Amanda instigated the Sydney Alliance in 2007 and was Coalition Director until stepping down in 2015.

She has been a well-renowned as a campaigner for social change for over 15 years and has held past positions of:

• President of the National Union of Students

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Unions NSW

• Co-founder of Labor for Refugees

• Co-founding director and chair of GetUp!

• and various other leadership roles in prominent social movements for peace and refugees.

She has a PhD on building effective coalitions between civil society organisations from the University of Sydney. She was also a visiting fellow at Cornell University - a private Ivy League university in USA with a mission to “discover, preserve, and disseminate knowledge”.

She is the author of the book Power in Coalition (Cornell University Press & Allen & Unwin), based on her PhD that compared coalitions across Australia, the United States and Canada - the world's first global comparative text on coalition building between unions and community organisations.

She was listed in the Sydney Magazine and Sydney Morning Herald's Index of Sydney's most "powerful" people in 2011 and was a nominee in the Westpac-AFR "Women of Influence" Awards in 2015.

She is currently also teaching Australian Politics at Notre Dame and Human Geography at the University of Sydney and working with the University of Sydney on a project to enhance its relationship with the city and its communities.