Her father died in a car accident and death duties were imposed on his estate, which sent the family into debt.

"I remember going with my mother to the bank where she asked to get a loan to pay the death duties and the bank manager saying 'Come back when your son reaches 18 so we can sign the papers'. Issues like that can galvanise you to follow a path."

Professor Alston was attached to the Australian Women in Agriculture movement and went on to work at Charles Sturt University, Monash University and the University of Newcastle.

She's also been a gender expert for the United Nations and was an Australian delegate to its Commission on the Status of Women in 2008. She's authored 14 books, 67 chapters and 75 journal articles. She has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to tertiary education, social sustainability and women.

"It's overwhelming," she said.

"You do your thing, do your work and decades go by and you lift your head and suddenly you're being recognised in this way. You don't set out with that end in mind."

Professor Alston was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2010 for services to social work and raising the profile of rural women. While at CSU she researched the drought.

"It was being approached from a technological and environmental point of view, the economic factor was very strong, yet my research and my basic research on drought had alerted me to the incredible gender issues," she said.

"I then started doing international research projects, about how can a disaster not impact the same for everyone?"

She said the answer was often tied to lack of ownership of resources. Constraints could lead to tragic outcomes. She said women were 14 times more likely to die in a disaster.

"In some countries women traditionally may not be able to go outside their home without a male escort, so might not evacuate," she said.

"When a disaster strikes and people are totally living in poverty one of the strategies adopted is to marry girl children young, that way there's one less mouth to feed."

She extended her international research at Monash and established the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability Research Unit, which she moved to UON in 2018.

"In every community in every place I've been, women are strong and smart and caring. Sitting wherever I am, in a village in Bangladesh or with a family in Laos or in outback Australia, I want to make sure the girls and women I come across are able to bring their huge intelligence and insight to public discourse."

MEET THE OTHER HUNTER RECIPIENTS:

For faster access to the latest Newcastle news download our NEWCASTLE HERALD APP and sign up for breaking news, sport and what's on sent directly to your email.