Associate ProfessorAnna Boucher

BA Hons 1 LLB Hons 1 Sydney PGCert MRes PhD London School of Economics

Associate Professor Anna Boucher is a global migration expert as it intersects with public policy, comparative politics and legal studies. Her research covers immigration, gender and racial diversity, inequality and labour market and regulatory change as well as the skill selection of migrants. She has written three books on migration that cover skilled immigration, gender diversity and workplace exploitation. The first, Gender, Migration and the Global Race for Talent (Manchester University Press) creates diversity indicators that have been used by international agencies. Her second book with Professor Justin Gest, Crossroads: Immigration Regimes in an Age of Demographic Change (Cambridge University Press, New York) compares immigration regimes across 30 countries and has won multiple awards and nomination for the Stein Rokkan Prize in Comparative Politics, considered the second most prestigious prizes globally in political science. Her third book Patterns of Exploitation: Migrant Worker Rights in Advanced Democracies came out in 2023 with Oxford University Press (New York) and analyses labour market exploitation of migrants in four countries, building on a database of 1,912 migrants in 907 court cases that she constructed with a team of lawyers. It won awards in policy impact. Her new book “Out of the Depths: The First Collection of Holocaust Songs” (with Joseph Toltz) is out in April 2026 with Manchester University Press. Anna is a regular commentator in the media and consultant to domestic and global governments on migration issues. She holds qualifications in political science and law and is an admitted solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW, having completed a placement at Clayton Utz Law Firm (Sydney). In 2026, she is seconded from the University of Sydney at 70% to Fragomen Law Firm Global working on international projects and she is also a Research Fellow at the Australian and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG). She sits on the Immigration Minister of Australia’s Advisory Council on Skilled Migration Expert Sub-Committee (MACSM). Prior to coming to Sydney University, she was an Australian Commonwealth Scholar and Bucerius Scholar in Migration Studies at the London School of Economics where she completed her masters, doctorate and teaching qualifications.