Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Professor Peter Whiteford of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University previously worked at the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. He has had extensive professional experience in the field of social security policy and research, in a range of different national contexts and at the international level. He worked as a Adviser in the Office of the Minister for Social Security in 1995-96 and previously as a Consultant to the Social Security Review and in Government Departments in Australia, as well as in University research centres in the United Kingdom and in Australia, and for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris between 2000 and 2008. In July 2008, he was appointed by the Australian government to the Reference Group for the Review of the Australian pension system, and in 2009 he was an invited keynote speaker for the Australian Treasury Conference on reform of the Australian tax system.
Professor of History, Federation University Australia Erik usually works at the Gippsland Campus of Federation University Australia as a Professor of History. He is currently the Keith Cameron Professor of Australian History at University College Dublin, covering the period 2015 and 2016. His expertise covers Australian history especially regional, labour, social and environmental histories. He is also interested in heritage studies, mining in local and global contexts, social policy history, and community engagement. He is a former Treasurer of the Australian Historical Association (2008 to 2012), and a member of the editorial boards for the journals, 'Labour History' and 'History Australia'. His previous monograph publications include 'Steel Town: the making and breaking of Port Kembla' (MUP, 2002) and 'Mining Towns: making a living, making a life' (UNSW Press, 2012).
PhD candidate, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Previously one of the Directors at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority; now completing a PhD at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville. Jon has 39 years of professional experience as a protected area planner and manager, 28 years of which were involved in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Between 1998-2003, Jon was the Director responsible for commencing and coordinating the Representative Areas Program (RAP), the major rezoning program undertaken for the entire Great Barrier Reef. For his efforts with RAP, Jon was awarded an Australian Public Service Medal (PSM) and a Smithsonian-Queensland Fellowship. Jon has also been heavily involved in World Heritage matters since 1999 and was one of Australia's formal appointees to the World Heritage Committee between 2007-11. Jon is the primary author of 12 book chapters or books (including the 'Guidelines for applying the IUCN Protected Area Management Categories to Marine Protected Areas') and has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications.
Senior Lecturer, Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University Domenik is senior lecturer at the Curtin University in Perth, coordinating the undergrad and postgrad units of hydrogeology and engineering geology as well as environmental geoscience. He moved to Australia coming from the University of Iceland where from 2007 to 2011 he was the Project Director of the Icelandic partner of the international Carbfix consortium. The Carbfix project is about capture of CO2 from geothermal activities and subsequent sequestration into basaltic terrain (www.carbfix.com). Among his responsibilities there was the set-up and direction of a high P/T lab for the execution of experiments related to water-rock interactions in the presence of CO2. Prior to that position he was a Research Scientist at UC Riverside and UC Merced in the US studying the CO2 drawdown capacity of the Higher Himalayas and the biogeochemistry of uranium. Domenik started his career with a PhD in environmental geochemistry from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in 1997.
Professor of Environmental Science, Columbia University When I was about eight-years-old, I did not speak to my parents for a whole day because they threw a banana peel out of our car, which I found was unacceptable from an environmental point of view. I knew early on that I wanted to dedicate my career to environmental issues and studied Physics, because there was no such thing as Environmental Science back then. My PhD thesis research topic at the University of Heidelberg focussed on novel tracer techniques to study the dynamics of ground water flow, and the use of ground water as an archive of paleoclimate. I have been interested in water issues ever since and can still hardly resist to take a plunge into a thermal spring I encounter or take a sip from a well that might tap an interesting aquifer. I believe that water will play an increasingly important role in our attempts to achieve a sustainable global development. I am also trying hard to be a decent teacher and undergraduate and graduate student adviser, because I think that is where faculty members have the most influence on the future of our planet. Some of my projects include: Health Effects and Geochemistry of Arsenic and Lead San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD/EarthScope) Carbon Sequestration Natural Gas Production by Hydraulic Fracturing
Assistant Professor of Management, Drexel University Areas of Expertise - IPO - Knowledge-based View of the Firm - Technology Entrepreneurship - Venture capital
