Dr Julia Baird
Julia Baird is a best selling author and Walkley Award winning journalist. Broadcaster on ABCTV, she is also a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. She has also worked as an open contributor for The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and written for The Washington Post, Good Weekend, Harper's Bazaar and The Guardian. Her first book was based on her PhD in history about the portrayal of female politicians. After moving to the United States to take up a fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School, she became a columnist and senior editor of Newsweek in New York.
Acclaimed author, from the best-selling “Victoria: The Queen” to multiple award winning "Phosphorescence", her latest book 'Bright Shining" is a beautiful and timely exploration of that most mysterious but necessary of human qualities: grace.
She lives near the sea with her two children, a tyrannical cat and an abnormally large dog.
You can hear Julia and Jeremy Fernandez on their new podcast ‘Not Stupid’ on ABC Listen or wherever you access your podcasts.

Presented as part of Big Blue Ideas
Who owns the ocean?
Thursday 15 May | 6.30pm
Marine Protected Areas – the national parks of the sea - promise to save our oceans, but do they work?
Are they protecting marine life or just drawing lines on a map? Some say they are our best hope for ocean recovery. Others argue they’re just too difficult to enforce and threaten livelihoods.
What are they, who do they serve and what could they become?
Australian National Maritime Museum