Prof. Peter Coaldrake
Universities Australia
Peter Coaldrake, the Chair of Universities Australia, is Vice-Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), a position he took up in April 2003. He had previously been Deputy Vice-Chancellor in the same institution, and prior to that served for four years as Chair (CEO) of Queensland’s Public Sector Management Commission, the body established by the Goss Government to overhaul Queensland’s public sector.
Peter Coaldrake is Chair of the Board of the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, and himself is a dual Fulbright Scholarship recipient, as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the field of politics/public policy (1980 –1), and as a Senior Scholar in the field of higher education policy and management (2001–2).
Professor Coaldrake is the author or editor of a number of books and monographs, including Working the System, Government in Queensland (University of Queensland Press, 1989), and co-author (with Lawrence Stedman) of both On the Brink. Australia’s Universities Confronting their Future (University of Queensland Press, 1998), and Academic Work in the Twenty-First Century (DETYA, Occasional Paper Series 99-4).
Contact: p.coaldrake@qut.edu.au, (07) 3138-8086
Dr Blair Trewin
National Climate Centre, Bureau of Meteorology
Blair Trewin is a senior climatologist with the National Climate Centre, a section of the Bureau of Meteorology, where he has worked since 1998.
His main areas of research are long-term trends in climate extremes, and the development of data sets suitable for studying them. He was responsible for developing the long-term data set used for monitoring daily temperatures in Australia, and more recently has been working on improving Australia’s long-term records of tropical cyclones.
He is a member of the international Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices, which is co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization. He is also editor of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal.
Contact: b.trewin@bom.gov.au, (03) 96694623
Prof. Roger Jones
Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University
Professor Roger Jones is recognised internationally for his work on climate risk.
He has recently joined the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies at Victoria University, after thirteen years at CSIRO, to work on the integration of climate and policy risks for decision-making.
He has trained as an earth scientist and has worked in restoration ecology; as a museum exhibition curator and technical writer; and as a researcher on past climates, hydrology and the risks of future climate change. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Contact: roger.jones@vu.edu.au, (03) 9919 1992
Dr Marie Keatley
Department of Forest and Ecosystem, University of Melbourne
Research interests:
• The reproductive phenology of plants in an effort to understand ecosystem function as well as the impacts of climate change.
• Development and application of statistical methods in flowering and budding phenology, synchronicity and periodicity.
• The history of, and drivers for, undertaking phenological observations in the Australian context.
Recent projects:
National database for documenting ecological impacts of climate change in collaboration with the Dr Lynda Chambers, Bureau of Meteorology and Dr. Leslie Hughes, Macquarie University supported with funding from the Australian Greenhouse Office
Contact: mrk@unimelb.edu.au, (03) 5321 4152
Prof. Snow Barlow
Melbourne School of Land and Environment, The University of Melbourne
Snow is Professor of Horticulture and Viticulture at the University of Melbourne and Convener of the NCCARF Primary Industries Adaptation Research Network is an environmental plant physiologist and agricultural scientist who specialises on the impacts of climate change including elevated CO2 on agriculture and natural resource management.
Currently his research group focuses on the adaptation of the Australian Wine Industry and, more generally, Southern Australia’s irrigation industries to a hotter and drier climate.
He also chairs of the DAFF Climate Change Research Program expert assessment panel that guides research investment in climate change of Australia’s primary industries .
As a vigneron in North Eastern Victoria he lives with the challenges of climate change induced heat and water scarcity on his own vineyard.
Contac: s.barlow@unimelb.edu.au, (03) 8344 5008
Mr Niall Byrne
Science in Public
Niall is a science writer and publicist based in Melbourne. The focus of his work is helping scientists bring their work into the public space through the media, events and festivals. He also guides science organisations in the development of communication strategies to reach their stakeholders, customers and the public.
Contact: niall@scienceinpublic.com.au, (03) 9398 1416
Prof. Nathan Bindoff
Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania
Nathan Bindoff is Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of Tasmania, and CSIRO Marine Research Laboratories, Director of the Tasmanian Partnership for Advanced Computing, and Project Leader of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre’s Modelling Program.
He specialises in ocean climate and the earth’s climate system. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and chair of the Data Products Committee for the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and the International Polar Year.
Contact: N.Bindoff@utas.edu.au, (03) 6226 2986
Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
Global Change Institute, University of Queensland
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is Professor of Marine Studies and is Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland. He specialises in the impact of climate change on biological systems, and is particularly well-known for his work on the impacts of ocean warming and acidification on coral reefs.
His work on coral bleaching was recognised in 1999 with the Eureka prize for Research. He is currently a Queensland Smart State Premier’s Fellow, and holds positions as reviewing editor at Science Magazine and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre for Excellence in Coral reef Studies.
Contact: oveh@uq.edu.au, (07) 3346 7417
Assoc. Prof. Keith Dear
National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University
Keith Dear is a biostatistician and epidemiologist researching the health effects of air quality, especially the direct effects of heat. He led the modelling of this topic for the Garnaut Review. He currently coordinates research projects on heatwave definition in Australia, on mathematical modelling of adaptive strategies, and on death rates from heat and air pollution in Thailand.
Dr Dear is a member of Australia’s Adaptation Research Network for Human Health, and of the CSIRO climate adaptation flagship partnership cluster in “Urbanism, Climate Adaptation and Health”
Contact: Keith.Dear@anu.edu.au, (02) 6125 4865
Dr Michael Raupach
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
Michael Raupach is a research scientist in CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and the American Geophysical Union. From 2000 to 2008 he was an inaugural co-chair of the Global Carbon Project of the Earth System Science Partnership. He contributed to the IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment. His research encompasses global and continental carbon and water cycles, carbon-climate-human interactions, land-air interactions, fluid mechanics and particle transport. He is a frequent contributor to the policy and public debate on climate change.
Contact: Michael.Raupach@csiro.au, (02) 6246 5573
Prof. Kevin Judd
University of Western Australia
Kevin Judd is a Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Western Australia. His research includes the problem of forecasting with imperfect models.
Contact: kevin@maths.uwa.edu.au, (08) 6488 1357
Prof. Ken Baldwin
ANU Climate Change Institute
Professor Ken Baldwin is Deputy Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, and represents the Energy Change Institute. His field of research is laser physics, and he is Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum-Atom Optics. In 2007, Professor Baldwin was awarded the W.H. Beattie Steele Medal, the highest honour of the Australian Optical Society, for research in laser science. He was President of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) from 2008-2009. In 2004 he won the Australian Government Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science, for his role in initiating and championing “Science meets Parliament”.
Contact: kenneth.baldwin@anu.edu.au, (02) 6125 4702
Ms Anna-Maria Arabia
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS)
Anna-Maria Arabia is the Executive Director of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, Australia’s peak body in science and technology.
Prior to this appointment Anna-Maria was a senior policy advisor to Minister Albanese, Federal Infrastructure Minister, and has been a policy advisor to former Labor Leader, the Hon Kim Beazley. She has also worked as a policy adviser in the Federal Department of Health and Ageing and collaborated with the Italian Government to foster cooperation in science and technology between Australia and Italy.
Anna-Maria completed a Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne and undertook doctoral research at the Baker Medical Research Institute, and the Mario Negri Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan, Italy.
Contact: annamaria.arabia@fasts.org, (02) 6257-2891
Dr Anthony Hogan
National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University
Dr Hogan is a sociologist and epidemiologist working on social and health aspects of climate change.
Anthony coordinates work on Drought, Drying and Rural Impacts for the Human Health Adaptation Research Network. Anthony is Deputy Director of the National Institute for Rural and Regional Australia which was established in the University to highlight and promote Australian rural and regional research, teaching and the academic contribution to policy and debate. He is also a research associate offering expert public health social science advice to the University’s Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy.
Dr Hogan is presently conducting a number of studies on the wellbeing of farmers in the face of climate change including a study of the social and economic impacts of the Murray Darling Basin Water Plan and a study on climate risk and adaptation among 4,000 Australian farmers. He also provided quantitative inputs into the Kenny Report which examined social aspects of drought and drying in Australia
Contact: anthony.hogan@anu.edu.au, (02) 6125 5621
Prof. Graham Baker
University of Southern Queensland
Graham Baker held academic posts at Heriot Watt University Edinburgh and then the University of Queensland until 1998. At that point he was appointed professor and Head of Civil Engineering at Warwick University in the UK, expressly to assist in the elevation of the group’s research performance under the British Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). He returned to Australia as Dean of Engineering at the University of Southern Queensland, and was promoted to Deputy Vice Chancellor (Scholarship) at USQ, a post he has held since 2005.
Graham Baker is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia (FIEAust), a chartered professional Engineer, and the Australian representative for the International Association for Computational Mechanics. He is a Director of the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation, and an executive member of the Universities Australia research Committee. His research interests lie in structural engineering, and computational mechanics of materials and structures.
Contact: bakerg@usq.edu.au, (07) 4631 1658
Prof. Amanda Lynch
School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Monash University
Amanda Lynch, FTSE, is a Federation Fellow and Professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Monash University. Previously she was a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science at the University of Colorado.
Her research focuses on the application of climate and meteorological research to concrete problems of policy relevance. She holds numerous leadership positions in Australia and internationally, including chair of a climate reference group for the Office of the Chief Scientist.
Contact: Amanda.Lynch@arts.monash.edu.au, (03) 9905 8291
Ms Jennifer McAllister
Climate Change, Air and Noise, NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water
Jennifer McAllister is the Director of Climate Change, Air and Noise at the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, and was previously the Director of Environmental Innovation in the same department.
Prior to joining the NSW Public Service, Jennifer worked as a policy advisor to NSW Minister for the Environment for 4 years – focussing on water policy, particularly in the Murray Darling Basin. She has an Honours degree in Politics from the University of Sydney.
Contact: Jenny.Mcallister@environment.nsw.gov.au
Prof. John Quiggin
University of Queensland
Professor Quiggin is prominent both as a research economist and as a commentator on Australian economic policy.
He has published over 700 research articles, books and reports in fields including risk analysis, production economics, and environmental economics. He has also written on policy topics including unemployment policy, micro-economic reform, privatisation, competitive tendering, and sustainable management of the Murray–Darling system.
He was awarded the Thomson ISI Australian Citation Laureate for Economics in 2004. He is a Fellow of the Australian Social Science Academy, the American Agricultural Economics Association, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
Contact: j.quiggin@uq.edu.au, (07) 3346 9646
Senator the Hon. Kim Carr
Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research
Senator Kim Carr was educated at New South Wales and Victorian state schools and at the University of Melbourne, where he completed a B.A. (Hons), M.A. and Dip. Ed.
Before entering parliament he worked as a school teacher and policy adviser.
He was elected to the Senate in 1993 and to Labor’s front bench in 1996, serving first as a Parliamentary Secretary and Opposition spokesman on education in the Senate (1996-01), and then as a Shadow Minister (2001-07). Between 1993 and 2007 he also worked on more than twenty Senate committees.
His first shadow portfolio was science and research (2001-04), which was soon joined by industry and innovation (2003-04). After gaining valuable experience in several other portfolios, he returned to his original responsibilities in 2006.
Following Labor’s election victory in 2007, he was sworn in as Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research on 3 December that year.
This was the culmination of a thirty-year interest in these policy areas. The design of the portfolio reflects his longstanding belief that it is critical – as he said in his first speech to the Senate (5 May 1993) – “to maintain a strong, innovative and diverse industrial base” in Australia.