Speaker bios

Trevor is a geographer-planner who has worked in urban, rural, regional, statutory and strategic planning since 1975, in Bendigo, Melbourne and Tasmania. His experience covers a wide variety of planning projects, demographic analysis, heritage and conservation studies, community consultation, planning appeals and panel hearings, regional studies, tourism promotion and marketing, and the provision of education and training programs.

He is widely acknowledged for his work in integrating land use planning with natural resource management plans and strategies and for his work in the planning and development of country towns where he has conducted over 400 workshops and community consultation programs.

Trevor has been awarded a Life Fellowship and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Planning Institute of Australia and in 2011 was awarded an AM - Member in the General Division in the Order of Australia ‘for service to town planning, particularly the development of regional and rural communities in Victoria, and to education’.

Head of the Genetics Department at La Trobe, Warwick completed his Bachelor of Science with Honours at ANU before undertaking his PhD at a Max Planck Institute (in conjunction with Ludwig-Maximillians University) in Germany.

His post-doc work was at the former The Imperial Cancer Research Fund, and since then, HIS RESEARCH has had a steady focus on drug treatment of parasitic disease in both veterinary and human medicine. During that time, Warwick has HELD positions AT CSIRO, Flinders University, Nemapharm Inc, AgResearch New Zealand Ltd. and now La Trobe University.

His primary research focus is on Onchocerciasis, or river blindness – a parasitic disease that is the world’s second leading infectious cause of blindness.  Warwick’s focus is in sub-Saharan Africa, where millions of people are AT RISK OF CONTRACTING the disease.  Warwick’s involvement with WHO and river blindness goes back more than 10 years, and he now sits on an advisory panel for parasitic worm disease for the WHO.

See Warwick's full staff profile.

Andy undertook his degrees in Archaeological Science (BSc), Geoarchaeology (MSc) and Palaeoanthropology and Geomagentism (PhD) at the University of Liverpool. He began working in South Africa in 1997 and has worked there every year since.  He is an active caver and has generally specialised in cave archaeology and palaeontology and the geochronology of human evolution, particularly in Africa. With colleagues he has produced some of the first reliable age estimates for many of the earliest human ancestors in South Africa, including the discovery of a new species, Australopithecus sediba.

More recently he has expanded this work to East Africa and most recently as part of his ARC fellowship he helped date and describe a series of new human fossils from southern China that may indicate a complex history for early modern humans moving out of Africa and into Asia. He has also worked on the issue of modern human origins in Africa since 2003 and has helped identify the oldest evidence for the human heat treatment of stone tools and the earliest acquisition of seafood by modern humans at Pinnacle Point, South Africa. Much of this research has been published in the journals Nature and Science.

Andy's future research will involve undertaken the same methods he has developed on his work in Africa for understanding the Australian record and the links between climate, speciation and extinction in different parts of Africa.

David was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy in Physics from Melbourne University in 2003.  His research focused on using the exceptional electronic properties of diamond to make cutting-edge sensors and devices, which he pursued as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Surrey in the UK.

After a brush with cancer culminating in a bone marrow transplant, David became interested in evidence-based teaching and learning at Universities, and took a position as lecturer at La Trobe’s School of Physics, where he is the first year co-ordinator. 

His introductory unit ‘Principles of Physics’ has featured on the iTunes U international homepage. His attention has recently returned to developing diamond devices, but this time to make biological sensors for treatment of blood cancers, which is the subject of his Big FAT ideas presentation.

Dennis has always been very interested in technology. He first worked with computers for 15 years; programming, systems analysis, support, and management. After this technological immersion, he discovered that people were also somewhat useful, so he studied and worked as a social worker. The social work path may have continued, but the internet arrived, and it lured him back into technology.

The dot com era held many delights, but the boom did not bring Dennis riches. Instead, he pursued a Phd in computer science, and now teaches health informatics in the School of Public Health, integrating the social work and and love for technology. His current research focuses on how technology can be used to promote health, currently looking at how structured peer support and mobile phones can increase community capacity among refugee women.

 

Dorothy Smith researches a range of aspects of science education – and expands to gender and leadership.  She now teaches across all of these areas. Her interest in these fields began when she was a school leader and teacher of mathematics and science in secondary schools. 

Dorothy has many years of experience in curriculum innovation in primary, secondary and university levels.  Much of this work was done in her former name of Dorothy Kearney.  This year, she has begun research on the ARC funded project 'Articulate Science: rethinking the school education of prospective scientists'.  Her present research into science and society is funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.

See Dorothy's full staff profile.

Julie is interested in the gap between policy and the lived experience. Through research, consulting and teaching, Julie explores children's views and experience of their environments, promotes cities as sites for experiential learning and supports children's citizenship through participation in planning and urban design.  She seeks to understand how adults and children can expand their confidence and skills to encourage children's active exploration and engagement with their environments.  Her students are encouraged to critically appraise community planning and development in richer and poorer countries – whilst grappling with issues of power, professional ethics and the role of planning and community development practitioners. She has over 10 years professional experience as a planner and consultant.  

Recommended websites:

• http://www.childfriendlyasiapacific.net/
• http://www.acet-uct.org/
• www.freerangekids.wordpress.com
• www.rethinkingchildhood.com
• ABC radio interview: Catering to kids in urban design
• ABC radio interview: Young Design Ambassadors
  

Julie's full staff profile.

A La Trobe undergraduate, Liam completed an honours Economics degree in 1995,  a coursework Master of Commerce in 1997, and by 2005, his PhD.

Liam was appointed to the School of Economics in 1997 and has been senior lecturer since 2008.  His recent research efforts have centred on sports economics and more recently cultural economics.

He is also a regular television guest on ABC News Breakfast.

Unlike some students who see study as a chore, Pauleen totally loved learning - just about anything. She tried out computer science, philosophy, sociology, interdisciplinary studies, biology, zoology and, of course, heaps of psychology. Ten years later she had two Bachelor's degrees, a Master's degree, a PhD and an academic position in the psychology department at Monash University.

In early 2011 she took up a new position as Director of Regional Operations for the School of Psychological Science at La Trobe University.

Dr Taylor’s own area of research interest is refugee law and asylum policy at the national, regional and international level.

Her most recently completed research project looked at  the impact of Australia’s border control cooperation with Indonesia and PNG on the human rights of asylum seekers and host communities in those two countries. 

Dr Taylor’s current research project investigates the feasibility and desirability of an Asia-Pacific regional protection framework.  

Susan has a PhD in evolutionary genetics from Washington University in St. Louis. She has worked at La Trobe University since 1992, beginning as a post-doctoral researcher in the Genetics department, and ending as the Head of Department in Environmental Management and Ecology at the Albury-Wodonga campus.  Susan has received a number of awards for excellence in teaching including an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.   Susan is passionate about the conservation of native fauna and her research usually combines genetic approaches with applied ecology.  She has a particular interest in the freshwater crayfish of Australia.  Susan was recently featured on the TV show Catalyst where she revealed her love of native crayfish such as the Murray Cray and Swamp Yabby, both of which she has kept as pets.

Wayne has been a Lecturer at La Trobe University since 2006. In this time, he has acquired a reputation for an innovative, interactive teaching style, which is unorthodox yet highly effective. Wayne produced and directed a workshop: “Interactive Learning through Role Play”, which was released on DVD in 2009 and is now an education resource for tutors. Wayne’s dedication to teaching has been recognised with several awards including an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2011.

Wayne’s primary research interest is Economics Education and he is currently working on several projects including the use of multimedia in teaching economics; the impact of social networking on student learning; and how to make introductory economics classes more engaging and inclusive. Wayne only refers to himself in the 3rd person when writing academic biographies.

Jenny has written a range of popular teaching materials, books and websites, for Australian and international education and health bodies including:

• ‘Talk Soon. Talk Often (2011)’ – A guide for parents talking to their kids about sex, with the Western Australian Department of Health.
• ‘Catching On Early – Sexuality and Relationships Education Teaching Resource for Victorian Primary Schools (2011)’, for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
• And the award-winning website www.thehormonefactory.com
  

Ken was appointed Professor of Accounting at La Trobe in September 2010.  Prior to this he was professor of Social and Ethical Accounting at the University of Glasgow, a position he held since 2004.  Ken has published and lectured internationally in the area of accounting and business ethics, and is currently focusing on the links between corporate accountability and human rights. 

While at Glasgow, Ken took his students to prison as part of his ethics course and caused a bit of a stir at an international conference when he set his paper, on accounting’s role in the holocaust, to Bach, with a cellist playing as he presented the arguments of the paper.

Lorraine is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education and Director of Educational Engagement across La Trobe University. She joined La Trobe University in 1985 following a career as a primary, technical school and high school teacher.  Lorraine’s areas of academic expertise lie in teacher education, professional development of teachers, values education, educational administration and leadership and educational policy construction.

Lorraine has worked across 5 campuses of the University and established and developed education programs at the Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton campuses of La Trobe.  She demonstrates a strong commitment to education and training in regional, metropolitan and offshore contexts and regularly contributes to debates and forums concerning education at a state, national and international policy level.  She is a member of the Australian College of Educators and the Australian Council of Educational Leaders.

Tim is Professor of Management in the Department of Management in the La Trobe Business School. His research focuses on organisational behaviour and transformation, and management practice, both in Australia and internationally, with a particular focus on the media industry, journalism practice, sport, and new technologies.

He is currently working on an ARC funded project on the media treatment and communication needs of Sudanese Australians, with colleagues from Swinburne University and The University of Melbourne, and recently had a book co-authored with Karen Farquharson published entitled Sport and Society in the Global Age (Palgrave, 2012).

See Tim's full staff profile.