Rebecca Huntley

Rebecca Huntley is an Australian author and researcher on social trends. She holds degrees in law and film studies and a PhD in gender studies.

For nearly nine years Huntley was the Director of The Mind & Mood Report, Australia's longest-running social trends report. She led research at Essential Media Communications and Vox Populi, part of the CIRCA research group, before starting her own research and consultancy business. She works closely with The Sunrise Movement on the Climate Compass Project as well as with many other climate and environment NGOs, and regularly features on radio and TV.

Early life and education

Huntley was born to schoolteacher Marisa Ballini Crawford and lawyer James Crawford in Oxford, England. Until her early teenage years, she moved frequently between Adelaide, Sydney, Cambridge and Oxford.

Huntley attended secondary education at Sydney Girls High School, before studying law at the University of New South Wales, spending one year of her degree at the University of British Columbia. She also attained an honours degree in film studies, writing her thesis on the political debate around the un-banning of Pier Paolo Pasolini's controversial film Salo.

From 1997 to 2002, Huntley studied at the University of Sydney to obtain a PhD in Gender Studies.

She is or has been an adjunct senior lecturer at the School of Social Sciences at University of New South Wales. The Full Catastrophe later became a book (2019). and co-presented the Guardian’s podcast Common Ground with Lenore Taylor in 2017. She has also written for numerous other publications, including The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, Marie Claire and Griffith Review. She has been a regular columnist for Business Review Weekly and ABC Life and was a feature writer for Australian Vogue from 2004 to 2012.

Other activities In 2006, Huntley gave the National Republican Lecture in Canberra with a talk entitled Trust Matters: Politics, Trust and the Republican Cause.

In 2013, she appeared at TEDxSydney, talking about truth in social research. In 2015 she delivered the John Button Oration at the Melbourne Writers Festival, and the MSSI Oration at the University of Melbourne in 2019. In 2017, Huntley hosted a panel discussion on the present and future of the nation for the Brisbane Writers Festival at the State Library of Queensland.

In 2023, she gave the Talbot Oration at the Australian Museum, titled "Inspiring Visions for a Climate Solution".

She has been a regular guest at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and numerous writers' festivals across Australia. She has also appeared as a guest on many television shows, including Q&A, Gruen Planet, The Drum, Meet the Press, Paul Murray Live, and One Plus One.

Huntley has held board positions on the Whitlam Institute and Dusseldorp Forum, and was a member of the UNSW Arts and Social Sciences Advisory Committee. She is on the board of the Bell Shakespeare Company and on the executive board of the NSW branch of the Australian Labor Party.

she is chair of the advisory board of Parents for Climate (formerly Australian Parents for Climate Action). Rebecca Huntley, Eating Between the Lines: Food and Equality in Australia (Black Inc, 2008) Rebecca Huntley, Serious Hair in Suzanne Boccalatte & Meredith Jones (eds), Trunk Vol One: Hair (Boccalatte Make Books, 2010)

Rebecca Huntley, The Italian Girl (UQ Press, 2012) Rebecca Huntley, A Most Generous Act in Suzanne Boccalatte & Meredith Jones (eds), Trunk Vol Two: Blood (Boccalatte Make Books, 2013) Rebecca Huntley, Does Cooking Matter? (Penguin, 2014) Rebecca Huntley, Nonna's Gnocchi (Little People Publishing, 2014) Rebecca Huntley, 'Bending Over Backwards' in Griffith REVIEW 45: The Way We Work (2014) Verity Firth & Rebecca Huntley, Who's Afraid of a Public School? Public Perceptions of Education in Australia (2014) Rebecca Huntley, Still Lucky: why you should feel optimistic about Australia and its people (Penguin, 2017) Rebecca Huntley, "Australia Fair: Listening to the Nation" (Quarterly Essay, 2019)

Rebecca Huntley, Sassafras - A memoir of love, loss and MDMA therapy (Hachette UK, 2024)