UWA Law graduate Elizabeth Shaw has been named Youth Citizen of the Year at the 37th annual Citizen of the Year Awards announced on 31 May 2009.

The 25-year-old has worked for the past year as one of two Australian youth representatives for the United Nations. She raised $50,000 to fund a five-month trip around Australia last year, during which she asked young people to list issues important to them. She delivered her findings in a speech to the UN General Assembly last October while spending two months working in New York.

A former editor of UWA student newspaper Pelican, Ms Shaw was elected President of the Blackstone Society, the UWA Law Students' Society, in 2006.

As President, she developed free workshops for students to give them practical skills in negotiation, advocacy and client interviewing; initiated a mentor scheme for female students and women in the profession; developed a volunteer database matching community organisations with students, and sat on each Law School committee to represent students.

Also in 2006, she was awarded the Cruikshank Routley Memorial Prize, which recognises the UWA student who has made the greatest contribution to campus life.