PLuS research projects

Richard C. Knopf serves as director of the Partnership for Community Development at Arizona State University and of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Arizona State University. He is also a professor of community development in the School of Community Resources and Development within the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at ASU.   His expertise rests in advancing community quality of life by building innovative inter-generational partnerships among businesses, government, non-profit and community service organizations. Over the past decade, he has managed investments of more than $2.5 million by corporations, government, and local and national foundations in his ASU centers to promulgate this mission.

Professor Knopf has authored more than 170 publications in community quality of life, including state-of-art reviews. In recognition of the global and local impact of his work, he was bestowed with the Community Development Achievement Award from the Community Development Society in 2014. He has also formed partnerships with the work of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and its global “Learning Communities” initiative, and serves on the steering committee for the Global Age Friendly University Network.   

Much of Knopf’s teaching and research has focused on the role of community development in life quality enhancement and economic growth. His specialty areas include: healthy aging and lifespan development, inter-generational programming, community building, community development theory and practice, community needs and assets assessment, community justice and marginalization, civic engagement and volunteerism, strategic planning and visioning, community well-being, community special events management, regional planning, program evaluation and assessment, non-profit capacity building, organizational marketing and promotions, natural resources policy, university-community partnership formation, grant writing, and public philanthropy.

Associate Professor Josh Keller's primary research interest is studying how managers respond to strategic paradoxes, including how to cooperate and compete, how to learn new endeavours and take advantage of knowledge of existing endeavours, and how to be both global and local. He also examines cross-cultural differences in approaches to paradoxes. His work has been published in multiple top-tier managerial journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Human Relations and Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes.

As the Program Director for the Master of International Business program, Associate Professor Josh Keller oversees curriculum and engagement issues for the program. He is also actively involved in ensuring that international topics are integrated into School of Management student learning at undergraduate and post-graduate levels.

Michael Etter has a PhD in organization studies and cultural theories from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He has worked as assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School and as Marie-Curie Research Fellow at Cass Business School, City, University of London. His work has appeared in academic journals, such as Academy of Management Annals, Academy Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, and Business and Society. Michael Etter has received multiple awards for his research and teaching excellence, as well as several research grants from prestigious funding institutions, such as the British Academy.

Michael Etter is interested in the construction of social evaluation of new and established firms, such as organizational reputation and legitimacy, in the new media landscape, which is shaped by new information and communication technologies (ICT). He looks at strategies, which new and established firms use to establish favourable social judgments in the digital economy. The role corporate social responsibility is thereby prevalent in his work.

Rhett Larson is the Richard Morrison Professor of Water Law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law. He is also a faculty fellow in the Center for Law and Global Affairs, and the Center for Law, Science, and Innovation. He is also a senior research fellow with the Kyl Center for Water Policy at ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. Professor Larson’s research and teaching interests are in property law, administrative law, and environmental and natural resource law, in particular, domestic and international water law and policy.

Professor Larson’s research focuses on the impact of technological innovation on water rights regimes, in particularly transboundary waters, and on the sustainability implications of a human right to water. He works on dispute resolution and improved processes in water rights adjudications in Arizona and the Colorado River Basin with the Kyl Center for Water Policy. He is the Principal Investigator on a USAID-funded applied research project improving water supplies for refugee host communities in Lebanon and Jordan. Professor Larson was a visiting professor and Fulbright Scholar at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, a visiting fellow with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, a Lady Davis Fellow and visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the forthcoming book from Oxford University Press, entitled Just Add Water: Solving the World’s Problems Using its Most Precious Resource.

Professor Larson also practiced environmental and natural resource law with law firms in Arizona, focusing on water rights, water quality, and real estate transactions.

Lara Ferry is the Associate Dean of Research and Strategic Initiatives for the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and a President's Professor. She holds an academic appointment in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences. She is also a senior sustainability scientist with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, affiliated faculty with the Biodesign Institute and the Global Security Initiative, and honors faculty in Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University.

Prior to joining ASU in 2010, she was a member of the research faculty at San Jose State University and Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Her research focuses on the evolution of jaws and their function in the aquatic realm, as well as the performance of biological materials.

Dr. Felicia M. Mitchell joined the School of Social Work at Arizona State University in August 2016. Mitchell is committed to social justice for all oppressed and marginalized peoples and advocates for the advancement of environmental and health equity in communities of color. Her primary research interests focus on social determinants of health (inclusive of environmental determinants) and their impact on Indigenous health and well-being. Mitchell's work seeks to promote public and policy responsiveness to the health, social and anthropological dimensions of environmental change specifically related to water. Mitchell values community-based participatory research principles when partnering with communities and organizations around group-identified health and ecological concerns. Mitchell's secondary line of scholarship focuses on advancing social work education through critical reflection and engagement that seeks to dismantle settler-colonial standards in academia. Using a critical lens, she examines teaching and curriculum standards to increase accurate representations of historically underrepresented populations in the classroom and advocates for the eradication of oppressive higher education and research practices.

Marion Thain is Professor of Literature and Culture at King’s College London, and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. She began her career as a Junior Research Fellow at Cambridge University, and worked in English departments at Russell Group universities before moving to New York University as a professor of Arts and Literature in the school of the interdisciplinary global liberal arts (Liberal Studies) and as Director of Digital Humanities for NYU. She returned to the UK in 2018. She publishes primarily on: aestheticism; poetry and poetics; technology and the arts.  Book publications include: The Lyric Poem and Aestheticism: Forms of Modernity (2016); The Lyric Poem: Formations and Transformations (2013); Michael Field: Poetry, Aestheticism, and the Fin de Siècle (2007); Poetry of the 1890s (1998).

Nishanth Sastry is a Senior Lecturer at King's College London. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, a Master's degree from The University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor's degree from Bangalore University,India, all in Computer Science. He has over six years of experience in the Industry (Cisco Systems, India and IBM Software Group, USA) and Industrial Research Labs (IBM TJ Watson Research Center).

His honours include a Best Undergraduate Project Award, a Best Paper Award from the Computer Society of India, a Yunus Innovation Challenge Award at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology IDEAS Competition, a Benefactor's Scholarship from St. John's College, Cambridge, a Cambridge Philosophical Society Research Studentship, a Cisco Achievement Program Award and several awards for his work at IBM. His work has ranged over several layers of the network stack and he is currently involved in building better networked systems by harnessing social network information.

Dr Annapurna Vyakarnam runs a laboratory that probes host pathogen interactions and adaptive immunity pertinent to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and HIV-tuberculosis (TB) coinfection, a recognized global health problem by the World Health Organisation.  With international funding support, she is currently seconded as a King’s College London staff scientist to the Indian Institute of Science, where she has set up an advanced wet laboratory facility to study HIV-TB coinfection in India, a TB endemic region of the world.   At the laboratory in depth functional analysis is conducted of immune cells isolated from HIV/TB-infected subjects, with an aim to deconvolute the adaptive T-cell response and identify novel correlates of protective immunity to both improve understanding of disease process and promote vaccine design and disease monitoring for the treatment of TB and HIV-TB coinfection.  

Dr Vyakarnam is the International Lead for School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences at King’s College London.

Dr Katie Meehan is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at King's College London and director of the Plumbing Poverty Project. With a focus on social justice and infrastructure provision in cities, her research explores urban water insecurity and how households innovate new water supply technologies and governance practices in the context of social and racial inequality. By coupling innovative methods in ethnography and spatial data science, the Plumbing Poverty Project is the first of its kind to explore the social geography of incomplete water and sanitation provision in the USA and Mexico. A two-time Fulbright scholar and former Peace Corps Volunteer, Meehan earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon and graduate degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Arizona. She is on the leadership team of the NSF-sponsored Household Water Insecurity (HWISE) Network, which seeks to catalyze social science discovery at the intersection of policy and practice.

Dr Leslie-Anne Duvic-Paoli is Lecturer in Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law and the Deputy Director of its Climate Law and Governance Hub. She is also a Fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance (C-EENRG) and Assistant Editor for the Transnational Environmental Law journal (Cambridge University Press). Leslie-Anne is a public international lawyer, with expertise in international environmental law, including climate and energy law. She is particularly interested in understanding the nature and content of environmental principles: her monograph, entitled The Prevention Principle in International Environmental Law, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. Leslie-Anne’s research also looks at the energy transition to a low-carbon economy from an international and comparative law perspective. She works on the global legal implications of energy democratisation and the importance of participatory mechanisms in the design of inclusive energy systems. 

Dr Elena Sitnikova is an academic and researcher, and Program Coordinator for the Master of Cyber Security program at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra, at the Australian Defence Academy. This Master program is the fastest growing postgraduate program at UNSW Canberra with student numbers increasing from 60 to 350 between 2015 and 2018. In 2018, two courses that Elena coordinates, Cyber Governance and Information Assurance became the first PLuS Alliance offerings from UNSW Canberra to Arizona State University. Elena leads a Critical Infrastructure Protection research group and publishes widely in the area of intrusion detection (IDS) for SCADA control systems cyber security and industrial IoT. Elena is also involved in education research and publishes in the area of engineering and ICT education. Elena is an award winning academic, holding a national Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Team Citation award for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

Dr Ang Liu is a senior lecturer at the UNSW Faculty of Engineering and the inaugural Director of the NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program. His research focuses on engineering design and engineering education, where he has published over 50 journal and conference papers. Dr Liu teaches design thinking to students and design practitioners and was the first Program Manager of the Viterbi iPodia Education program at the University of Southern California. At UNSW he also serves on the Engineering Faculty Board, Engineering Education Innovation Committee, Education Quality Assurance Committee and Humanitarial Engineering Committee. He is closely involved with many professional organisations such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineeers (ASME), the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and after being a Research Affiliate of CIRP (International Academy of Production Engineering) he is currently a nominee for one of the 150 Associate Memberships. Dr Liu is also the General Chair of the 13th Internaitonal Conference on Axiomatic Design in October 2019.

Associate Professor Kearnes is an ARC Future Fellow in Environmental Humanities, UNSW. He is a CI in the ARC CoE in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, leading research focused on the societal dimensions of nanomedicine. Situated between the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), human geography and environmental humanities, his research focuses on the social and political dimensions of technological and environmental change. His co-edited volume Remaking Participation: Science, Environment and Emergent Publics (Routledge, 2016) was awarded the 2018 Amsterdamska Prize by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST). He serves on the editorial board of Science, Technology and Society (Sage) and is an associate editor of Science as Culture (Taylor & Francis). He is co-convenor of the 2018 conference of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), and has held visiting positions at School of Geography, Oxford University (2015) and the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University (2011).

A/Prof Vinayak Dixit is the Director of the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI), Director Travel Choice Simulation Laboratory (TRACSLab) at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW Sydney, as well as an Academic Director at Insurance Australia Group (IAG). His research focuses on studying risk in the transportation infrastructure system as it relates to automated vehicles, highway safety, travel time uncertainty, as well as natural and man-made disasters and he is well-published in these areas. His work with individual level data has led him to deeply explore questions around data ethics, integrity and ownership. His education activities involve the development of the Master of Engineering Science – Transport, as well as education opportunities and micro-credentials for industry and overseas partners. His projects have been funded by the Australian Research Council, United States National Science Foundation, as well as transportation agencies across the world including Australia, U.S., Indonesia, India and U.A.E.

Dr Simone Z Leao is a Research Fellow in Urban Modelling and Simulation at the City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales. Interested in the interdependencies between built environment, society and technology, she works on developing knowledge and methodologies to assist urban planning to generate/regenerate urban areas with awareness of contemporary challenges. Her research explores forms of using data and applying analytics in the domain of smart cities to promote sustainable and equitable development and improve quality of urban life. In education at UNSW, she assisted in the design of the new and innovative Master Degree in City Analytics and is responsible for the new courses ‘Programmable Cities’ and ‘Geocomputation’. Previously, she has developed research and academic teaching in South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. She has authored and co-authored more than 50 publications in high impact journals, books and conference proceedings.

Associate Professor Ekins-Daukes joined UNSW through the Strategic Hires & Retention Pathways (SHARP) scheme and is based at the School of Photovoltaic & Renewable Energy Engineering where he conducts research into high efficiency schemes for solar power conversion. From 2008-17, Ned worked in the Physics department at Imperial College London and prior to that at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. From 2003-06 he was a JSPS research fellow at the Toyota Technological Institute, Japan. Ned holds a PhD and MSc from Imperial College and MSci in Physics & Electronics from the University of St Andrews.

I am a Chilean-Australian historian of art based in Sydney. I am currently Lecturer, Art Theory, at UNSW Art & Design, and Research Associate at Rhodes University (Arts of Global Souths Research Group). From 2015-18 I was Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UNSW, and Visiting Fellow at the CUNY Graduate Centre, working with MFA students. I am the author of over 85 publications, including the book Counter-Memorial Aesthetics: Refugee Histories and the Politics of Contemporary Art (Bloomsbury, 2016). I am currently developing a second monograph, focused on transnational collaborations between Chilean artists living in exile and under the Pinochet regime during the 1970s & 80s. In 2017 I initiated a parallel project, Future Souths, collaborating with leading diasporic and indigenous thinkers on the aesthetics and politics of the former third world or 'global souths', the results of which are currently being developed into an edited book for the highly respected Sternberg Press (Berlin, futuresouths.org).

Dr Laura Crommelin a lecturer in the Faculty of Built Environment and a research fellow in the City Futures Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. Her research expertise covers urban planning and policy, housing policy, and urban redevelopment. She is the lead researcher on a recently completed study examining the impact of Airbnb in Australia's major cities, and is also a chief investigator on a new ARC Linkage Grant examining the extent of building defects in multi-unit housing in Sydney. Laura teaches urban development and land law in the Faculty of Built Environment's city planning program, and is currently developing a course on strategies to address urban social justice issues through digital mapping. In addition, she is the Chair of the UNSW Early Career Academic Network, and was previously a NSW Fulbright Scholar (2012-2013), spending 8 months at the University of Michigan. 

Dr Holly Seale is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, at the University of New South Wales. She is the Program Director for the Masters of Infectious Disease Intelligence (PLuS Alliance Program) and is responsible for convening three masters courses including an Internship Program, Current Challenges in Infectious Disease (PLuS Alliance course) and Infection Prevention and Control in the Healthcare Setting. She is a social scientist who focuses on improving engagement and acceptance with a range of infectious disease prevention strategies such as immunization and hand hygiene. Within this program, she examines the socio-cultural aspects that influence engagement and acceptance and formulates interventions to improve compliance. She works closely with a range of professional organizations including the Australasian College for Infection Prevention and Control (ACIPC), hospitals and domestic and international health departments.

Dr Lois Meyer is the inaugural Director the Bachelor of International Public Health (BIPH). She is responsible for steering through the first PLuS Alliance degree to be developed, approved and offered by UNSW in partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) and drew upon her extensive background in curriculum design and accreditation in public health within Australia and internationally. As Senior Research Fellow in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine (SPHCM) for close to a decade she has taken a leadership role overseeing the strategic learning design and evaluation of the postgraduate programs in the School including innovations in online and evidence-informed pedagogy. Dr Meyer’s research focuses on students’ learning and career trajectories and professional formation. She represents UNSW on the national Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australasia (CAPHIA) and is on a national project reviewing the use of CAPHIA competencies in higher education public health programs.

Dr Kathleen Steinhöfel is a Reader in Computer Science at King’s College London and an Adjunct Professor at UNSW Sydney. She is currently also working with the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research centre dedicated to finding new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat conditions such as cancer, heart disease and stroke, infections and neurodegenerative conditions. Dr Steinhöfel’s research interests include: Local Search Algorithms for Combinatorial Optimisation; Energy Landscape Analysis; Applied Algorithmics; Structure Prediction in Molecular Biology and Evolutionary Computation. She is also part of a PLuS Alliance research team seeking to identify risk factors associated with genetic mutations of an efficient human-to-human transmissible form of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus, commonly known as ‘bird flu.’

Ivor Mason is a Professor of Developmental Biology at King’s College London. His research concerns embryonic brain development and he is a world leader in the field of fibroblast growth factor signaling in the embryo. He lectures and leads workshops and practical classes in subject areas spanning molecular and cell biology, developmental biology, genetics and evolution, histology, anatomy and neurobiology. He is currently developing online teaching resources for medicine. Professor Mason has served as Secretary of the British Society for Developmental Biology and for the UK Medical Research Council as a member of its Neuroscience and Mental Health Grant Panel and Advisory Board, its Molecular and Cell Biology Advisory Board and has chaired its Studentship Award Panel. Professor Mason also has an interest in science communication and is developing an undergraduate module in that area. He writes for The i national newspaper in the UK and was previously a British Science Association Media Fellow.

Dr Kimberly Goldsmith is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biostatistics & Health Informatics at King’s College London. She is a Biostatistician and Clinical Trials specialist with extensive experience in clinical trials in mental health as well as other disease areas. Her particular areas of interest are complex psychological therapy treatments and mediation of treatment effects.She holds an Honours degree in Biology and MSc in Microbiology and Virology from McMaster University, and a Master of Public Health from Oregon Health & Science University.  She was awarded a NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship in 2011 and graduated with a PhD in Biostatistics from King’s in 2014. She has  previously worked as a statistician and data manager in the areas of employment support for people with disabilities (in the United States), antimicrobial resistance, and heart and lung diseases.

Andrea Ellner, PhD in Political Science (Berlin), MA in History (Munich), is a Lecturer in the Department of Defence Studies at King’s College London. Her research focuses on civil-military relations, specifically moral injury, gender integration in armed forces, and the Women, Peace & Security (WPS) Agenda, including sexual violence in militaries and armed conflict. She has disseminated her research and provided expert advice to peers and practitioners nationally and internationally. Dr Ellner contributed to and co-edited with Professors Brad Allenby (ASU, Phoenix) and Tom Frame (UNSW, Canberra) the White Paper 'Moral Injury: Towards an International Perspective,' released at New America, Washington DC, in conjunction with the PluS Alliance in 2017. Also in 2017 she contributed to a panel on moral injury at the Future of War Conference, Washington DC, presented on the WPS Agenda and Just War Theory at the annual Euro-ISME conference, Brussels, and provided subject matter expertise on research and Professional Military Education (PME) on WPS at the Australian Defence Force Academy-UNSW, Canberra. In Defence Studies she is academic lead on gender, armed forces and violent conflict. She is a member of the Core Team (Gender SME) in the Centre for Military Ethics, King’s College, London.

Rob McLaughlin is Professor of Military Security Law and Director of the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society at UNSW Canberra. Prior to taking up this appointment he was on the faculty of the College of Law at the Australian National University, and from 2012-2014 he served as the inaugural Head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s Maritime Crime Program (for which he continues to regularly consult). Before becoming an academic, Rob served in the Royal Australian Navy for several decades as both a Seaman officer and a Legal officer. He served in surface units and submarines, and deployed to East Timor, Iraq, and on maritime border protection operations. As a lawyer, he served as Fleet Legal Officer, the Strategic Legal Adviser, Director of the Naval Legal Service, and Director of Operations and International Law in the Department of Defence. In a reserve capacity he continues to serve as an Assistant Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force. He holds degrees in history, law, and international relations, and earned his PhD at Cambridge. His research areas are law of the sea, maritime law enforcement, the law of armed conflict, and national security law. 

Professor Stephen Loo is Professor of Interdisciplinary Design and Art at UNSW Sydney. For more than 25 years, Stephen has researched, taught and practiced in the transdisciplinary nexus of art, architecture, design, philosophy, performance and science. He has published widely on biophilosophy, posthumanist ethics, ecological humanities and experimental digital thinking. Recent books include Deleuze and Architecture(2012) and Poetic Biopolitics (2016) and he is currently working on Speculative Ethologies (2018 with Dr Undine Sellbach). Stephen is a founding partner of award-winning design, architecture, interpretation and exhibition practice Mulloway Studio. He has a performance-philosophy based art practice and has shown internationally in Paris, Berlin, London, Sydney and Adelaide. Stephen has played a key role in national and international policy settings in architecture and design education as a past Chair of the National Education Committee, Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), and President of the Australian Deans of the Built Environment and Design (ADBED).

Joni Adamson is a President’s Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) at Arizona State University. She is the author and/or co-editor of American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice and Ecocriticism (University of Arizona Press, 2001), The Environmental Justice Reader (University of Arizona Press, 2002), American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Ecology (Routledge, 2013), Keywords for Environmental Studies (New York University Press, 2016), Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies—Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (Routledge 2017) and Humanities for the Environment (Routledge 2017). She lectures internationally and has published over 80 articles, chapters, blogs and reviews. Her work has been supported by many awards and grants, including most recently, the 2019 Benjamin N. Duke Fellowship at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. She is Secretary General of the Humanities for the Environment global network and served as President of the world’s largest environmental humanities organization, The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), in 2012.

Dr. Paul Westerhoff is a full professor in the Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering program in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, which is part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University and currently serves as a Senior Advisor on Science and Engineering to the ASU Provost. Westerhoff obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a MS from University of Massachusetts and BS from Lehigh University.  Westerhoff leads research funded by AWWARF, USEPA, NSF, DOD and local organizations investigating the fate of nanomaterials in water, use of nanomaterial-based technologies for water and reuse treatment, reactions and fate of oxo-anions (bromate, nitrate, arsenate) during water treatment, characterization, treatment and oxidation of natural organic matter in watersheds, formation of disinfection by-products, removal of taste and odor micropollutants. Westerhoff has received several research awards including the 2013 AEESP/Arcadis Frontier in Research Award, 2005 ASCE Walter L. Huber Research Award and the 2006 WEF Paul L. Busch Award.

Dragica Vasileska joined the ASU faculty in August 1997. She has published over 130 articles in refereed journals, book chapters, and in conference proceedings in the areas of solid-state electronics, transport in semiconductors, and semiconductor device modeling. She has also given numerous invited talks. She is a member of IEEE, the American Physical Society, and Phi Kappa Phi.

B. L. Turner II took his B.A. and M.A. degrees in geography from the University of Texas at Austin in 1968 and 1969 respectively, and his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974. At ASU he is the Gilbert F. White Professor of Environment and Society. Turner came to ASU after 28 years in the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, where he was Higgins Professor of Environment and Society, served as Director of that School for more than decade, and helped to create and administer the George Perkins Marsh Institute, which engages a range of human-environment problems. Professor Turner is currently engaged in land change science focused especially on deforestation and sustainability in the southern Yucatán. Turner continues to engage in large range of research activities focused on the theme of human-environment relationships. These range from those of the ancient Maya peoples of Mesoamerica, to smallholder farming behavior in the tropics, to tropical deforestation and sustainability. A significant portion of this work combines natural, human and remote sensing/geographical information sciences to address problems of human-environment systems, including: land change science, sustainability science, cultural and political ecology, global environmental and climate change.

Dr. Brian H Smith is a Trustees of ASU Professor in the School of Life Sciences at ASU, and his field of research is in Behavioral Neuroscience. His research uses insects, mice and humans to study odor guided behaviors and olfactory processing in the brain, specifically in relation to how memories are encoded for important associations with odors in an animal’s environment. Much of his work has involved development of, and participating in, teams of researchers who bring different skills to bear on research questions that require multidisciplinary approaches. As important as this kind of approach is in modern day science, it is still not completely integrated into training for PhD and postdoctoral researchers. His recent role in the PLuS Alliance has been to participate in development of a training program to help early career researchers understand how to formulate important questions, and then build cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural teams to solve those kinds of problems. This work includes development of a sense of entrepreneurship to apply any solutions to improve societal conditions.

Osvaldo Sala is the Julie A. Wrigley, Regents’ and Foundation Professor, at Arizona State University, where he contributes to both the School of Life Sciences and School of Sustainability. He is also the Founding Director of the Global Drylands Center and the Leader of the Extremes Focal Area, which is part of the Global Futures Laboratory He came to ASU in 2010 from Brown University where he was the founding Director of the Environmental Change Initiative and the Sloan Lindemann Professor of Biology. Dr. Sala has explored several topics throughout his career from water controls on carbon and nitrogen dynamics in arid and semi-arid ecosystems to the consequences of changes in biodiversity on the functioning of ecosystems, including the development of biodiversity scenarios for the next 50 years. He is particularly interested in working with scenarios as a way of simplifying, understanding, and communicating the complex relationships that emerge from the study of social-ecological systems. He has worked in the Patagonian steppe, annual grasslands of California, steppes of Colorado and deserts of Southern Africa and currently he has several experiments in the Southwest of the US from Idaho and Nevada to New Mexico. Osvaldo Sala served in numerous international institutions and in different capacities from the Scientific Committee of Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), where he was the president, to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). He is currently serving as President of the Ecological Society of America. He has received several recognitions to his academic work including being an elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of Argentina,  Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Ecological Society of America.

Mark Henderson is professor of Engineering at Arizona State University at the Polytechnic campus. He received the MS degree in biomechanical engineering and the Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (CAD) from Purdue University. Henderson was named a Presidential Young Investigator from 1985-90 and is co-author of the textbook, Computer-Integrated Design and Manufacturing. His major research includes 60 papers in computer-aided design and global engineering and he serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Computer-Aided Design (CAD).  Henderson is on the founding faculty of an engineering program at ASU's Polytechnic campus. He is also co-founder of the InnovationSpace, a new approach to transdisciplinary product development and entrepreneurship. Henderson's interests extend across typical disciplinary boundaries and include global design teams, innovative product design, computer graphics, CAD and rapid prototyping.

Dr. Erica Forzani is Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering Program as well as joint faculty in the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Program in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy at Arizona State University (SEMTE). Dr. Forzani also has a joint appointment with ASU’s Center for Bioelectronics & Biosensors (CBB) at The Biodesign Institute, and she is Deputy Director of CBB.  Dr. Forzani’s current research interests are the development of novel hybrid chemical and biosensors and the integration of sensors into wireless, non-invasive and inexpensive sensor devices. She is focused on health applications, and environmental health and safety. Currently, she has over 40 peer-reviewed publications, seven patent applications and two transferred intellectual properties. In addition, she has served as Guest Editor of Nanotechnology Journal, and is member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

Dr. Coon has a PhD in Counseling Psychology from Stanford University, a MEd from University of Oklahoma, and a BA in Foreign Service/Public Affairs, from the University of Oklahoma.  His research interests include design, evaluation, and translation of effective psychosocial interventions for midlife and older adults facing chronic illness (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS) and their family caregivers.

Professor Patrick Leman is the Dean of Education at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience. His research is in the area of child psychology, with a particular emphasis on children’s moral understanding, exclusion and inclusion and issues of social justice, how this is affected by gender and ethnicity.

Dr Harding is a Reader in Palliative Care at King's College London and has a number of collaborations with African palliative care leaders that has brought change in outcome measure for research and clinical practice as well has significantly grown the evidence base. Dr Harding’s research areas include outcome measurement and tool validation, HIV/AIDS, heart failure, family caregivers, sub-Saharan Africa, Global Health, audit and quality improvement, mixed methods, intervention development and testing.

Dr Megan Bowman began her career in Australia as a solicitor at a top-tier commercial law firm and then subsequently at a non-profit environmental law organisation. Her expertise focuses on transnational analyses of commercial and financial regulation, climate finance, corporate ethics, and optimal regulatory design which accounts for both the levers and limits of law and policy.

Dr Kyle Dyer is a Senior Lecturer in Addiction Science at Kings College London, and the Academic Lead for Education and Training within the Department of Addiction (KCL). Dr Dyer’s research interests include the application of oral fluid for therapeutic drug monitoring, harms associated with the use of methamphetamine, the relationship between alcohol and drug concentration and psycho-behavioural and cognitive impairment and factors impacting upon the translation of research into practice.

Dr George Adamson is an interdisciplinary geographer with specialisms that span the physical, social and cultural dimensions of geography, particularly climate. His research calls for a greater attention to pre-industrial or 'natural climate variability' and also an appreciation of the deeper historical interrelationship of climate and society.

Professor Simon Killcross is Head of the School of Psychology at UNSW. He received a BA and PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge, before taking up a research fellowship at Magdalene College Cambridge. He was appointed a lecturer in Psychology at the University of York in 1996, and Senior Research Fellow at Cardiff University in 1999. He was appointed Professor and Deputy Head of the School of Psychology at Cardiff before moving to UNSW as Head of School in 2009. His research examines preclinical models of fronto-striatal function, as well as translational models of human mental disorders such as schizophrenia. He has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters, and has received research funding from major government granting agencies (e.g. ARC, NHRMC in Australia, BBSRC, MRC in the UK), international charities (e.g. NARSAD, Wellcome Trust) and industry partners (e.g. Lilly, Wyeth, MSD).

Professor Nick Wailes is Associate Dean (Digital and Innovation) at UNSW Business School and Academic Director of AGSM’s specialised online MBA, MBAX. Nick’s role is to the lead the digital transformation of the Business School. Prior to joining UNSW Nick was the MBA Director at the University of Sydney Business School. Nick research interests including international and comparative employment relations and the impact of new and emerging technologies on organisation. Nick regularly comments in the media on how digital is reshaping traditional business models and industries
 

Lynne Bilston is a biomedical engineer whose research focuses on how mechanical forces are involved in physiological and pathophysiological processes in the body. Her research encompasses injury biomechanics, neural and other soft tissue biomechanics, and the development of novel imaging methods for making mechanical measurements in vivo. She has a PhD in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia senior research fellow. She is a Senior Principal Research Fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia, and is a conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales.

Professor Cameron Holley is the Co-Director of Postgraduate Studies at UNSW Law, Chair of the Environmental Law Research Cluster at UNSW Law and a member of the leadership teams of the Connected Waters Initiative Research Centre and the Global Water Institute, UNSW. His research is in the areas of environmental law and water governance. Within these fields, he has examined issues of compliance and enforcement, environmental security, resilience, democratic participation, adaptive management and collaborative governance. An empirical researcher, Cameron works closely with international government and non-government organisations on research projects. His current agenda is centred on water law and energy governance (under an ARC Discovery) and identifying best practices in the regulation of water scarcity by comparing laws in Europe, USA and Australia. In 2014, he was awarded the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Scholarship Award for my contribution to environmental law scholarship.

Alex Broom is Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Australia. He specialises in the sociology of health and illness, with a current focus on issues related to: illness experiences; the therapeutic encounter; experiences of suffering, healing and survivorship; and, the moralities of care and caregiving. His work extends across a variety of cultural contexts, with current projects being based in Australia, Britain, India and Brazil. Over the course of the last decade, his international research contribution is distinguished by its interdisciplinary focus and emphasis on translational outcomes as produced through rigorous sociological enquiry. His research program, with its focus on end-user relevance, engagement and translation to practice, involves regular partnership with community groups, private industry and government-funded organisations, to facilitate knowledge synthesis and policy and practice change. He has published over 200 publications including 12 books, and is an investigator on over AU$8 million in competitive research grants. Recent books include Men's Health: Body, Identity and Social Context (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) and Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia (Routledge, 2011), Evidence-based healthcare in context (Ashgate, 2012), Gender and Masculinities: Histories, Texts and Practices in India and Sri Lanka (Routledge, 2013) and Dying: A Social Perspective on the End of Life (Ashgate/Routledge, 2015). He presently convenes the 'Health Stream' within UNSW Arts and Social Sciences’ Practical Justice Initiative.

Scientia Professor David Waite from the UNSW School of Civil and Environmental Engineering is leading a team working at the intersection of nanotechnology, materials science and environmental engineering, developing new composite materials made from silver nanoparticles anchored onto the low-cost silica from rice husk ash (RHA).  When burned, the ash from rice husks has a high concentration of silica, which is thought to be an excellent supporting material for ultra-fine silver nanoparticles.  These nanoparticles have become well-known for their anti-bacterial properties and applications in water treatment, but at the size where these particles are most effective (diameters less than 20 nm), they have a tendency to aggregate, which decreases their disinfecting potential.  The rice husk ash prevents aggregation of the silver nanoparticles, the rice husk ash support slows down the release time of dissolved silver, enhancing the long-term anti-bacterial applications of the particles.  The technology is ideal for supplying clean, affordable drinking water to remote communities or for providing purified water after a disaster or emergency.

Professor Karin Sanders (School of Management, UNSW Business School) is professor of Human Resources Management (HRM) and Organizational Behaviour at the UNSW Business School, and Head of School of Management. Her research focuses particularly on the impact of employees’ perceptions and understanding (attributions) of HRM on employees’ innovative behaviour and firms’ innovation. Her research has been published in such scholarly outlets as the Journal of Vocational Behavior, Organizational Studies, Academy of Management Learning and Education and HRM (all Financial Times list journals). Karin is a recently elected board member of the Executive Board of the HR Division (Academy of Management, the professional association for management and organization scholars) and is one of the leaders of HR Division’s International Ambassadors program.

Professor Lovell obtained his Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in 1984, and his PhD in Engineering (specialising in cardiac neurophysiology and biomedical engineering).  Lovell’s research expertise can be categorised into 3research themes based around neural prosthetics, physiological modelling and telehealth.  He has published 218 journal articles, 277 refereed conference proceedings, 6 books/proceedings, 22 book chapters and >150 abstracts.  Lovell is a most prominent biomedical engineer on the world stage being a fellow of six learned academies/societies and having taken on major leadership roles in professional organisations related to biomedical engineering, particularly the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

Professor Gooding is a founding co-director of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of New South Wales.  His research background has been focused specifically on surface chemistry with a particular emphasis on how to design molecular scale devices on surfaces.  Much of this work has by motivated towards molecular devices that detect chemical or biological species to give sensors. In recent years this has led to sensors that detect many single molecules and many single cells.  He is also the inaugural editor-in-chief ACS Sensors published by the American Chemical Society.  He has published over 300 papers in electrochemistry, surface chemistry, cell biology, biosensors, nanomedicine and molecular electronics.

Professor Luca Viganò is a Professor in Computer Science (Software Modelling and Applied Logic). He is also ViceDean (International) for Natural and Mathematical Sciences, promoting international collaboration throughout the Faculty. His research interests include formal Methods for security, security logics, security testing, and labelled deduction for non-classical logics (modal logics, sub structural logics, etc.) and the combination of logics.

Professor Chris Roberts Is the first PLuS Alliance Professor, a role which will facilitate PLuS Alliance activities through innovation and entrepreneurship. Professor Roberts has extensive experience in the biomedical devices industry, and previously led one of the major companies in this area, Cochlear, an Australian-based multinational. He has also had experience in renal (dialysis), orthopaedics (electrical bone growth simulation), cardiology (pacemakers) and respiratory and sleep medicine (CPAP and ventilation). Each of these areas has been driven by innovation on a global scale. Professor Roberts is a non-executive director of ResMed Inc and a member of the Jobs NSW Board, NSW Innovation and Productivity Council, Monash University Industry Council of Advisors, University of Technology Sydney Vice-Chancellor’s Industry Advisory Board, UNSW’s Faculty of Medicine Advisory Council, the Health Innovation Advisory Committee (a principal committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council), and a member of the Board of Governors of the Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology. He holds a BE (Honours) in chemical engineering (UNSW), an MBA (Macquarie University) and a PhD (UNSW) and has been awarded Honorary Doctor of Science degrees from both Macquarie and UNSW. He was recipient of the Charles Copeman Medal from the HR Nicholls Society for service to freedom of employment and is also a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia. In 2015, he was Engineer Australia’s  Professional Engineer of the year.

Barry Bozeman, PhD, is Arizona Centennial Professor of public management and technology policy and the director of the Center of Organizational Research and Design at Arizona State University. Bozeman also serves as the director of the School of Public Affairs.

Most of Bozeman’s research primarily focuses on public management, organization theory, and science and technology policy. His practitioner experience includes a position at the National Science Foundation’s Division of Information Technology and a visiting position at the Science and Technology Agency’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy. He also has served as a consultant to a variety of federal and state agencies in the US, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy. Bozeman has helped in the design and evaluation of the national innovation systems of the Republic of South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, France, Israel, Chile, and Argentina.

Andrew Maynard, PhD, is a Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University and director of the Risk Innovation Lab, a unique center focused on transforming how we think about and act on risk, in the pursuit of increasing and maintaining value. Professor Maynard was previously chair of the Environmental Health Sciences department at the University of Michigan.

Maynard’s research and professional activities focus on risk innovation and the responsible development and use of emerging technologies, including nanotechnology and synthetic biology. He is widely published and has a regular column for the Journal of Nature Nanotechnology. Maynard has served on National Academy panels and has testified before congressional committees. He is co-chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Nanotechnology and is a member of its metacouncil. 

David Guston, PhD, is the founding director of the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and interim co-director of the Institute for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University. Professor Guston is co-director of ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, where he is principal investigator and director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society. He also is a senior sustainability scientist for the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU.

Guston’s research interests include societal aspects of emerging technologies, responsible innovation, anticipatory governance, technology assessment, and public engagement in science and technology. He is published and cited on research and development policy, technology assessment, public participation in science and technology, and the politics of science policy. His book, Between Politics and Science: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research was awarded the Don K. Price Prize by the American Political Science Association for best book in science and technology policy. In addition to co-authoring several publications, Guston is also the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Responsible Innovation.

Professor Pettit is the inaugural Chair of Urban Science (2015) at UNSW Sydney, being previously at the University Melbourne (20011-2015). The State Government of Victoria, (2004-2011) and RMIT University (2002-2004).  He is responsible for the Digital Cities course at UNSW. He previously developed the Urban Informatics course at the University of Melbourne and was the lead author on the ESRI online virtual campus course in GIS and Planning which attracted more than 3,000 students between 2000 and 2010. His educational background has been focused specifically on the fields of spatial planning and GIS at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.  His Ph.D. examined the using of GIS and mapping technologies for undertaking scenario planning at the land parcel level across municipalities.  Professor Pettit is closely involved with a number of professional organisations.  He is a member of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) and the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA).

Professor Kingsford is Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW Sydney. Good management of river systems is dependent on good information of the ecological responses and a long history of monitoring the breeding of waterbirds in the Macquarie Marshes is producing dividends. The Macquarie Marshes is now established as the most important site in Australia for the breeding of colonial waterbirds (herons, egrets and ibis). The project monitors the impacts of changing water regimes on the breeding and abundance of waterbirds in the Macquarie Marshes.  In October of each year Professor Kingsford conducts an aerial survey to estimate the abundance of waterbirds in eastern Australia. This project is one of the largest surveys of fauna in the world.

Professor Kristy Muir is the Research Director of the Centre for Social Impact at UNSW Sydney.  Her research and teaching programs work with dozens of government, not-for-profits, corporates and philanthropic organisations to help understand, measure and find innovative solutions to some of society’s most intractable, complex social problems and to achieve social justice.  Professor Muir has obtained over $10 million in competitive research funding; published in the highest-ranking international academic journals and demonstrated exceptional leadership.

Nina McDermott is Head of the English Language Centre at King's College London and has overall responsibility for all programmes run by the Centre. She has worked for many years in the fields of EFL, EAP and Business English in both the UK and Europe. Her current research interests are in the fields of learner autonomy and effective learning in a higher education environment.

Professor Anna Reading is Head of the Department of Culture, Media & Creative Industries. Her interdisciplinary research examines broader questions of social and cultural continuity and transformation with an emphasis on: digital methodologies, materialities and knowledge practices, cultural heritage and collective memory rights, gender and memory, cultural memories of nonviolent struggle, cultural memories of the holocaust and genocide, mobile and social witnessing of terrorism and atrocity.

Carolyn M. Warner is a Professor of Political Science in the School of Politics and Global Studies at ASU. Warner’s research and teaching areas are religion and politics, and the political economy of corruption. The common thread is a long-standing interest in the role of beliefs and institutional structures in shaping the behavior of religious organizations, politicians and firms. Her recent work on religion has studied two facets of it, focusing on its role in conflict, on the one hand, and in social welfare on the other. Her work on corruption has examined how political and economic competition in the European Union has created incentives and opportunities for corruption, rather than reducing corruption. She is working on a new project about the politics of sex abuse in the Catholic Church and military in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, looking particularly at how and why the institutions handle (or mishandle) cases of sex abuse and sexual assault as they do, and whether and, if so, how the state and civil society call the institutions to account.

Senator Jon Kyl, JD, serves as senior advisor at Covington and Burling, LLP, and is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a distinguished fellow in Public Service in Arizona State University’s College of Public Programs, and Distinguished Scholar in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. In September 2018, Senator Kyl announced he would be filling the Arizona Senate seat of the late John McCain. Previously, Kyl served eighteen years in the US Senate after serving for eight years in the House of Representatives. He was elected unanimously by his colleagues in 2008 to serve as Republican Whip, the second-highest position in the Senate Republican leadership, a position he held until 2013.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he helped write reforms to US patent law, the landmark Crime Victims’ Rights Act, as well as important provisions of the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and other anti-terrorism laws.

As a member of the Finance Committee, he was a chief advocate of pro-growth tax policies, including low tax rates on income, capital gains, dividends, and estates. He was a member of the Joint Select Committee for deficit reduction, the so-called “Super Committee.”

Professor Irene J Higginson is Head of Department, Head of Division and Director of Cicely Saunders Institute, the first purpose built institute for research into palliative care. Professor Higginson has research interests and publications in the following areas: quality of life and outcome measurements, evaluation of palliative care especially of new services and interventions, epidemiology, clinical audit, effectiveness, psychosocial factors and care, symptom assessment, cachexia/anorexia, and elderly care.

Professor Michelle Moulds is a Professor and Director of the Master of Psychology (Clinical) program in the School of Psychology at UNSW Sydney.  Her research program is to advance understanding of how rumination and memory disturbances maintain depression.  She conducts basic science experiments in the laboratory with the long-term goal of translation to empirically supported, evidence-based interventions for depressive disorders.  In 2010 she received a Young Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science, and was also named the Young Tall Poppy of the Year for NSW.  She was a finalist and first runner-up in the Scopus Young Researcher of the Year Award (Humanities and Social Sciences) in 2012 and in 2013 received the Early Career Award from the Stress and Anxiety Research Society and was made a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Professor Farrell is the Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at UNSW Sydney.  His research is in the area of understanding the epidemiology of alcohol and drug use, mental disorders, and harms related to alcohol and drug use.  He has contributed to the formulation of both UK and Australian national drug and alcohol policy as a researcher and advisor to Federal and state governments.  He has been an expert advisor to the WHO, and as Scientific Advisory Committee Chair of the European Centre of Drugs and Drug Addiction.  NDARC is now recognised as being amongst the top 5 international research centres on substance abuse.

Martin Prince is Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry at the IoPPN and joint Director of the Centre for Global Mental Health, a collaboration between King’s and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His research focuses on mental health priorities in developing countries, with a strong focus on capacity building in policy, prevention, treatment and care of mental illness worldwide. He coordinates the 10/66 Dementia Research Group, a network of researchers from around the world, working together to promote research into dementia in low and middle income countries.

Amber Wutich is a President’s Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Global Health at Arizona State University. Her two decades of community-based fieldwork are concerned with how inequitable and unjust resource institutions impact people’s well-being, especially under conditions of poverty. An expert on water insecurity and mental health, she directs the Global Ethnohydrology Study, a cross-cultural study of water knowledge and management. Wutich maintains longstanding ties in fieldsites in Paraguay and Bolivia. An ethnographer and methodologist with over 120 peer-reviewed publications, Wutich co-edits the journal Field Methods and co-authored Analyzing Qualitative Data (2016, SAGE). Her teaching has been recognized with awards such as Carnegie CASE Arizona Professor of the Year. Wutich has raised over $34 million in research funds, as part of collaborative teams, from NSF, USDA, and other funders. Wutich’s latest book is Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health (2019, JHUP).

Dr. Flavio Marsiglia is Regents’ Professor and Foundation Professor of Cultural Diversity and Health at Arizona State University School of Social Work, Watts College. He is the Principal Investigator of a Specialized Center (U54) on health disparities research, located at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC) and funded by NIMHD/NIH. The U54 is developing and testing obesity, diabetes and substance abuse prevention interventions with Latinx and urban American Indian youth and families. Since 2016, Dr. Marsiglia is the director of the Global Center for Applied Health Research (GCAHR). The Global Center conducts intervention health research and training in partnership with universities and communities in Mexico and other Latin American nations as well as in Africa, Asia and Europe. Dr. Marsiglia serves as the Principal Investigator of a five yearlong NIDA R01 award to adapt and test a substance abuse prevention intervention for youth in Mexico. He is working in partnership with colleagues at UNSW and urban aboriginal communities in Australia to implement and test a culturally congruent substance abuse prevention program.

Heather Bimonte-Nelson, PhD, joined the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU in 2005 and is a Professor and behavioral neuroscience program director for the Department of Psychology. Her laboratory focuses on the cognitive and brain changes that occur during aging, develops strategies to attenuate mnemonic and neurobiological age-related alterations, and researches the role sex and hormones play in the brain and cognition during aging and neurodegenerative disease.

Bimonte-Nelson is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium and has received numerous awards, including the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium Outstanding Young Investigator Award and the Outstanding Teacher Award from the City of Phoenix for mentoring high school students in the laboratory.

Elizabeth Wentz, PhD, is Dean of Social Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. Professor Wentz also serves as a Professor and director of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and President of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science.

In 1997, she came to ASU to focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of Geographic Information Science technologies, such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, and spatial analysis. Wentz's most current projects concentrate on water resource management and urban remote sensing.

Kerry Smith, PhD, is an emeritus regents’ professor and emeritus professor of economics for the W.P. Carey School of Business as Arizona State University and is a distinguished sustainability scientist for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Professor Smith also directs the Center for Environmental Economics and Sustainability Policy in the L. William Seidman Research Institute, which serves as a link between the local, national, and international business communities and the W.P. Carey School of Business.

Before joining ASU in 2006, Smith was a distinguished professor and the director of the Center for Environmental and Resource Economic Policy at North Carolina State University.

Smith is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a university fellow at Resources for the Future, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C. He is also a fellow of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and of the American Agricultural Economics Association.

Smith has a bachelor’s degree and doctorate from Rutgers University. His research interests include economics, modeling and simulation, land use and land cover, econometrics, climate change and adaptation, and conservation policy.

Christiana Honsberg, PhD, joined the electrical engineering faculty at Arizona State University (ASU) in 2008 and is a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at ASU. Professor Honsberg also is a senior sustainability scientist for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute for Sustainability at the university.

Honsberg holds a BS, MS, and PhD from the University of Delaware. Prior to joining the ASU, she was an associate professor and director for the high performance solar power program at the University of Delaware. Honsberg’s research interests include solar energy systems, semiconductors and photodetectors. She currently holds one patent in the US, Japan, and Europe and three patents are pending.

Gary Dirks, PhD, is the director of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University and director of LightWorks, an ASU initiative that capitalizes on the university’s strengths in solar energy and other light-inspired research. Dirks is also the Julie Ann Wrigley Chair of Sustainable Practices, professor of practice in the School of Sustainability, and a distinguished sustainability scientist.

Dirks received his PhD in chemistry from ASU in 1980, and returned to ASU as the director of LightWorks in 2009. His expertise includes but is not limited to energy efficiency, conservation, and policy, bioenergy, alternative fuels and vehicles, renewable energy, and artificial photosynthesis. He was the first doctorate student to work in the Center for the Study of Early Events in Photosynthesis (now the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis). 

Dirks is the former president of BP Asia-Pacific and president of BP China. In China, Dirks grew BP from an operation of fewer than 30 employees and no revenue to more than 1,300 employees and revenue of about $4 billion in 2008. He has served on the boards of the India Council for Sustainable Development, the US/China Center for Sustainable Development, and the China Business Council for Sustainable Development.

In 2003, Dirks received China’s “Friendship Award” and an honorary CMG (Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George) from the United Kingdom in 2005. In 2008, he was recognized by the People’s Daily as one of the 10 most influential multinational company leaders of the last 30 years of China’s economic development. 

Professor Evelyn Welch is Vice-Principal (Arts & Sciences) and Professor of Renaissance Studies in the Department of History, School of Arts& Humanities. Her early work centred on Renaissance Milan and fifteenth-century court culture. She later became interested in issues of consumption and went on to work with colleagues in Economic History and Cultural History, resulting in my publications on shopping, marketplaces and pedlars. Her current research interests include Renaissance and Early Modern Material culture, consumption in Early Modern Europe dress and fashion in Early Modern Europe and smell and the senses in Early Modern Europe.

Professor Sir Robert Lechler is Vice-Principal (Health) and is Executive Director of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre. His research interests revolve around transplantation tolerance; the central aim of his research is to persuade the immune system to “tolerate” the foreign organ while retaining full capability to fight off infections and cancer. He is Chair of the Clinical Trials Expert Advisory Group, as well as a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Schools Council.

As University Dean for Educational Initiatives and CEO of EdPlus, Phil Regier is responsible for guiding Arizona State University’s expansion into online learning and establishing its leadership role in education innovation. Phil previously served as executive dean at the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU. He’s also an accounting faculty member and has published research in leading academic journals on postretirement benefits, corporate restructuring and market-based accounting.

Professor Ian Jacobs BA, MA, MBBS, MD, FRCOG is President and Vice-Chancellor of UNSW Sydney Professor Jacobs came to Australia from the UK, where he had a distinguished career as a leading researcher in the area of women’s health and cancer and in university leadership. Immediately prior to joining UNSW he was Vice President and Dean at the University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, a partnership linking the University with six healthcare organisations involving over 36,000 staff. He was previously at University College London, where he created and led the Institute for Women’s Health, was Research Director of UCL Partners and Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences.  Professor Jacobs is the Principal Investigator for the Cancer Research UK and Eve Appeal funded PROMISE (Prediction of Risk of Ovarian Malignancy Screening and Early Detection) programme and on several large multicentre clinical trials including the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening involving 202,000 participants in 13 collaborating UK centres and the UK Familial Ovarian Cancer Screening Study.  In 2005 Professor Jacobs established the Uganda Women’s Health Initiative, which he still chairs and which conducts a series of projects in Uganda including a cervical screening programme. He has been President of the British Gynaecological Cancer Society (2001-2004) and of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (2005-2007). He is Medical Advisor to the Eve Appeal charity (also known as the Gynaecology Cancer Research Fund) which he founded in 1985, a Patron of Safehands for Mothers, founder and non-Executive Director of Abcodia Ltd and patent holder of the ROCA (Risk of Ovarian Cancer Algorithm).