Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Landscape Studies, Dalhousie University Robert France is a leading environmental and landscape scholar and professor at Dalhousie University who has written on pilgrimage and sacred landscapes and had commentaries about the Great War read on CBC Radio. In June 2018, he organized a memorial service held on the Halifax waterfront on the centenary day of the departure of the hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle, which would go one to be torpedoed and result in the largest loss of lives of nurses in the Great War, and be regarded as the most serious war crime of that conflict. He is currently at work on a book derived from his walk along the Western Front. Robert has published research on animals from bacteria to whales, in locations from the High Arctic to the tropics, much dealing with their relationships to anthropogenic stress. His humanities research concerns landscape architecture and the history of sacred landscapes, pilgrimage, and environmental history and ethnobiology. Robert has published more than twenty books and over two hundred journal articles in four decades of research. While a faculty member at Harvard University, Dr. France's work received awards of international distinction. A native of Manitoba, he was the recipient of the province's highest honour in 1992.
Lecturer and Research Fellow, University of Southern Queensland Rachael Wallis holds a Bachelor's degree from Griffith University, with a major in communications. Following this, she obtained a Master's degree from the University of Southern Queensland, with a thesis titled 'Australian attitudes to sustainability in Cuba, 1960-2000'. Her doctoral thesis, from USQ, examines how media influence people to relocate to rural areas, and is titled 'The phenomenological and discursive practice of place for lifestyle migrants: a case study of Stanthorpe, Queensland'. Prior to her career in academia, Dr Wallis worked for a decade in arts management in both Canada and Australia. She writes at rachaelwallis.com.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, CSIRO Dr Bryan Lessard was first introduced to the curious world of flies during his undergraduate studies at the University of Wollongong, learning about the behaviour, classification and applications of the winged insects to forensic entomology. With his interest peaked, he enrolled in a PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra to continue his research on flies, this time describing over 18 species new to science and using DNA to solve the mystery behind the evolution of gondwanan horse flies. In the hopes of generating buzz in taxonomy, the science of naming and classifying organisms, he described a horse fly with a golden abdomen after the performer Beyoncé, 'Plinthina beyonceae'. This “bootylicious” ambassador for biodiversity became a viral sensation and sparked a global conversation on the importance of flies. Dr Lessard now works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National Insect Collection at CSIRO in Canberra. Here he continues to research the evolution of soldier flies, most famous for the black soldier fly 'Hermetia illucens' that powers compost bins and could become the next superfood of the 21st century.
Director, African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town Mark New was appointed Pro-VC for Climate Change and Director of the ACDI in July 2011. He is also Professor of International Development (part time) at the University of East Anglia. His research focuses on climate change detection, processes, scenarios, impacts and adaptation. He sits on the SA Global Change Science Committee, is on the editorial board of Environmental Research Letters, and various other science committees and reference groups.
Teaching Fellow/Clinical nurse specialist, Victoria University of Wellington I graduated as a nurse in 1996 from the University of Nottingham and have worked in the Intensive care specialist area all my career. I have worked in Wellington ICU since 2004 where I have progressed through the career pathway to Expert level and worked briefly as an ICU flight retrieval nurse. In 2012 I graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a Masters in clinical nursing. From 2009 I became an Associate Charge Nurse Manager (ACNM) managing and coordinating ICU services. Through these years I have led several projects improving the quality of patient care in the ICU and have published in several critical care journals. For the past 4 years I have been a guest lecturer going on to become a teaching fellow with Victoria University of Wellington post graduate Nursing programme as well as being the Clinical Nurse Specialist in Wellington ICU.
