Thalia Anthony is a Professor of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research examines the role of criminal laws and procedures in reproducing social relations and systemic racism. She also has expertise in First Nations stolen wages claims, Stolen Generations legal redress, prison harms and oversight, and laws governing First Nations homelands, housing and mobility. Professor Anthony's research is grounded in a critical analysis of legal institutions; legal history and theory; and emancipatory fieldwork with First Nations peoples, organisations and communities.

Since 2015, Professor Anthony has been awarded four Australian Research Council Discovery and Linkage grants to generate knowledge in the areas of First Nations narratives in sentencing; sentencing practices in relation to First Nations women; criminalisation of people experiencing homelessness; and police alternatives in remote First Nations communities. These projects have contributed material change to sentencing practices and First Nations sentencing outcomes. Professor Anthony is also a lead chief investigator on the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Prisoner Reintegration. This Centre is funded for seven years (2026-2033) to build knowledge and engage with partner organisations and people with lived expertise across the country and globally to strengthen Australia's capacity to effectively reintegrate people released from prison.

Professor Anthony's research impacts public debates and class actions in relation to carceral harms, prison abolition and legal and policy remedies for state and corporate wrongs inflicted on First Nations peoples. Her research regularly appears in the radio, television and digital media. Professor Anthony’s scholarship is cited in Senate committee reports, parliamentary debates, policy announcements and law reform reports. She has provided research for High Court cases, United Nations committees, coronial inquiries, the Attorney-Generals’ Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse, and Royal Commissions. She has appeared before several parliamentary inquiries on First Nations redress schemes, incarceration and systemic racism, youth justice, and criminal law policy.

Her scholarship is published in a number of books, including her influential monograph, Indigenous People, Crime and Punishment (Routledge 2013) and, with Professor Harry Blagg, Decolonising Criminology (Palgrave 2019). She has strong connections with UTS Jumbunna Institute of Education and Research, Aboriginal legal services, Deadly Connections Community and Justice Services, Tangentyere Council and community legal centres. Through these collaborations she has conducted Australian Research Council projects in relation to First Nations Narratives in Criminal Sentencing; Criminalisation of Homelessness; First Nations Safety and Justice Strategies in Remote Communities; and First Nations women in Prison.

On three occasions, Professor Anthony has been listed as one of Australia's Top 50 Thinkers of the Year by The Conversation. In 2024, she was awarded an Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Award for instigating the Aboriginal Community Justice Reports program with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. That year, she was also the receipient of an Engagement Australia Award for Indigenous partnerships in research. She previously received the UTS Research Impact Medal, an Order of Australia award for community service, and a NSW Young Australian of the Year Award for environmental service. In 2025, Professor Anthony was an invited expert to the United Nations Congress for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

Professor Anthony teaches Criminal Law and Procedure, Criminology, Indigenous People and the Law and Foundations of Law. She is the author of several textbooks in these areas. Her research informs her teaching approach that addresses critical perspectives on legal doctrines and procedures and engages First Nations lived experiences. In 2008, she organised the inaugural Australian and New Zealand conference on Incorporating Indigenous Perspectives in the Law Curricular. Between 2017 and 2024, she chaired the UTS Waran-gi Pyalla Indigenous Graduate Attribute in Law Working Group.

Professor Anthony serves on the UTS Council and UTS Faculty of Law Board and is co-Chair of Deadly Connections Community Services. She is of Cypriot heritage and her family were involved in the plight for self-determination from British colonisation in the 1970s. Thalia honours the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose land she works, and their ongoing struggle for self-determination.