Brian J. Gerber is an associate professor at the College of Public Service and Community Solutions, Arizona State University, where he is director of the Emergency Management and Homeland Security program. Gerber received his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University (SUNY) in 2000. His research specialization areas include disaster policy and management, homeland security policy and administration, and environmental regulatory policy and has published such research in a number of academic journals. Prior to arriving at ASU, he served as executive director of the Buechner Institute for Governance at the University of Colorado Denver, as research director for the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute at Louisiana State University, was a research associate with West Virginia University’s Regional Research Institute, was a research fellow with the National Science Foundation’s “Next Generation of Hazards Researchers” program and has served as a subject matter expert on a variety of projects.  He sits on the executive committee of the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships, was a five-year member of the Denver Board of Environmental Health. Gerber has extensive experience performing policy analysis and program evaluation work for state and local government agencies, as well as major national nonprofits engaged in disaster relief and recovery work. 

Joni Adamson is Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Senior Sustainability Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.  She directs the Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) at ASU and is Past President (2012) of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), the largest international organization of environmental humanists.  She serves on the editorial boards of her field’s leading journals and is the author and/or co-editor of many books and volumes that helped to establish and expand the environmental humanities and environmental justice critical studies, including Humanities for the Environment (HfE): Integrating Knowledge, Forging New Constellations of Practice (Routledge 2017); Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies—Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (Routledge 2016); and Keywords for Environmental Studies (New York University Press, 2016). She is a Convener of the North American Observatory of the Humanities for the Environment global network (HfE), an Andrew Mellon Foundation seed-funded system of eight Observatories focused on globally networking humanists, social scientists, and scientists working on the challenges of climate change, social inequities, and environmental injustices.

Dr. Wiek is an Associate Professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University with affiliations to the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO), the School of Public Affairs, and the Decision Theater at ASU.  He is the head of the Sustainability Transition and Intervention Research Lab (“Transition Lab”) at the School of Sustainability with currently ten graduate and undergraduate students. His research group conducts and has been involved in sustainability research on emerging technologies, urban development, resource governance, climate change, and public health in USA, Canada, different European countries, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Costa Rica. He is also involved in two NSF-funded research programs, namely the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) and the Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC).  Dr. Wiek holds a Ph.D. in environmental sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and a Master’s degree in philosophy from the Free University Berlin. He had research and teaching engagements at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and the University of Tokyo.

Dr. Vivoni is a hydrologist whose is interested in the interactions of water in the lithosphere, biosphere and atmosphere. His current research focuses on land surface ecohydrological processes in the semiarid southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, in particular during the summer monsoon season. Current field efforts include a small watershed study of ecohydrological interactions in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, a regional basin study of the hydroclimatological impact of vegetation greening in the Rio Sonora in Mexico, and the study of the short and long-term effects of vegetation changes on the hydrological response in basins of northern New Mexico. In these studies, field observations and remote sensing data are used in conjunction with a distributed model to explore the underlying hydrological mechanisms and provide relevant predictions at the watershed scale. This research involves data analyses of observations, numerical modeling using parallel computing, and synthesis activities to test relevant hypotheses.

Dr. Kurt VanLehn is the Diane and Gary Tooker Chair for Effective Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. He received a Ph. D. from MIT in 1983 in Computer Science, was a post-doc at BBN and Xerox PARC, joined the faculty of Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985, moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1990 and joined ASU in 2008. He founded and co-directed two large NSF research centers (Circle; the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center). He has published over 125 peer-reviewed publications, is a fellow in the Cognitive Science Society, and is on the editorial boards of Cognition and Instruction and the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. Dr. VanLehn's research focuses on intelligent tutoring systems, classroom orchestration systems, and other intelligent interactive instructional technology.

Dr. Sarah Stabenfeldt received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Saint Louis University and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. She was awarded an NIH NRSA pre-doctoral fellowship for her doctoral thesis research on developing neural tissue engineering therapies for traumatic brain injury. As a NIH post-doctoral fellow at Emory University School of Medicine and Georgia Tech, she investigated fibrin-derived peptide-protein binding interactions, designing fibrin-based wound healing therapeutics. She joined Arizona State University’s School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering as an Assistant Professor in 2011 and leads her research team in developing regenerative medicine strategies for acute neural injury. Since joining ASU, Sarah has been awarded the Arizona Biomedical Research Consortium Early Stage Investigator Award, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, and NSF CAREER Award.

Professor Anna Scaglione’s expertise spans the areas of statistical signal processing for communication, electric power systems and information networks. Her main research objective is advancing intelligent infrastructure, through information systems and data analysis. Specific topics include decentralized information processing in sensor networks and among social agents as well as cyber-security and demand response for reliable energy delivery.  She is a fellow of the IEEE, recipient of the 2013 IEEE Fink Award and 2000 Best paper award in the IEEE Signal Processing Society. 

Dr. Larkey’s research interests include testing theory-based methods of communicating health messages to underserved/low-income populations, community-based participatory research practices, and examining mind-body methods of alleviating symptoms in cancer survivors.

Dr. Goodnick is Deputy Director of ASU LightWorks. Steve Goodnick is an expert in solid-state device physics, semi-conductor transport, quantum and nanostructure devices and device technology, and high frequency devices. Goodnick is also the director of Arizona Institute for Renewable Energy (AIRE). Goodnick previously served as the interim deputy dean for the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering at ASU, and earlier as chair of the Fulton School’s Department of Electrical Engineering, and served as President of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association from 2003-2004. Germany, Japan and Italy are among the countries he has served as a visiting scientist.  Goodnick is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow. Other honors and awards he has received include the IEEE Phoenix Section Society Award for Outstanding Service (2002), the Colorado State University College of Engineering Achievement in Academia Award (1998), and the College of Engineering Research Award (Oregon State University, 1996). His publication record includes more than 165 refereed journal articles, books and book chapters related to transport in semiconductor devices and microstructures.

Dr. Davies is a British-born theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist and best-selling author. He is Regents' Professor and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative, and Principal Investigator in the Center for the Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology, all at Arizona State University. He helped create the theory of quantum fields in curved spacetime, with which he provided explanations for how black holes can radiate energy, and what caused the ripples in the cosmic afterglow of the big bang. In astrobiology, he was a forerunner of the theory that life on Earth may have come from Mars. He is currently championing the theory that Earth may host a shadow biosphere of alternative life forms. In addition to his research, Davies is known as a passionate science communicator, and is in demand world-wide for media appearances and public presentations.

Dr. Baral is Professor and Chair of the School of Computing and Informatics Professor at Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering and Department of Biomedical Informatics, Biomedicine.  Dr. Baral’s expertise is in Bioinformatics Knowledge representation, reasoning and declarative problem solving. A systematic approach to designing and analyzing autonomous agents.

David Demeritt is Professor of Geography and is currently one of the editors for 'Environment and Planning A'. He is also a member of the NERC Peer Review College. Professor Demeritt's research interest are in flood risk management and climate change, risk communication, regulation and governance, and environmental politics and policy.

Dr Naho Mirumachi is Lecturer in Geography at the Department of Geography. She has research interests in the politics and governance of the environment, particularly water. Dr Mirumachi has fieldwork experience in the Orange-Senqu River basin in Southern Africa, Ganges River basin in South Asia, and the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia, and most recently Tanzania.

Dr Linda Klavinskis is Vice-Dean of Postgraduate Research, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine. Her research interested are in both understanding and exploiting basic mechanisms by which dendritic cells control innate and adaptive immunity in the context of developing effective adjuvants for clinical use, and vaccines for infectious diseases such as HIV and Influenza A virus.

Dr Jim Bjork is a Lecturer in Modern European History and is Joint Review Editor on the Journal of Contemporary History. He has previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the US at the universities of Notre Dame, Rice, and Colgate. Dr Bjork's primary research and teaching interests are the social history of religion and the history of nationalisation in modern Europe.

Dr Dylan Owen is a Senior Lecturer, joint between the Department of Physics and the Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics. His research interests are in the structure and function of the cell membrane and how this regulates cellular signalling events.

Richard Holden is Professor of Economics at UNSW Business School and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow from 2013-2017. Prior to that he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a PhD from Harvard University in 2006, where he was a Frank Knox Scholar. His research focuses on contract theory, law and economics, and political economy. He has written on topics including: political districting, the boundary of the firm, incentives in organizations, mechanism design, and voting rules. Professor Holden has published in top general interest journals such as the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. He is currently editor of the Journal of Law and Economics, and is the founding director of the Herbert Smith Freehills Initiative on Law & Economics at UNSW. He has been a Visiting Professor of Economics at the MIT Department of Economics and Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. His research has been featured in press articles in such outlets as: The New York Times, The Financial Times, the New Republic, and the Daily Kos. Professor Holden appears regularly on PVO News Day on Sky News and writes for The Australian Financial Review. He also writes a weekly column analyzing global economic data called Vital Signs for The Conversation.

Maurice Pagnucco is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Deputy Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Engineering and Head of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW. He joined UNSW in 2001 as a Senior Lecturer and has held the position of Head of School since 2010 and Deputy Dean (Education) since 2015. He has also held appointments at the University of Toronto, Macquarie University and The University of Sydney. He obtained his Bachelor of Science (Hons I) and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the University of Sydney. During his undergraduate studies he also spent a year at the Department of Computer Science of The University of Milan, Italy. His research is focussed on Artificial Intelligence with particular emphasis on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Cognitive Robotics, Belief Change and Reasoning About Actions. Maurice was the programme director of the Decision Making theme in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems and a co-director of the UNSW iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research. His collaboration with the UNSW iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research resulted in a world-first interactive cinema piece controlled using artificial intelligence techniques that premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in 2011.

Professor Louisa Jorm is Foundation Director of the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at UNSW. She is an Australian and international leader in research using large-scale linked health data, including hospital inpatient, mortality, Medicare and cohort study data. She brings a unique combination of senior leadership experience both within and outside government and high-level technical expertise in epidemiologic methods, data linkage, biostatistics, use of large administrative data sets, methods for analysis of longitudinal and cohort study data and facilitating the policy and practice uptake of research. In the last 5 years she has published more than 60 scientific papers and been awarded more than AUD10 million in research funding. She has played a key role in building infrastructure and capacity for health ‘big data’ research in Australia, including the New South Wales (NSW) Centre for Health Record Linkage, the Secure Unified Research Environment (SURE) data laboratory, the UNSW E-Research Institutional Cloud Architecture (ERICA) and the NSW Biostatistical Officer Training Program. She is a high profile advocate for more and better use of routinely collected health data and has contributed to driving related policy changes in Australia, through numerous advisory roles to government.

Bronwen Morgan is Professor of Law and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. She is a socio-legal scholar with a longstanding interest in regulation and governance, changes in state formation and the increasing economisation of political discourse and practices.  Her current research interests spring from a dual interest in the socio-political implications of ecological crisis on the one hand, and on the other hand, practices that mix elements of social activism and social enterprise. She is exploring the ways in which these practices engage with (socio)-legal and regulatory frameworks, particularly as they move along a trajectory of increasingly formalised activity. The empirical focus of her current research is on transport, energy, food and space (www.activismandenterprise.weebly.com), and previous work has focused on water and more broadly on the regulatory governance of essential services, especially in the Global South. She is also interested in the sharing economy, and the degree to which its trajectories may promote or undermine a social and ecologically sustainable economy. She is running a conference in August 2016 on these issues: Building the New Economy: Activism, Enterprise and Social Change.

Jill Bennett is Professor and Director of the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA) at UNSW Art & Design. Her research and practice focuses on interdisciplinary arts-led approaches to the study of human experience. She leads the Memory Lab at NIEA, and is currently investigating (with a team of cognitive neuropsychologists and artists) the use of immersive visualisation technologies to assist memory retrieval. Her most recent projects have focused on memory loss and amnesia, building on earlier pioneering work on art and traumatic memory. Through her books (such as Empathic Vision, 2005 and Practical Aesthetics, 2012) and a series of exhibitions/public projects, she has investigated the way that art engenders productive forms of empathy and social connection. She now works on “engagement science”—designing multidisciplinary research projects, which interface with the public in innovative ways. She is currently developing a major festival of arts and mental health, focused on the theme of Anxiety.

Professor Tinney is founder and head of Exoplanetary Science at UNSW.  His research is focused specifically on the use of high-precision technologies for the discovery and study of planets orbiting other stars, with his team being directly responsible for the discovery of over 50 exoplanets – most notably including the closest potentially habitable planet discovered orbiting the nearby star Wolf 1061 in 2015.  Professor Tinney is closely involved with a number of professional organisations, chairing the Optical Telescopes Advisory Committee of Astronomy Australia Limited for over 5 years, and serving on the Giant Magellan Telescope Organizations Science Advisory Committee from 2009-2016.  He is a past Director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology based at UNSW, providing a broad and interdisciplinary context for his team’s research on the most likely platforms for life orbiting other stars.

Professor Bennett Moses is from the Faculty of Law. Her research explores issues around the relationship between technology and law, including the types of legal issues that arise as technology changes, how these issues are addressed in Australia and other jurisdictions, the application of standard legal categories such as property in new socio-technical contexts, the use of technologically-specific and sui generis legal rules, and the problems of treating “technology” as an object of regulation.  She works extensively around the use of Big Data and data analytics used for law enforcement and national security purposes. Lyria is involved with IEEE (an international engineering professional association) and currently serves as Chair of the Australia Chapter of the IEEE Society on the Social Implications of Technology.

Professor Scott Kable is the Head of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales. His research is focussed at understanding fundamental reaction mechanisms and reaction intermediates in the gas phase, with a particular emphasis on atmospheric processes. Professor Kable is also a passionate teacher and educator. He is a founding Director of the Advancing Science by Enhanced Laboratory Learning (ASELL) Project, which shares best practice and provides professional development in laboratory education to chemistry, physics and biology academics around the country. Prof Kable is on the Board of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and has twice served on the Australian Research Council College of Experts.

Scientia Professor Katharina Gaus is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Head of the EMBL Australia Node in Single Molecule Science and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1999 and has led an independent research group since 2005. Her group investigates signal transduction processes in T lymphocytes with advanced fluorescence microscopy approaches. She has published more than 130 peer-reviewed publications including in Nature, Cell and Nature Immunology. She was awarded the Young Investigator Award from the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology (2010), the Gottschalk Medal from the Australian Academy of Science (2012) and the New South Wales Science and Engineering Award for Excellence in Biological Sciences (2013).

Michael Luck is Professor of Computer Science and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences. He was Head of the Department of Informatics from 2011 to 2013, where he also works in the Agents and Intelligent Systems group, undertaking research into agent technologies and intelligent systems. He is Scientific Advisor to the Board for Aerogility. His research interests centre on intelligent agents, multi--agent systems, norms and institutions, trust and reputation and agent-oriented software engineering 

Professor Diana Bowman is an associate professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Her research analyzes and informs the development of smarter governance and regulation of innovation in order to simultaneously enhance creativity, improve public health, and stimulate deliberation of the ethical, legal, and societal dimensions of emerging technologies.

Professor Simnett is Macquarie Group Foundation Scientia Professor of Accounting and Academic Director, Centre for Social Impact, at UNSW Australia Business School.  His work has had a major influence on policy particularly on standard-setting, regulatory auditing and assurance boards.  His research has significantly shaped international standard setting and regulation. Professor Simnett was the first academic appointed as a member of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and he recently co-chaired the task force that developed the assurance standard on greenhouse gas emissions disclosures for the IAASB (now adopted in over 80 countries).  He was a member of the International Integrated Reporting Council working group and technical task force during 2011-2014, to develop corporate reporting model beyond financial reporting.

Professor David Sanderson is the inaugural Judith Neilson Chair of Architecture and Design at UNSW.  David has worked for 25 years in development and disaster risk reduction across the world, working mostly for aid agencies.  David was trained in architecture and holds a PhD in urban livelihoods and vulnerability.  David’s research has focused on urban livelihoods, shelter and disaster risk reduction.  Between 1998 and 2006 he worked for CARE International UK as Head of Policy and was subsequently Regional Manager for Southern and West Africa.  Before that he worked for four years at the Oxford Centre for Disaster Studies.  From 2006-2014, he was Director of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) at Oxford Brookes University, which was followed by 18 months as Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).  IN 2013-14, David was Visiting Professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Professor Bill Randolph is Director of the City Futures Research Centre in the Faculty of Built Environment at the UNSW.  He is also Deputy Director of the UNSW/UWS AHURI Research Centre and leads a research team specialising in housing policy, urban development and metropolitan planning policy issues.  Bill has 30 years’ experience as a researcher on housing and urban policy issues in the academic, government, non-government and private sectors.  He was Director of the Urban Frontiers Program at the University of Western Sydney for six years and Head of Research at the National Housing Federation in London (the national peak body for non-profit affordable housing landlords) for eight years.  During this time he spent a period of sabbatical leave at the Australian National University researching housing affordability and community housing in Australia. Bill has also worked as a research fellow at the Open University and the UK Department of the Environment.

Professor Greg Leslie is a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering at UNSW Sydney.  He is the Director of the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology and is engaged in research water and nutrient recycling by improving the performance of membranes used for desalination and recycling water and nutrients from municipal and industrial waste.  In agriculture his development of a Reverse Osmosis Capable Drip Irrigation System, lets plants draw water through salt filters in irrigation pipes at their roots, using tiny amounts of energy naturally created by evaporation at their leaves.

Professor Treloar is the Director of the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW Sydney.  She has training in Social and Health Psychology and has almost 20 years of experience in public health, health services and translational research.  She is one of the leading international experts in social research in hepatitis C prevention, care and treatment and a leading social scientist working in the field of hepatitis C prevention, care and treatment.  She has published extensively on the decisions about hepatitis C treatment and barriers/facilitators of engaging in care including collaborative projects evaluating a number of hepatitis C treatment/care models.  She has extensive involvement with policy makers and community groups around issues of access to HCV care and treatment and the participation of people who inject drugs. Carla is the Chair of PLuS Alliance Fellows at UNSW.

Professor Fleur Johns is a Professor in Law at UNSW Sydney and publishes widely in the areas of international law, socio-legal studies and legal theory.  Currently, she is engaged in new work on the use of data analytics in humanitarian aid and development work.  She has served as Articles Editor of the Leiden Journal of International Law.  She was Co-Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at the University of Sydney and also been Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, a Leverhulme Visiting Fellow at Birkbeck College (University of London) and she has been invited to be Shimizu Visiting Professor of Law at the LSE in London.  Prior to commencing her academic career, she practised as a corporate lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, in New York, specialising in international project finance.

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.

Dr Adam Sutcliffe is a Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History and Head of the Department of History. He specialises in the intellectual history of Western Europe, c.1650-1850, and also in the history of Jews, Judaism and Jewish/non-Jewish relations in Europe from 1600 to the present.

Professor Frank Kelly holds the chair in Environmental Health at King's College London, where he is Director of the Analytical & Environmental Sciences Division. His other positions of responsibility are Director of the Environmental Research Group and Deputy Director of the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment & Health. From these dual positions he is able to combine his two main research interests, namely free radical/antioxidant biochemistry and the impact of atmospheric pollution on human health.

Dr Jenny Driscoll is the Child Studies Lecturer and Programme Director and Barrister at Law. Her research interests cover the protection and rights of vulnerable children, in particular the child protection ‘system’; the education of looked-after children; ethical issues arising from research with vulnerable children and young people; and the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the UK. She has recently completed a longitudinal study of the educational transitions of looked after young people aged 15-18.

Yasmin Saikia, PhD, is a Professor of History and the Hardt-Nickachos Chair in peace studies at the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University. Prior to joining ASU in 2010, professor Saikia taught at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill and Carleton College, Minnesota. She has strong ties with the academic community in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.

Saikia’s research and teaching interests straddle peace studies, history, and religion with a focus on gender issues, conflict transformation, and Islamic values. 

Nikolas Rose is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine. He originally trained as a biologist before switching to psychology and then to sociology. For the last decade, his work has focussed on the conceptual, social and political dimensions of the contemporary life sciences and biomedicine. His current research concerns biological and genetic psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience.

Professor Worth is the Head of the International HIV Research Group in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, at UNSW Sydney.  Professor Worth’s research has been primarily in the area of HIV social and behavioural research in Asia and the Pacific, with a focus on gender, sexuality and global HIV. Professor Worth’s research activities span many areas of Global Health including understanding HIV in China: the Social Aspects of the Epidemic Mobility; HIV risk across the Papua New Guinea/Indonesia border; and strengthening HIV social research capacity amongst HIV social research leaders in Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

Professor Raina MacIntyre (MBBS Hons 1, M App Epid, PhD, FRACP, FAFPHM) is Head, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW and Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology. She leads a research program in control and prevention of infectious diseases, spanning epidemiology, biosecurity, risk analysis, personal protective equipment, vaccinology, mathematical modelling, public health and clinical trials. Her global health research includes collaborations in India, Vietnam and China. She has over 300 peer reviewed publications in peer reviewed journals. She has received many awards including the Sir Henry Wellcome Medal and Prize from the Association of Military Surgeons of the US in 2007 for her work on bioterrorism, the Public Health Association of Australia’s National Immunisation Award in 2014, and the 2003 Frank Fenner Award for Research in Infectious Diseases. She has sat on numerous national and international expert committees and editorial boards in her field, including the US IOM. She currently heads a NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Epidemic Response and UNSW Vaccine and Infections Research Lab (UNSW-VIRL). She is also a founding director of ARM, Australia’s only national epidemic response network. She is an adjunct professor at Arizona State University and in this role is the UNSW lead in collaborative research and teaching in public health security within the PLuS Alliance.

Professor Cooper has been the Director of Australia’s leading HIV research organisation, the Kirby Institute (formerly the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research) for 30 years.  The Kirby Institute has a staff of 200 is responsible for the epidemiology and surveillance of HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis and sexually transmissible infections in Australia.  The Kirby Institute coordinates and conducts clinical trials of new therapies and vaccines for HIV.  Professor Cooper implemented one of the first Australian tests for HIV antibodies, and was instrumental in clarifying the risk of HIV transmission through the blood transfusion supply. Professor Cooper has been centrally involved with every one of the 22 currently available antiretroviral drugs.  Combination antiretroviral therapy has been one of the most spectacular successes of modern medicine with its extraordinary impact in ameliorating the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.  He has been actively involved for decades in ensuring that these benefits transfer to the developing world.

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, PhD, is an associate professor of anthropology at Arizona State University. Professor Wutich also is an affiliated faculty member for the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes and senior sustainability scientist for the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

Wutich’s research deals with the cultural, economic, and ecological dimensions of resource insecurity. She examines how inequity and injustice in social systems produce food and water insecurity. She also studies how people cope with resource insecurity, and what happens when they can no longer cope. Wutich’s research is based on rigorous ethnographic fieldwork, often based in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Phoenix, Arizona. She also directs the Global Ethnohydrology Study, a long-term, collaborative, multi-site project that investigates water knowledge and management across cultures.

Wutich earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Chinese language and literature and her PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida. In 2013, Wutich was the recipient of the Carnegie CASE Arizona Professor of the Year and the ASU Parents Association’s Professor of the Year.

Flavio F. Marsiglia, PhD, is Regents' Professor and the distinguished Foundation Professor of Cultural Diversity and Health at the Arizona State University’s School of Social Work. Professor Marsiglia is also the director of the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC), an exploratory center of excellence in minority health and health disparities research.

Marsiglia’s research interests include minority health and health disparities, youth drug abuse and HIV/AIDS prevention, and cultural diversity and social work. He has been the principal investigator of numerous clinical research studies, such as Familias Sanas/Healthy Families, a hospital-based intervention study aimed at improving the interconception care of Latina mothers funded by the Centers of Medicare/Medicaid Services. In partnership with several Arizona school districts and with support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the NIH, he and his collaborators developed and tested keepin’ it REAL – a substance abuse prevention model program for middle school students, which is now implemented across the US and internationally. The manualized and ASU-licensed intervention is now being implemented across the US and internationally.

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.

Professor Les Field is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) & Vice-President at UNSW Sydney .  He took up his current post at UNSW in 2005. Prior to that, at the University of Sydney, Professor Field was Professor of Organic Chemistry (1990-2005); Head of the School of Chemistry (1997-2001); Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Science (1998-2001); and Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) (2001-2003).  He was the recipient of the Organic Chemistry Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 1994 and was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1996.  He has served as a member of the Council of the Australian Academy of Science (2004-2006) and he is currently a member of the Academy Executive as the Secretary for Science Policy.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW and he has served on the Council of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (2004-2008).  He was appointed as Member of the Order of Australia in 2011 for his services to Chemistry and to Higher Education.  Academic Awards include:  The Rennie Medal (1983); The Edgeworth David Medal (1986); The Organic Chemistry Medal (1992); the Centenary of Federation Medal in 2003; and the Leighton Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 2010.  Professor Field is the Director of a number companies including Chair of UNSW Innovations Pty Ltd, UNSW’s technology transfer company.

Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan was the founding director of the School of Computing and Informatics and was instrumental in founding the Biomedical Informatics Department at ASU. He also served as the chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department. He founded the Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing (CUbiC) at ASU. CUbiC’s flagship project iCARE, for individuals who are blind and visually impaired, won the Governor’s Innovator of the Year-Academia Award in November 2004.

In 2014, Panchanathan was appointed by President Barack Obama to the U.S. National Science Board (NSB). He has also been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE).

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).