Rosemary Kayess (born 1963) is an Australian human rights lawyer, disability rights activist, researcher and academic. She is a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law and the chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, having contributed to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2004. Kayess has also been the director of several non-governmental organizations throughout her career, advocating for disability rights and the implementation of the UN convention in Australia and abroad. She was awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal in 2019 for her contributions to human rights in Australia.