Our People

Centre Management

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Cathy Oke

Centre Director
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Michele Acuto

Professor of Global Urban Politics
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Alison Young

Deputy Director (Academic), Lead: Seminar Series, Retreat and Annual Lecture
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Alexei Trundle

Associate Director (International), Lead: International Partnerships
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Sarah Bell

City of Melbourne Chair in Urban Resilience and Innovation, Lead: City of Melbourne Program
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Sabina Andron

Early Career Academics Convener

Centre Administration

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Paola Rossi

Finance Officer
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Marita Doak

Centre Coordinator
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Maria Pia Dunne

Communications Officer
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Andrew Irvin

Project Officer - Urban Innovation

Centre Fellows

Centre Fellows are a committed, multi-disciplinary, and engaged community forming the Centre’s core team of scholars and practitioners.

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Michele Acuto

Professor of Global Urban Politics
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Ash Alam

Senior Lecturer
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Sabina Andron

Postdoc Research Fellow in Cities and Urbanism
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Sarah Bell

City of Melbourne Chair in Urban Resilience and Innovation, Lead: City of Melbourne Program
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Joyati Das

Enterprise Principal Fellow
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Anna Edwards

Research Fellow In Urban Studies Architecture, Building and Planning
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Bianca Fileborn

Senior Lecturer in Criminology
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Max Holleran

Lecturer in Sociology
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Enzo Lara - Hamilton

Research Assistant in The Retrofit Lab
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Lutfun Nahar Lata

Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy
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Rewa Marathe

Research Fellow, Evidence to Action
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Jesse Mentha

Research Assistant - Night-Shift
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Cathy Oke

Melbourne Enterprise Principal Fellow in Informed Cities
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Elise Park

Research Assistant - Disinformation in the City
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Rebekah Plueckhahn

Lecturer in Anthropology
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Daniel Pejic

Research Fellow in International Urban Migration
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Melissa Pineda Pinto

McKenzie Research Fellow
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William Ridge

PhD Student and Research Assistant
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Kylie Soanes

Research Fellow, Urban Biodiversity
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Ika Trijsburg

Research Fellow City Diplomacy
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Alexei Trundle

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sustainable Urban Development
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Alison Young

Professor of Criminology
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Renee Miller-Yeaman

Research Fellow In Urban Studies Architecture, Building and Planning
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Sookyan Wong

Graduate Researcher (Map of the Month)

Graduate Researchers

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Loren Adams

Socio-Spatial Exploits: A Critical Anthology of Heists, Hacks, Hijacks, and Copycats
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Chethna Ben

Climate Change Impacts, Migration and Human Security: Grassroot perspectives from Informal Settlements in Fiji
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Elisabetta Crovara

Changing the workplace: embodied geographies and mobilities of coworking spaces
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Sophie Devine

Metropolitan governance and cross-sectoral infrastructure planning
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Hannah Fairlamb

Grassroots gender equality interventions in DIY music scenes in Australia
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Uly Faoziyah

Voices from the suburbs: facing large scale development in South Sulawesi Provinces, Indonesia
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Anastasia Gramatakos

More than the who, what and where: Investigating Urban Food Forestry holistically through a relational and temporal SES lens
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Samuel Holleran

Cemeteries as Civic Spaces: Public Participation in the Planning of Urban Burial Sites
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Amelia Leavesley

Scaling sustainability: the role of cities in multilevel waste governance
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Kajsa Lundberg

Ordinary Harms and Extraordinary Crises: Environmental harm and fire on the edges of the city
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Carolina Mayen Huerta

Equity in access to urban green spaces (UGS) and its effect on well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic
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Hannah McNicol

The Belt and Road Initiative, the ‘Second’ Global Cold War and competition for infrastructure financing in Special Economic Zones in Cambodia
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Emma McRae

Participation, collaboration and speculation in urban digital twin visualisations
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Sombol Mokhles

Climate Change Experimentation in International City Networks
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Merrick Morley

Community resilience and shared spaces: navigating identity and difference in new multi-residential developments in metropolitan Melbourne
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Caitlin Morrissey

Making Up the Global City
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Jana Perkovic

Form Follows Finance: Redesigning Housing Markets
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Denise Ryan

Graduate Researcher
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Alana Scully

Structures of Desire: Crisis and Australia’s national fantasy
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Joanna Stubbs

Visiting Fellows

Visiting Fellows are engaging practitioners and scholars outside of the University of Melbourne who join the Centre community for a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and culture, plus enriching collaborations.

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Maya Costa Pinto

Visiting Fellow
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Pablo Fuentenebro Alonso

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in International Urban Politics
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Nicolas Gharbi

Visiting Fellow
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Kris Hartley

A/Professor of Public Policy, The Education University of Hong Kong

Advisory Board

The Centre’s advisory board provides strategic input into our direction and focus, and supports the Centre’s Management Team and Director in ensure we address pressing and impactful urban issues locally, domestically and internationally.

Professor Michael WesleyDeputy Vice-Chancellor Global, Culture and EngagementUniversity of Melbourne
Professor Mark HargreavesDeputy Vice Chancellor (Research)University of Melbourne
Alison LeightonChief Executive OfficerCity of Melbourne
Dr Catherine BrownChief Executive OfficerLord Mayor's Charitable Foundation
Professor Winston ChowAssociate Professor of Urban ClimateSingapore Management University
Rachel HuxleyHead of Mitigation and Climate and HealthWellcome Trust
Anthony F. PipaSenior Fellow in the Centre for Sustainable Development Brookings Institution
Aromar ReviDirectorIndian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)
Malcom SmithAustralasian Cities LeaderARUP
Molly WhelanActing CEOFoundation for Young Australians (FYA)
Kelly GrigsbyChief Executive OfficerMunicipal Association of Victoria


Centre Associates

Centre Associates represent the Centre as champions in their respective academic divisions and are active participants in our community.

Simon Batterbury, Faculty of ScienceMatthew Champion, Faculty of Arts
Annisa Beta, Faculty of ArtsUna McIlvenna, Faculty of Arts
Amy Hahs, Faculty of ScienceJeff Garmany, Faculty of Arts
Peter Rush, Faculty of  LawJames Murphy, Faculty of Arts
Theresa Jones, Faculty of ScienceKirsten Parris, Faculty of Science
Stephen Livesley, Faculty of ScienceCatherine Phillips, Faculty of Science
Claire Maree, Faculty of ArtsMegan Sharp, Faculty of Arts
Ariane Utomo, Faculty of ScienceMark Yaolin Wang, Faculty of Science