greenland since 1960s. Her research focuses on human rights and international law as it relates to Greenland, and, separately, disaster and climate displacement. She is originally from Aotearoa New Zealand.

Miriam has more than 20 years of experience in research, writing and practice on issues of human rights and international law. Before coming to academia, Miriam represented the Australian Government on the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, having independently negotiated a range of human rights resolutions, including those on social development, torture, trafficking in women and girls, and extreme poverty. Miriam has been a Visiting Professional in the Immediate Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, a consultant to the UN, and served for three years on the Board of Directors of TraumAid International. She has managed Parliamentary Committee Inquiries and Law Reform Inquiries in Australia and also worked in the International Legal Division, the International Security Division, and the Afghanistan Desk of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She is admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory.

Teaching

• Course director - Indigeneity, Law, and Nature (2023 - )
• Course director - Climate Change and Human Rights (Ilisimatusarfik / University of Greenland, 2023)
• Course director - Climate Change, Disaster, and Human Mobility (2020-)
• Course director - Migration and Forced Displacement from Climate Change (2018 - )
• Lecturer – International Migration Law
• Lecturer – Public International Law
• Lecturer – International Criminal Law  (2013-2015)

Miriam also lectures in other Faculties at KU as part of the Masters of Disaster Management; the Masters of Advanced Migration Studies; and the Masters of Climate Change.

Education

Miriam holds a PhD from Copenhagen University, a Master of Laws (International Law) and a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Australian National University, and a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts (Politics) (First Class Honours) from Monash University. She is admitted to practice as an Australian Legal Practitioner in the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory.