Glyn Davis AC (b. 1959) is the former principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, as well as professor of political science in the university’s faculty of Arts. Having grown up in south Sydney, after completing his doctorate at the Australian National University he spent postgraduate terms as a Harkness Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, at the Brookings Institution in Washington and the John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. Starting his academic career at Griffith University, where he and Margaret Gardner met, Davis served as director-general of Queensland’s Department of Premier and Cabinet and was foundation chair of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government. He has chaired the global network of leading international universities Universitas 21 and Australia’s Group of Eight.
Margaret Gardner AO (b. 1954), president and vice-chancellor of Monash University completed her PhD on industrial relations in Sydney in 1984. Subsequently, she was a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University, and University of California, Berkeley. She was pro vice-chancellor at Griffith University from 1994 to 2000, a deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Queensland from 2000 to 2005 and vice-chancellor and president of RMIT from 2005 to 2014. Formerly chair of Museum Victoria, she is currently chair of Universities Australia, and a director of the Group of Eight.
