Larissa Behrendt

Larissa Yasmin Behrendt
Larissa Behrendt at work, 2012
Born	(1969-04-01) 1 April 1969 (age 47) Cooma, New South Wales
Nationality	Australian

Larissa Yasmin Behrendt (born 1 April 1969) is an Australian academic and writer. She is currently a Professor of Indigenous Research and Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Behrendt was raised in the Sutherland Shire in the South of Sydney. Her mother was an accountant; her father was an air traffic controller and later an Aboriginal Studies academic. He was appointed Director of the Aboriginal Research and Resource Centre at the University of New South Wales, Sydney in 1988, around the time when Behrendt commenced studying there.

She completed a Bachelor of Jurisprudence and Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of New South Wales in 1992. In the same year, she was admitted by the Supreme Court of New South Wales to practise as a solicitor. She then travelled on a scholarship to the United States, where she completed a Master of Laws at Harvard Law School in 1994, and a Doctor of Juridical Science from the same institution in 1998. Behrendt was the first indigenous Australian to graduate from Harvard Law School.

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Behrendt worked in Canada for a year with a range of First Nations organisations. In 1999, she worked with the Assembly of First Nations in developing a gender equality policy, and she represented the Assembly at the United Nations. The same year, she did a study for the Slavey people comparing native title developments in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Since 1998, Behrendt has been a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and was appointed to the Institute's Research Advisory Council in 2000. In 2000, she was admitted by the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory to practise as a barrister. Behrendt is a republican, opposing the institution of monarchy in Australia.