A tribute to Dr Rae West - a message from the Melbourne Disability Institute
MDI, the University of Melbourne and the disability research community at large have lost one of its fiercest advocates and critical thinkers with the recent passing of Dr Raelene West.
Dr West, or Rae as she was always known to us, was an outstanding scholar and much loved and valued member of the MDI team and the University of Melbourne community of scholars. Driven by her unwavering commitment to social justice and human rights, Rae’s scholarly impact was felt in such diverse areas as individualised funding, health, quality and safeguarding and aged care.
Her scholarship ranged from examining the experiences of NDIS participants using unregistered support workers to hate and ableism experienced online by people with Down syndrome and their families, to people with disability seeking specialist housing to the operation of community visitor’s schemes in Australia.
While the areas in which she worked may have been wide ranging, the golden thread connecting all her work was her commitment to addressing inequality, advancing the rights of people with disability, and challenging and changing policy, practice and attitudes.
Rae joined MDI in 2021 to work on a range of projects.
In 2022 she stood out amongst a competitive field to win a three-year research fellowship focused on the NDIS. Her work examined how self-production was realised in the NDIS, capturing both the perspective of people with disability and support workers. The quality of her scholarship and the depth of her experience was recognised in 2025 when she was promoted to Senior Research Fellow.
Rae was relentless in her pursuit of excellence – and expected the same of others. She was both tough and incredibly generous, sharing her experience and expertise in both big and small ways. She hosted the MDI Disability Research Community of Practice as well as a network of PhD students at the University carrying out research in disability. She co-authored policy submissions, sat on committees, lectured, sat on panels, shared practical tips and ideas to surviving a PhD. And she did it all with her trademark sense of humour.
Rae was an optimist. Her glass was always half full; never half empty. Her lived experience informed her views, but she was also expansive in incorporating the experience of others. She brought a breadth of disability perspectives to her research which was most rare and, therefore, special.
Rae was passionate about the next generation of disabled scholars. She knew the future lay in their leadership. So, she generously gave of her time and experience to both students and early career researchers to be part of driving that change. She did not just talk about how important it was – she was a part of making it happen.
Rae leaves behind a body of work that will continue to influence policy and practice for years to come. But through the students and researchers she worked with she also leaves behind a group of people who are forever changed by working with her.
It is impossible to capture the full breadth of Rae’s contributions and pay tribute to the impact of both her work and advocacy in one short piece such as this. We also wanted to make space for others to share their experience of working with the remarkable Rae.
Below you will find some short pieces from different people at the University and their reflections on her work and its impact.
Reflections from friends and colleagues
Associate Professor Sue Olney, School of Social and Political Sciences
I was lucky enough to know and work with Rae for many years. Her commitment to improving the lives of people with disability was backed by her penetrating research, advocacy and commentary that will continue to shape research, teaching, policy and practice in that field. But importantly, she also pushed her academic peers and students to think deeply about injustice and inequity in their work, and championed young researchers with disability. She led by example. The ripple effects of that may be her most enduring legacy.
Rae had no patience for hot air and lax standards. Yet even when she called it out, she was warm and funny. She collaborated with a wide range of people across and beyond the university to expose and unravel thorny issues. Fighting injustice is hard and unrelenting work, and quick wins are rare, but she never wavered. At the same time, privately, she faced challenge after challenge unflinchingly. She is a great loss to the university, the disability community, and to those of us who worked with her.
Professor Ilan Wiesel, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Rae has been a close research collaborator of mine since 2019, when we first worked together as co-investigators on a study on homelessness services for people with disabilities. At the time, Rae was working at RMIT, and having already followed her insightful work on the NDIS in its very early years, I was genuinely excited for the opportunity to work alongside her. That project marked the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership. I was thrilled when Rae eventually moved to the Melbourne Disability Institute (MDI), allowing us to continue our collaboration on several different projects on housing for people with disabilities, accessible public transport and other related topics.
I have always deeply valued Rae’s professional work and personal presence. With Rae, the distance between those two parts of her identity was never great. A fierce advocate for disability justice, she approached every research project as an opportunity to fix the broken parts of our current systems. She could pivot from discussing the philosophical nature of disability rights to the most minute technical aspects of a policy with equal enthusiasm. She would often send me a random email, eager to share a new article or concept she had discovered. Her passion was contagious and fueled my own motivation.
Collaborating with Rae was a delight. Her natural warmth and wonderful humor ensured that every meeting was energetic, fun, and filled with her lovely laughter. At the same time, she also brought a sense of urgency to our work. I remember once sitting down with her to design a survey for community housing providers. Rae began dictating questions from the top of her head at such a pace that I could barely keep up. She worked with the speed of someone who knew that the work couldn't wait. She had a 'no-bullshit' approach that cut through empty rhetoric and got straight to the heart of the matter, and I have always admired her ability to speak her mind fearlessly against injustice.
Rae was exceptionally empathetic and sensitive to other people's pain. When I faced difficulties in my own life, she was often one of the first to notice, reaching out with genuine messages of support and care. I will miss Rae dearly and will always cherish the years we spent working together. I send my deepest condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.
Aleta Moriaty, PhD Candidate
I learnt so much from Rae, from her expansive, unparalleled knowledge in critical disability theory, through to the simple things like how to put a table of contents in a document. She held exacting standards for herself and expected them of others, creating an outstanding cadre of new scholars, either in her role of supervisor or chair of Disability Community of Practice. She was a leader that did all the small shitty, administrative things (that she didn't necessarily have to do) as well as the big, highbrow stuff, helping pave the way for students like me to succeed. She was a straight shooter, had a great sense of humour and went above and beyond for me from day one. She absolutely loved her job and loved the University of Melbourne. I am enormously grateful for her support and the University has lost one of its greatest.
Every now and then in one of our supervision meetings, she would pause to reflect on a disability rights scholar who had passed away prematurely, noting how loss comes so much earlier and so much more often in this community. This poignant observation is the thing that keeps echoing in my head and really serves as a reminder that we need to do much better to address the health inequalities, alongside all the other inequalities, experienced by people with disability.
Today, I am mourning the loss of a mentor and intellectual giant.
Associate Professor Piers Gooding, Law Melbourne, Latrobe University
Rae made a powerful contribution to disability-related research in Australia and internationally. She was a valued member of both scholarly and advocacy communities, contributing in many ways, from hosting reading groups, conducting leading work on the NDIS, and bringing attention to critical but often overlooked issues.
I used to appreciate Rae sharing songs she liked on X/Twitter. Her last post there was to share the Blondie song Dreaming and she included some of the lyrics she liked in her post:
I'll have a cup of tea
And tell you of my Dreamin',
dreamin' is free
Dream, dream, even for a little while
Dream, dream, filling up an idle hour
Fade away
Radiate
I'll think of Rae when I'm having a cup of tea today.
Professor Kirsten Deane, Deputy Director, Melbourne Disability Institute
I first met Rae many, many years ago when we sat on the Victorian Disability Advisory Council together. My memory of her from those early days was of a fierce and bolshy advocate for disability and human rights with an unwavering commitment to social justice. She was one of those unique individuals who never once compromised her principles or values but was also committed to finding pragmatic practical responses that would drive real change.
Rae was always famously direct. That was evident in many of these meetings – particularly when we met with public servants that Rae thought needed to lift their game! But my other clear memory from that time was just how funny she was – one of her dry pithy comments often delivered much needed respite during long meetings.
I have enjoyed that same dry sense of humour many times since we both joined MDI. I also appreciated the chance to get to know her in other ways – she shared her love of tennis and cricket with me, passions which anyone who knows me knows I did not share. But we found much more fertile ground in our shared interest in 80s music and nerdy history podcasts.
Rae was relentless in the best possible way – always pushing everyone and everything to be better. She was a remarkable individual. I consider myself so fortunate to have been able to learn from her.