So much more than a busy mum

• Published date: 25 November 2020

The differences are stark. Okiato is not exactly replete with people with a CV like hers – ballerina, worked for the International Criminal Court in The Hague, worked as a journalist for the Washington Post in the Sudan and Reuters in New York and is now a full-time law professor and mother of four young children.

But “Bec” Hamilton personifies multi-tasking to a dizzying degree. She works remotely as an associate professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law. That means getting up at 3am to cope with time zones and she continues to contribute to the Washington Post.

She has four children under the age of 8, including 3-year-old identical twins and as a master of under-statement says her life is busy. But it’s been that way for a while.

As an only child, she was brought up by her mother after her father died when she was two. At just 15, she took off on her own to Australia and joined one of the feeder schools to the National Theatre as a dancer.

“I realised I was never going to be a prima ballerina and there were other jobs that weren’t as tough on the body and paid more than the minimum wage.”

In New Zealand, school hadn’t interested her, but with encouragement from a woman friend, she enrolled at the University of Sydney and suddenly became what she calls “the world’s biggest nerd” to complete a BA in psychology with honours.

She planned to complete a PhD in neuro psychology but after working at the Villawood Detention Centre that housed refugees seeking asylum in Australia, she thought “the whole system is totally inappropriate” and U-turned to apply to do a masters of public policy at Harvard University. She was accepted, much to her own surprise.

During the summer break she worked for an organisation involved in community work in South Sudan during the civil war and what followed was a series of the unusual, which seem to be her hallmark.

Her first job out of Harvard was with the International Criminal Court in The Hague (where she met her husband, Ben). She was then awarded a fellowship to write Fighting for Darfur, a book covering the genocide in the Sudan before she went back there as a journalist for the Washington Post covering the peace transition.

“It was a dream job,” she said. But nearly a nightmare. On her last reporting trip she was detained by special forces for eight hours, locked up with other detainees and held without valid reason.

Back in the US, she worked for Reuters covering New York’s legal domestic round...