MCF Academy
The MCF Academy supports and develops the next generation of climate leaders.
Climate change is a complex challenge and solutions cannot be found in just one or two disciplines. Launched in 2022, the MCF Academy forms a diverse intellectual and interdisciplinary community, drawing from all areas across the University to promote and innovate a rich exchange of ideas.
The MCF Academy offers strategic scholarships for MCF-supported PhD students recruited in priority areas. It brings together early career researchers with seasoned academics, and provides training, networks and experience for young researchers to thrive, and themselves strive for a positive climate future.
All researchers based at the University of Melbourne undertaking a PhD or postdoctoral fellowship who are working on climate-related projects are invited to join the MCF Academy. To express your interest in becoming a member, email melbourne-climate-futures@unimelb.edu.au with one page detailing your interest in joining and a copy of your resume.
MCF Academy Profiles
Navam Niles
Navam Niles is a School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences PhD candidate, specialising in climate adaptation governance and the influence of external actors on governance decisions. His multidisciplinary research bridges politics, economics, and environmental policy, with a keen focus on the political economy of development and climate finance.
Josephine Boateng
Josephine Boateng is a School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences PhD candidate. Her research focuses on the effects of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies on women’s reproductive rights. In her thesis, she examines the impact of rising sea levels on women's reproductive and sexual health, highlighting the role of broader social determinants in influencing health outcomes.
Becca Liu
Becca Liu is a Master of Environment student, passionate about accelerating the global shift to renewable energy and building climate resilience. Combining industry acumen with expertise in climate policy, energy markets, and sustainability, Becca's thesis research explores the tension between energy transition and profitability by comparing the strategies of major electricity companies in Australia, known as gentailers.
Kathiana Aznaran Luk
Kathiana Aznaran Luk is a Master of Climate Science student, with a background in environmental engineering. Her thesis research, combining science and policy, explores how viticulture regions are projected to shift under climate change scenarios, and where these regions may relocate as environmental conditions evolve.
Members of the MCF Academy
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Adam Kelly
Adam’s PhD explores the applicability and effectiveness of caps or limits on resource consumption and extraction as a policy approach to aid in the transition to a more sustainable economy. His research primarily investigates gold and phosphorous, but he is also interested in the potential social and environmental impacts stemming from the mining of critical minerals for the renewable energy transition.
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Adelle Mansour
Adelle is a PhD candidate in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Using a mixed methods approach, her PhD explores the ways in which citizen science can contribute to achieving healthy housing in a rapidly changing climate. It encompasses in-depth case studies of both researcher- and NGO-led citizen science projects.
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Adrian Ford
Dr Adrian Ford is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The University of Melbourne and is affiliated with Melbourne Climate Futures and its Academy. Adrian's research interests include community renewable energy groups and projects, and the political economy of sustainable energy transitions
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Aisha Ismail
Aisha is a PhD candidate in food politics in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences. Aisha’s research focuses on how ultra-processed food (UPF) companies transform foodways and foodscapes in countries undergoing rapid transitions in food systems and dietary patterns. Aisha’s doctoral project utilises an everyday political economy lens to understand how UPF companies’ power is diffused, experienced, and navigated in everyday life, with a focus on foodscapes in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca de Juárez.
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Alanah Isabell Chapman
Alanah is a PhD student researching climate model representation of the Southern Ocean, focusing on natural climate-cooling gases (dimethyl sulfide) and aerosol processes. She will examine the influence of aerosols on cloud and radiative properties, contributing to the ongoing efforts in reducing the Southern Ocean radiation bias within global climate models.
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Alice Glare
Alice is a PhD student in the School of Agriculture, Ecosystem and Forestry Sciences. Her research focuses on understanding management of endangered seasonal herbaceous wetlands on farms and approaches to reinstating lost wetland biodiversity.
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Amelia Leavesley
Amelia is an urban sustainability scholar and PhD Candidate with the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. Her research explores multilevel waste governance in Australia, focussing on the role of municipal governments in scaling action on waste. Her work draws on international climate governance literature to explore the networked potential of intermediate cities in domestic and international waste governance.
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Andrew Irvin
Andrew is a PhD. Researcher who works at the intersection of art and science, with a particular focus on island societies, and is regularly commissioned by various bilateral and multilateral agencies to identify pathways towards sustainable futures, particularly in relation to climate solutions across the transport, waste, and energy sectors.
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April Golder
April is a Master of Environment student within the Office for Environmental Programs. She specialises in environmental politics and their relationship with climate and ecological outcomes. Her research specifically interrogates integrity in Australia’s carbon markets, within a focus on rural landholders as a key stakeholder in the transition to net zero.
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Aseera Shamin
Aseera's research is positioned in the intersection between energy justice, power relations, and social dynamics in renewable energy production in localised contexts, namely Australia and India. Her PhD project, housed within the History and Philosophy of Science department, considers both upstream and downstream processes of electricity generation to reveal similarities and differences in lay people’s conceptualisation of issues surrounding the entire life cycle of renewable energy.
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Ashneel Chandra
Dr Ashneel Chandra is a Research Fellow in Tropical Rainfall at the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. His research interests are in tropical climate including the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the combined influence of climate variability on weather extremes such as tropical cyclones and extreme precipitation. Dr Chandra completed his PhD at the University of Bergen (UiB), Norway in March 2024. His dissertation investigated the role of ocean heat content and equatorial ocean dynamics on the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO).
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Astrid Edwards
Astrid is working on a co-disciplinary PhD in the School of Culture and Communications Her PhD investigates the potential and/or perceived barriers to publishing and selling climate fiction in Australia. Behind this niche topic, however, Astrid's work focuses on a much broader question: what is the role of the Arts and Education in the Anthropocene?
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Astrid Milena Bernal R.
Astrid's PhD explores the pathways to promote private investment towards energy transition through the analysis of the legal framework associated with corporate duties of disclosure and care in Australia and the United States. Her work aims to contribute to the understanding and stregthening risk factors associated with climate change for ambitious, nature- and rights-respecting effective climate action.
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Bajrang Chidhambaranathan
Bajrang is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Engineering and IT, specializing in the physical processes driving Southern Ocean circulation. His research combines advanced numerical simulations with observational data to uncover the dynamics governing this critical component of the global climate system.
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Becca Liu
Becca is a Master of Environment student at the Office for Environmental Programs. She's interested in climate change and renewable energy. With a background in business and industry, she is currently researching how Australia’s three largest energy companies are navigating the energy transition while maintaining profitability.
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Cahyani Widi Larasakti
Cahyani is a PhD student working on the geoeconomics of foreign renewable energy policy in resource-rich countries. I am focusing on whether resource-rich countries contest or complement multilateral norms on climate change and how they use economic partnerships to achieve their strategic interests. I am taking Australia and Indonesia as cases and combining the frameworks from international political economy, international relations, policy, and administration
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Ceren Ayas Yilmaz
Ceren completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne on just transition pathways in coal-reliant industrializing countries. Ceren’s research interests include just transitions and the political economy of coal. She has 18 years of experience in climate policy, advocacy, and campaigning through roles in philanthropy, think tanks, civil society, and academia. She is currently working at Climateworks Centre’s Policy and Engagement team as a Senior Project Manager. She is also a Director of the Board of the Sunrise Project Australia.
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Changlong Wang
Chang specialises in large-scale energy system transition optimisation, and renewable electricity export modelling in the forms of direct electricity, hydrogen and energy-embodied products such as green steel.
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Chris Paul
Chris’ PhD research aligns to the theme social vulnerability and adaptation with focus in the Pacific. Specifically, he is investigating systems for monitoring the social impacts of climate change in the South Pacific. This research programme is a joint PhD between University of Melbourne and University of Montpellier in France.
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Clare Walter
Clare's research focuses on closing the gap between research and policy related to the health and environmental impacts of air pollution in Australia. She is currently investigating the implications of continued car-centric city design and urban design practices to children's respiratory health (asthma) and examining policy responses.
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Dinh Huynh
Dinh is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. His research looks at the trans-disciplinary interactions between science, policy and practice in sustainable development, with the case study of flood management in the delta city of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
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Ellycia Harrould-Kolieb
Ellycia is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research sits at the intersection of global environmental governance and international environmental law. Ellycia’s broader research interests focus on the governance of the ocean and climate and their intersection. Her research explores the architectures of governance, including treaty regimes and international organisations, and their interactions, along with the roles that scientific knowledge and knowledge frames play in governance.
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Felix Brown
Felix is passionate about all things energy and ensuring the energy transition is equitable. His work encompasses the household-level changes we're seeing with the installation of solar PV and battery energy storage systems, and transport electrification across public and private fleets.
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Francesca Pujatti
Francesca is a PhD student in the Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics. She researches business strategy, and in particular how decision-makers envisage climate change affecting their organisations. Her focus is on the coffee industry and agriculture more generally.
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Gang Tang
Gang’s research focuses on coupling C-N cycles for the reduced complexity climate model MAGICC. In his PhD, he will build a module interlinked with MAGICC’s carbon cycle module that can represent the main N-modulated feedbacks and CO2 fertilisation as well as N fertilisation effects and N limitation characteristics. He will calibrate the new model structure/parameters accordingly. Gang has experience in dissolved organic matter biogeochemistry.
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Hannah Stahl
Hannah is a PhD candidate at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Her thesis explores the role of administrative courts in climate law in Germany and Australia through comparative law methodology. Her research on Australian climate litigation took her to Melbourne law school and MCF, where she investigates the strategies and legal argumentation employed by claimants and courts to strengthen climate law. Hannahs holds a research scholarship from Villigst, one of the major organizations for government funded sponsorship of doctoral researchers in Germany.
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Hendri Yulius Wijaya
Hendri is an interdisciplinary doctoral researcher whose research focuses on sustainability reporting, consultancy, gender and social inclusion, and human rights. Prior to pursuing a PhD in political science at Melbourne University, he worked for the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and a multinational consulting firm to help Indonesian large companies and SMEs in developing their sustainability strategies and reports, among other responsibilities.
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Hossain Mohammad Reza
Reza’s doctoral project focuses on cross-jurisdictional studies of adaptation litigations for making more effective adaptation pathway choices for Bangladesh. Reza has published articles on climate finance, experimentalist governance, North-South trade, and mediation of health disputes.
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Josephine Boateng
Josephine is a geographer from Ghana with a Master of Sustainability Studies from UNU in Japan, where she also worked at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES). She is studying the effects on women's reproductive rights of climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
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Joseph Phelps
Joseph is a PhD candidate at the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences. His research focuses on understanding the influence of climate on carbon dynamics in Australian forest ecosystems by using long term carbon and water flux monitoring across multiple forest ecosystems in southeast Australia. He aims to investigate how these ecosystems might respond to climate change.
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Kajsa Lundberg
Kajsa Lundberg is a doctoral researcher whose research focuses on climate change, bushfires, high-rise fires, and urban public spaces, examining the impacts on the interconnected well-being of human and non-human entities. She adopts an ecocentric perspective, emphasizing a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and non-human species and ecosystems in analysing current climate change mitigation policies.
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Kathiana Aznaran Luk
Kathiana is an early career researcher and current student of the Master of Climate Science. With a background in environmental engineering and experience as a climate consultant, she specializes in climate risk. Her current research focuses on the use of climate analogues as a tool for better decision making for future climate change scenarios in the Australian wine industry.
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Kelvin Say
Kelvin researches the decarbonisation and operational opportunities for end-users in a transitioning electricity market. He evaluates the potential of decentralised energy resources to create new market segments, operational roles, and business models.
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Lachlan McLeod
Locky is a PhD candidate in the School of Social and Political Sciences. His doctoral research focuses on agreement-making and benefit sharing with Indigenous and non-Indigenous community stakeholders of the incumbent Australian offshore wind transformation.
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Lachlan White
Lachlan is a postgraduate student in the Master Geography. His research looks into the complex effect of climate change on overlapping networks of governance, resources, and territory – with a specific focus on the interaction of climate change and coastal livelihoods/governance in Vanuatu.
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Louisa Sheridan
Louisa is a PhD candidate in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Using paleoclimate archives (speleothems and lake sediment), Louisa’s research will investigate how rapid climate change has impacted southern Australia’s fire, hydroclimate and vegetation in the past. Further, the results from this research will inform our understanding of the global drivers of climate change, and the response of earth’s systems to climatic tipping points
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Lucy Holmes McHugh
Lucy Holmes McHugh is a political scientist, specialising in the governance of climate crisis and transitions. She currently works on ocean governance (coral reefs and offshore wind) as part of the Science for Nature and People Partnership, a multidisciplinary science initiative to solve global challenges funded by The Nature Conservancy and The Wildlife Conservation Society. She undertook a PhD at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, where she sought to understand how social systems navigate climate risk and crisis across scales with a focus on UNESCO’s World Heritage system and the Great Barrier Reef. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Michigan where she collaborated on sustainability transitions research.
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Mark A.V. Ambay III
Mark is a PhD candidate researching on environmental and climate politics and governance in Southeast Asia. He was previously involved with regional and international organisations focusing on human rights, disaster risk reduction, and indigenous issues. He currently works for a regional network advancing protection of environmental human rights defenders in the Asia Pacific.
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Nabreesa Murphy
Nabreesa's PhD explores how the increasingly complex disaster landscape of the Pacific affects the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of Pacific youth. She hopes to highlight the impacts of disasters on existing SRHR inequities, and the importance of applying a justice lens to disaster risk reduction and governance. She aims to identify opportunities for meaningful youth engagement in disaster risk reduction, to strengthen youth leadership and inform inclusive strategies that address the needs of young people.
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Natalie Mason
Nat is a PhD candidate in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Her research explores the social and ecological implications of carbon and environmental income streams on pastoral properties. Her work focuses on the role of savanna burning methods in achieving farm business goals and conservation outcomes under climate change.
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Navam Niles
Navam Niles is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, specialising in climate adaptation governance and the influence of external actors on governance decisions. His multidisciplinary research bridges politics, economics, and environmental policy, with a keen focus on the political economy of development and climate finance. As a member of the teaching team for climate change politics and policy, Navam integrates theoretical frameworks with practical applications to empower the next generation of climate policymakers.
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Nayan Talmale
Nayan's research focuses on understanding compound extremes and their future projections under the overshoot scenarios. Nayan worked as a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) from 2020 to 2022, gaining experience in atmospheric research. He also has 1.5 years of industrial experience as a Meteorologist, serving as a Team Lead. His research aims to advance knowledge of climate extremes and their impacts.
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Nicholas Ford-Learner
Nicholas' PhD examines how integrating human rights considerations into conservation can enhance sustainability and resilience, benefiting both people and nature. He explores the intersection of social equity, conservation, and climate adaptation, with a particular focus on small-scale fisheries.
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Oliver Miltenberger
Oliver researches the design and implementation of economic and policy instruments for climate change. He uses natural and managed landscapes as case studies. This work supports development of carbon market guidance.
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Phoebe Quinn
Phoebe's PhD explores possibilities for scaling up deliberative processes in community decision-making around climate change, disaster risk reduction and recovery. Through mixed-methods action research, Phoebe is investigating the integration of Polis within community decision-making processes in Australia relating to climate change and/or disasters. Phoebe's work includes research into disaster resilience, community wellbeing and social justice, and knowledge translation activities including the development of strengths-based resources relating to disasters and climate change.
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Pia Treichel
Pia’s PhD research focuses on international climate finance for adaptation via the Green Climate Fund and the justice implications therein. Pia’s teaching and research activities focus on adaptation in practice, climate justice, and how to ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable.
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Poomphan Chanvittayanuchit (Win)
Win's research conducts scenario analysis of demand response (DR) to the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM). With the increase of flexible demand, his simulation will provide for better-informed decisions by policy makers and indicate whether the integration of demand-response programs is more economical than the addition of new generation and network capacity builds, as well as whether the scheme can complement existing energy storage systems to some degree.
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Rebekkah Markey-Towler
Bek researches the intersections between financial, corporate and climate law, as well as the role of climate litigation. Specifically, her PhD examines the regulation of climate change impacts to banks’ mortgage portfolios.
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Rhomir Yanquiling
Rhomir has been working on climate adaptation, climate finance, rights of nature, and water management and governance for the past seven years. He has held a number of research fellowship roles on climate adaptation finance and ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction initiatives in the Philippines and internationally. He has also been a part of the Climate Adaptation Finance and Keizo-Obuchi Fellowship Programs. Currently working on environmental and climate justice issues, his work focuses on big dam implementation and how this articulates to issues of environmental justice and equity with the end-goal of informing policy on better dam governance.
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Rimsha Rehan
Rimsha is a graduate researcher pursuing her Masters (Philosophy) at the School of Geography Earth and Environment Sciences. Her research focuses on the nexus of energy, economics and environment with a focus on tecno-economic analysis of renewable based technologies in South Asia (Pakistan) and its impact on the 'just' energy transition journey. She has been a former IMF Youth fellow and in the last three years she has contributed to multiple research projects, reports and policy briefs for Pakistan's energy transition while working with civil society/think tank.
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Ryan Schoenbaum
Ryan’s research aims to advance conservation and spatial-planning methods to account for processes that connect terrestrial and marine ecosystems in the context of climate change. His PhD project in the Burdekin region promotes the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef by integrating multiple objectives (water quality, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration) into a spatial optimisation framework.
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Sally Chen
Sally's research focuses on the detection and attribution of climate change on human health. She investigates whether, how, and to what extent climate change affects human health using Detection and Attribution. The D&A method utilises long-term climate data and health data, statistical models, causal inference and knowledge in climatology and epidemiology.
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Sam Netherclift
Sam is an early-career researcher and Master of Environment student in the Office for Environmental Programs (OEP). With a background in environmental sciences, he specialises in public health and has broad interests in the intersection between the disciplines. His research investigates the health co-benefits of ocean-based climate action
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Shudha Singh
Shudha is a Melbourne Climate Action Scholar undertaking a Masters of Environment in the Faculty of Science, Office of Environmental Programs. She specialises in environmental management and science, recognising and understanding current global environmental challenges facing scientists and policy makers. Her study involves monitoring and assessment techniques, as well as environmental modelling and technology in the areas of geology, hydrology and ecology in Australia and the Pacific.
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Simon Batterbury
Simon Batterbury is the MCF Academic Convenor. Simon has taught environmental studies and geography at the University of Melbourne since 2004. He was previously a Professor & Chair of Political Ecology at Lancaster University, UK, working in the large Lancaster Environment Centre. His research has been on adaptation to drought and land degradation in dryland West Africa, sustainable livelihoods in West Africa and Timor Leste, and Indigenous responses to mining in New Caledonia-Kanaky. Editor of the Journal of Political Ecology for 20 years and an advocate for academic-led OA publishing, he has edited 600+ journal articles and assisted publication by many early-career scholars.
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Sophie O'Connor
Sophie is a PhD candidate in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences. Her research explores the nexus between Australia’s food system and climate change policy, specifically investigating how corporate political activity influences the development of agri-food policies that are incompatible with ambitious mitigation and adaptation climate goals.
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Sophie Robinson
Sophie’s research sits at the interface of climate change, health, social-ecological systems and governance. Her PhD explores the role of governance in the climate-resilient development of healthcare systems and seeks to identify particular governance structures, mechanisms and attributes that enhance adaptive and transformative capacities of healthcare systems and enables climate-resilient development.
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Stefanie Mallow
Stefanie conducts her PhD at the Faculty of Education. Her research focuses on how UNESCO engages with scientific research to mobilise environmental and sustainability education policies, including climate change education, in global environmental and education governance.
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Stephanie Campbell
Stephanie has been working in the field of climate change and energy transitions for thirteen years. She has held a number of research roles focused on how to realise socially-just transformations to an ecologically sustainable economy in Australia and internationally.
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Steven Myburgh
Steven’s research surrounds the spread and management of an invasive grass species under climate change on pastoral properties across the Northern Australian savannas. Modelling incorporates interaction with fire regime, and impacts on carbon storage, biodiversity and landholder income are being assessed.
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Theo Mendez
Theo researches the role of geopolitics in driving changes within global supply chains. His PhD project analyses responses to contemporary American industrial policy within the Asia-Pacific, focusing on the responses of Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines to shifts within the supply chains for batteries, semiconductors, and defence technologies.
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Tia Brullo
Tia is a human geographer with research interests in climate change adaptation, and monitoring and evaluation. Her research takes a pragmatic approach to understanding climate change adaptation in Australia, working with government stakeholders and adaptation practitioners to design tangible knowledge outputs. She is currently working with the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Climate Systems Hub. Through this project Tia has worked on developing the Australian Adaptation Database, Australia’s first national stocktake of adaptation.
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Vito Avakumović
Vito is a joint PhD researcher affiliated with the University of Hamburg (Germany) and the University of Melbourne. His primary research objective is to incorporate well-known climate impacts into a target-based (e.g., 2 °C target) decision-making framework, designed to remain consistent in anticipation of future knowledge about the climate system. The principal tools in his research toolkit include climate-economic models, which range from globally aggregated integrated assessment models to multiregional and multisectoral models. While his PhD focuses mainly on climate economics, Vito's broader interest lies in the interdisciplinary approach to addressing climate change.
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William Hopkinson
William is a PhD candidate in the School of Social and Political Sciences. His research focusses on comparative climate change politics. Merging theoretical perspectives from sustainable transitions and comparative politics, William analyses the drivers and structural conditions for states' climate ambition under the UNFCCC.
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Xinyang Fan
Xinyang's research focuses on quantifying the impact of climate change and variability on the groundwater in Australia and Germany.
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Zali Fung
Zali Fung is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She recently completed her PhD in Geography at the University of Melbourne, her thesis examined community and civil society struggles over long-proposed hydropower dams and water diversions in the Thai-Myanmar borderlands of the Salween River Basin.
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Zoe Nay
Zoe specialises in climate change law and the law of the sea, with a focus on issues of climate change adaptation and loss and damage in the Pacific region. Her doctoral research examines legal issues related to state responsibility for loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change in Pacific small island developing states.