April 3, 2017

UOW welcomes new Dean of Law

International law expert to head Law School

Professor Colin Picker will be joining the University of Wollongong (UOW) as its new Dean of Law. Professor Picker is currently Associate Dean (International) of the Law Faculty at the University of NSW.

UOW Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Wellings, CBE, said Professor Picker’s commitment to excellence in research and teaching made him the perfect choice for UOW.

“We are delighted to welcome Professor Picker to the School of Law and the University of Wollongong,” Professor Wellings said.

“Professor Picker’s extensive international experience, his prolific research output and the leadership he has shown throughout his career will make him a great asset to UOW.”

The incoming Dean of Law’s areas of expertise are in international economic law (IEL) and comparative law. He is the Founder and Director of UNSW’s China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Initiative, and was the lead founder of the Society of International Economic Law, a global academic organisation, and served as its Executive Vice President from its start in 2008 until stepping down in 2014. He remains active in the development of IEL (for example he is helping launch the South Asia IEL Network in India later this month).

Professor Picker said he was excited by the opportunity to join UOW and was also looking forward to exploring the region, in particular the beautiful Illawarra coastline, and to getting to know and work with the Wollongong community.

“The challenge of leading such an excellent law school in support of its existing missions and in furtherance of the University’s larger goals is a wonderful opportunity,” he said.

“I see my role as dean to help the School of Law achieve its enormous potential, while supporting its current exceptional work across its research strengths and excellence in teaching.

“In particular I’m looking forward to taking that high quality of teaching and engagement with the law to UOW’s South West Sydney Campus in Liverpool – to a new cohort of students and to a new community.”

Professor Picker has a law degree from Yale and a PhD from UNSW, and has taught and run research projects across the world, including at many of the best universities in the United States, Russia, China, and elsewhere in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Prior to beginning his academic career, his legal work included working in the US Judiciary and in one of the major Washington DC law firms where his practice included everything from regulatory compliance to government policy development (the legal side of lobbying) to complex litigation, often in the fields of trade and competition law.

Before taking up the law, Professor Picker worked in a number of different jobs, including as a commercial fisherman in Alaska and as a volunteer teacher in an orphanage in the far north of the former Soviet Union.