Open Day 2023
The Sydney Environment Institute's (SEI) Open Day will highlight the significant impact of SEI as a leader in multidisciplinary environmental research and feature a selection of key research projects which have contributed to SEI’s vision for a just and sustainable environmental transformation.
Join us to hear from SEI researchers working on climate adaptation, disaster response, environmental justice and other issues, and SEI members including early-career researchers, students and external partners on the value of working with SEI. We’ll also hear from SEI Director David Schlosberg about the institute's mission, impact and activities in 2023.
Throughout the afternoon, you'll learn about the opportunities available to get involved with the SEI community and together, achieve impact.
Program
DVC-R opening | Professor Kathy Belov
Director opening | Professor David Schlosberg
Transitioning systems
Critical minerals | Professor Susan Park
Decarbonising health | Dr Fabian Sack
Climate disaster and adaptation
Protecting animals in catastrophic fires | Dr Anna Sturman
Social cohesion | Dr Nader Naderpajouh
Biocultural diversities
Living on the edge | Associate Professor Thom van Dooren
Beyond Bios | Dr Sophie Chao
Environmental justices
Institutionalising multi-species justice | Professor David Schlosberg
Conceptualising environmental justice | Hannah Della Bosca
Internal coordination | Professor David Schlosberg
Researcher support across career stages | Grace Barrett-Lennard, Freya MacDonald, Dr Justin See, Dr Firouzeh Taghikhah, Professor David Schlosberg (Chair)
Collaborative Fellowships
Powering the Pacific | Dr Kate Owens
Human-shark relations | Dr Chris Pepin-Neff
2024 Collaborative Fellowship projects announced | Professor David Schlosberg
How to get involved with SEI
Opportunities to collaborate | Kirsten Jackson
Closing | Professor David Schlosberg
Kathy Belov is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global & Research Engagement) and has responsibility for pivotal areas of the University’s Research Portfolio related to academic research partnerships, centres and institutes. Professor Belov is also one of Australia’s leading geneticists and leads a team of researchers using immunogenetics to study immunity and health in Australia’s native wildlife.
David Schlosberg is Professor of Environmental Politics and Director of the Sydney Environment Institute. His work focuses on environmental, ecological, and climate justice; environment and everyday life; and climate adaptation planning and policy. Professor Schlosberg has worked extensively with local and state governments on just adaptation and resilience planning, the social impacts of climate change, and community-based food systems and policy.
Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance in Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. She focuses on how international organisations and global governance can become greener and more accountable, particularly in the transition to renewable energy.
Fabian Sack lectures in the Masters of Sustainability at the University of Sydney, coordinates the Master's capstone program and has published on ecological economics, skills for sustainability, renewable energy and social impact assessment. He has extensive management experience in senior positions in the water, energy and infrastructure servicing sectors and has held a range of NFP leadership roles over the last few decades.
Nader Naderpajouh is Head of School of Project Management, where he also leads the "Organising for Resilience" research group. He serves as an Associate Editor for journals including the Journal of Management in Engineering by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and as a member of the Editorial Board of journals including the International Journal of Project Management (IJPM), while he serves as a referee for over 30 academic journals. His main area of research focuses on collective action and organising across social, technical and ecological systems.
Sophie Chao is DECRA Fellow and Lecturer in the Discipline of Anthropology and co-lead of the Sydney Environment Institute’s Biocultural Diversities Research Theme. An expert in the intersections of Indigeneity, ecology, capitalism, health, and justice in the Pacific, Chao is author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua and co-editor of The Promise of Multispecies Justice. Chao is of Sino-French heritage and lives on unceded Gadigal lands in Australia.
Hannah Della Bosca is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Sydney and a Research Assistant at the Sydney Environment Institute. She has published broadly on how community identity and everyday practice intersects with issues of energy transition, experiences of disaster events, and climate (mal)adaptation. Her PhD research explores the boundaries of multispecies identity and theory in day-to-day life, using the ant as a narrative provocateur in the story of human dominance and exceptionalism.
Freya MacDonald is a PhD fellow at the Sydney Environment Institute and a Research Assistant on SEI’s Developing systems and capacities to protect animals in catastrophic fires research project. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at The University of Sydney, writing a thesis titled Imaginaries in Flux: Contemporary Australian Literature and The Environmental Emergency.
Justin See is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Sydney Environment Institute. As a human geographer, his research explores the intersecting dimensions of power, injustice, and inequality reflected in the planning and implementation of climate change adaptation projects across space, class, and time, and foregrounds diverse locally-based and context specific adaptation strategies within various communities.
Firouzeh (Rosa) Taghikhah is a Lecturer in Business Analytics at the University of Sydney Business School, specializing in leveraging data science for sustainable development goals. Her multi-disciplinary research incorporates computational modelling, artificial intelligence, and socio-environmental science to influence evidence-based policymaking, particularly in the areas of food system resilience and the transition to renewable energy.
Chris Pepin-Neff (they/them) is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Sydney. Their research focuses on agenda setting and the role of emotions with an emphasis on human-shark interactions and LGBTIQ+ policymaking.
Dan Penny is a Professor of Physical Geography in the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney. His research is focussed on environmental histories and the response of human communities to environmental change. Professor Penny applies expertise in palaeo-botany and sedimentology to document the response of ecosystems to climatic variability and human activities over long periods of time.