Professor Jennifer McKay AM was born in Melbourne and studied Geography and environmental management at the University of Melbourne. Then she studied Law at Adelaide and after admission practiced for Finlaysons in Commercial advisory. She completed a Graduate diploma in human rights law at American University in 2009 whilst on a senior Fulbright at Berkeley.  She is a socio-legal researcher applying empirical research to socio legal questions about business and the environment and environmental management. She has over 183 publications and a high citation index.see homepage for details of publications and citations https://people.unisa.edu.au/Jennifer.McKay

She has had a long and distinguished career in academia in Australia and a shorter legal career in commercial advisory in Adelaide. She has also been a Part time Commissioner on the Environment Resources and Development Court for 20 years and hence has served justice in SA. She received an AM in 2023 for services to law and legal profession.

She has worked in four Australian Universities, the University of Melbourne, Adelaide, James Cook ,UniSA (28 years) and soon Adelaide University. She is presently an adjunct Professor at the College of Law at the Australian National University. She has multiple experiences with other Universities through study leave for example at Flinders, Oxford University ( Centre for Socio legal studies) Berkeley Boalt school of law and Bristol University.