YAIA Brisbane International Women's Day - Young Women to Watch Launch

Join YAIA's International Women's Day panel event featuring four female panelists on the theme "Inspire Inclusion." This event is being held in partnership with the Global Institute of Women's Leadership (GIWL) and coincides with the launch of YAIA’s 2024 Young Women to Watch list. This annual program celebrates and elevates the achievements of young women across the breadth of international affairs.

Young people, and especially young women, will gain insight into opportunities available to them in a career in international affairs, as well as unique successes and challenges faced by women in this field. The event will include a moderated panel with an audience Q&A, followed by catered networking.

Read on for some details about our four inspiring panelists:

Priya Virdee-Hero

Priya is a passionate intersectional youth advocate. She is studying a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) at QUT, and is a Law Clerk at Rose Litigation Lawyers on the Gold Coast. She works with the community in a number of ways including as a Youth Advocate at the Queensland Family & Child Commission, a member of the Headspace and Bravehearts Youth Advisory Councils, and is in the process of founding the Southport Youth Advisory Council. She was the 2023 Youth Member for Southport within YMCA Queensland Youth Parliament, and is currently the Development Director for UN Youth Queensland. She also volunteers with the Women’s Legal Service Queensland, as a Surf Life Saver, and as a Parkrun Director at Main Beach. 

She is highly passionate about gender equity, youth advocacy, mental health awareness, and climate action, and was recently awarded the 2023 Gold Coast Bulletin Young Woman of the Year Award, and the 2023 National Council of Women of Queensland Forum Communicators Bursary.


Josie Hornung

Josie is a PhD candidate in International Relations at the University of Queensland in Australia, and was a 2020 Young Women to Watch finalist for YAIA. During her candidature, she completed a visiting DPhil fellowship at the University of Oxford and a research internship at the Australian Civil-Military Centre. In 2019/2020, she was awarded the prestigious AEUIFAI Postgraduate Research Fellowship to attend the European University Institute in Florence. Her research topic is 'Mass Atrocity and the Tragedy of Moral Choice', which examines the decision-making process that has historically led to action or inaction in the face of imminent mass atrocities, supervised by Professor Chris-Reus-Smit and Professor Alex Bellamy. She has worked as a meeting rapporteur and report writer for the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and as a Research Assistant for Dr Emma Hutchinson. 

Josie has been acknowledged for her outstanding teaching skills in the IR program at UQ. She graduated from the Australian National University with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of International Relations (Advanced) with honours.


Marina Mito

Marina Mito is passionate about the involvement of women in environmental security and the impact of climate change on vulnerable groups. She is currently a Graduate Analyst at Deloitte in the Energy and Climate Advisory and a volunteer at the Climate Justice Observatory.

Marina was a council member of the first Canberra Youth Advisory Council for the U.S. Embassy where she worked with senior officials to discuss critical environmental issues facing Australia and the US, pitching an environmental education policy developed alongside her team members to U.S. Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman and the US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy. She was one of the founding members of Fem Insights in Security which was a database for resources for women in security that has recently become part of Girls Run the World. She was the Communications Director for the inaugural Youth National Security Strategy (the first youth-led white paper initiative in Australia) and the first Social Editor for the Australian Journal of Social Issues.

Rachael Pascua

Rachael Pascua is a young woman who is passionate about gender equality that is centred in intersectional and culturally safe policy and practice. She holds a Bachelor of Government and International Relations and has worked extensively in the primary prevention of violence against women.

Rachael led R4Respect, a youth-led respectful relationships and consent education initiative. She guided the program to reach more than 600,000 young people in schools and online across Australia, winning National Gold at the 2019 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Awards by the Australian Institute of Criminology. Since then, she has worked as a Government Advisor at Our Watch. She is now a Senior Policy Officer at the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet and sits on the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership’s (GIWL) Global Youth Committee at ANU.

Q&A

What time will the panel discussion begin?

The panel will begin at 6:30 pm AEST. Please arrive prior to the starting time to avoid interrupting the panel discussion.

What is YAIA's Young Women to Watch list?

YAIA's Young Women to Watch list is an annual program which celebrates and elevates the achievements of young women across the breadth of international affairs.

How do I get to the venue?

The venue is near the Chancellors Place and UQ Lakes bus stations.  There are also a number of paid parking areas located near the venue. For more information, please view the 'Accessibility' link at the top of this webpage.