Vinnies Voices

Rachel Givney (Class of 1999) is a writer and filmmaker. She has worked on Offspring, The Warriors, McLeod's Daughters, Rescue: Special Ops and All Saints. Rachel wrote international Best seller Jane in Love & critical acclaim Secrets My Father Kept .

Melinda Gainsford-Taylor AM (Class of 1989) is one of the truly great runners of Australian athletics history. Melinda is a three time Olympian and is the current Australian Record Holder in the 200m. Melinda also held the Australian Record in the 100m, for some twenty years. Melinda is committed to coaching and mentoring athletes through her group sessions. Encouraging kids to be their best and lead a healthy and active lifestyle.

Alice Gardoll (Class of 2009) is a lawyer who is passionate about fighting for vulnerable individuals in Australia’s justice system. She has previously worked as a criminal defence lawyer representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Darwin, and as a refugee lawyer in Australia and Samos, Greece. 

Laura Jayes (Class of 2001) joined Sky News in 2006 as a reporter, and in 2011 became a political reporter and member of the press gallery based in Canberra. She was the presenter of Lunchtime Agenda until mid 2015.

In 2015 Laura began anchoring the Friday edition of NewsDay. Laura was nominated as favourite female personality in the 2014 ASTRA Awards.

In January 2016, Laura was given her own primetime program The Latest with Laura Jayes .

In November 2016, Laura became just the third Australian journalist granted a visa to Nauru, which houses a large Australian asylum seeker processing centre, the Nauru Regional Processing Centre. Nauru has restricted access to the country to members of the media.

In October 2018, Jayes moved from hosting NewsDay to co-hosting breakfast programs First Edition and AM Agenda.

Kate Wild (Class of 1990) is an investigative journalist whose work with distinguished teams at the ABC has been recognised with three Walkley Awards and a Logie. Her reports from Darwin, where she lived from 2010 to 2016, laid the groundwork for a Four Corners story on juvenile detention that prompted the calling of a Royal Commission.

Dr Marjorie Spooner O'Neill BA, BBus(Hons), PhD MP (Class of 2003) is an Australian politician. Marjorie was elected as a Labor member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Coogee at the 2019 state election. Marjorie has been a Waverley councillor, a rugby coach and holds a PhD in management economics.

Marjorie was a former Chair of the Community Safety Advisory Committee and the Waverley Surf Life Saving Club Committee.

Lorenn Ruster (Class of 2003) was a Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Indigenous Consulting (PIC) when she took a sabbatical from March 2020 to do a Master of Applied Cybernetics at the Australian National University.

Lorenn has undertaken research exploring the role of dignity in government AI ethics instruments. The research asks questions around our responsibility to reduce harms of technologies and protect ourselves, and future generations from their impacts alongside a responsibility to proactively enable human flourishing.

Lorenn now works as a Responsible Tech Collaborator at the Centre for Public Impact and is a PhD candidate at ANU's School of Cybernetics where she will continue to explore dignity-centred approaches to designing and implementing technologies of the future.

Gemma Sisia AM (Class of 1989) opened The School of St Jude in Arusha, Tanzania in 2002 with one teacher and a handful of sponsored students.

Today, St Jude’s provides free, quality education to 1,800 bright primary and secondary students who come from considerably poor backgrounds. The school also supports 100s of graduates with access to higher education and provides more than 15,000 government school students with volunteer teachers each year. 100% of St Jude’s students and scholars are on scholarships.

Located across three campuses, St Jude’s also provides boarding for all secondary students and employs over 300 Tanzanian staff across their Academic and Head Office teams, ensuring a sustainable and self-determining future for St Jude’s. In a country where 70% of secondary school-aged people are not enrolled in secondary school, the chance to receive a free, quality education is life-changing for the community’s most disadvantaged families.

If you would like to donate or sponsor the academic scholarship of a St Jude’s student and continue following Gemma's story, visit www.schoolofstjude.org or follow the school on Instagram and Facebook.

In 2007, Gemma’s achievements were honoured by a Member of the Order of Australia. Her story has been featured twice on the ABC TV documentary program Australian Story, first in 2005 and then a follow-up in 2009.

Holly Davies (Class of 1992) is an extremely passionate advocate for Regional Australia, and after completing a Bachelor of Civil Engineering, she headed West to see what she could improve, starting her engineering career in Local Government and then moved into State Government where there were bigger issues she wanted to tackle.

Siobhann Roberts -Thomson (Class of 1992) was a member of the '90s band Girlfriend. Their debut album Make It Come True was released in 1992 and contained four ARIA top 50 singles, including the #1 hit, "Take It From Me". The group also became recognised for its fashion sense, with their flower hats becoming a symbol of the band; at one point, they had their own clothing line.

Siobhann now runs a successful Interior design firm. Siobhann Studio is a boutique full-service interior firm, that designs from concept to completion. Siobhann Roberts-Thomson, founder and principal of Siobhann Studio, is a Sydney-based designer creating multi-faceted, experiential residential and institutional environments since 2015 siobhannstudio.com.au