Tracey Spicer AM – Bio

Tracey Spicer AM is a multiple Walkley Award winning journalist, author and broadcaster who spent more than 30 years anchoring national programs for ABC TV and radio, Network Ten and Sky News.

The inaugural national convenor of Women in Media, Tracey is one of the most sought-after keynote speakers and emcees in the Asia-Pacific on the topics of artificial intelligence, social justice and equity. Her book about AI, Man-Made: How the bias of the past is being built into the future, was longlisted for a prestigious Walkley Award. It won the Social Responsibility category, and was a finalist in the Technology category, in the Australian Business Book Awards.

In 2019, Tracey was named the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year, accepted the global Sydney Peace Prize with Tarana Burke for the Me Too movement, and won the national award for Excellence in Women’s Leadership through Women & Leadership Australia. ABC TV highlighted Tracey’s #metoo work in the docuseries, Silent No More.

In 2018, Tracey was chosen as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence, winning the Social Enterprise and Not-For-Profit category. For her 30 years of media and charity work, she has been awarded the Order of Australia.

Highlights of her outstanding career include writing, producing and presenting documentaries in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Papua New Guinea and India. Tracey is an Ambassador for ActionAid, Your Side, the Ethnic Business Awards, Emerge Australia, the Australian POTS Foundation and Purple Our World, and Patron of the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance.

Her first book, The Good Girl Stripped Bare, is a bestseller, while her TEDx Talk, The Lady Stripped Bare, has attracted almost seven million views worldwide.

Dr Ranjana Srivastava OAM - Bio

Dr Ranjana Srivastava OAM, is an oncologist, Fulbright scholar and award-winning writer. She is the recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia for her contribution to the field of doctor-patient communication and a 2004 Australian-American Fulbright Award to gain an ethics fellowship at the University of Chicago’s MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.

In 2020, Ranjana received a second prestigious Fulbright award and the John F Kennedy Merit Award to obtain a Master in Public Administration at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Educated in India, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, Ranjana graduated from Monash University with a first-class honours degree and has been awarded several awards in medicine.

She has since worked in the public hospital system of Victoria and specialises in geriatric oncology, the holistic care of elderly patients with cancer. She has a keen interest in serving patients from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, who are often disadvantaged and vulnerable.

Ranjana is an award-winning writer for The Guardian newspaper, where she writes on the intersection of medicine, ethics and humanity. She is the winner of the 2025 Kennedy Award for Outstanding Columnist, the winner of an international award for writing with context and clarity and a two-time finalist for the Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism.

In 2014 Ranjana was recognised by Monash University as the Distinguished Alumni of the Year and later appointed a Professor of Practice in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. Ranjana was included in Westpac’s 100 Influential Women of 2015.

She has published multiple books, including:

• Tell Me the Truth: Conversations with My Patients about Life and Death, which was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award
• Dying for a Chat: The Communication Breakdown between Doctors and Patients won the Human Rights Literature Prize.
• Her two books on navigating cancer; A Cancer Companion and After Cancer: A Guide to Living Well
• What It Takes To Be A Doctor: An Insider’s Guide, finalist in the Australian Career Book Awards.
• A Better Death: Conversations about the Art of Living and Dying Well
• Every Word Matters: Writing to Engage the Public.