Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC)

Professor Kate Barclay is a social scientist researching the social aspects of fisheries, at a time when industry and government are increasingly recognising the importance of human dimensions in sustainable fisheries. She is Director of the Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC). She teaches in the Bachelor of Sustainability and Environment and also teaches doctoral students working on the social aspects of fisheries, aquaculture and marine conservation. 

Since the late 1990s, Kate has researched the sustainable development of tuna resources in the island Pacific in the context of changing governance systems and globalisation.

Recent projects include developing social and economic monitoring frameworks for fisheries, multidisciplinary work to evaluate the social and economic contributions fisheries and aquaculture make to coastal communities, and fisheries governance analysis.

She has also worked with the Pacific Community and other organisations to produce Handbooks on gender equity, social inclusion and human rights in coastal fisheries, aquaculture and tuna industries. These Handbooks target Pacific Island government staff working in fisheries and aquaculture, to help them address the social dimensions of their work, focussing on the responsibilities of Pacific Island governments to help promote sustainable development outcomes for people who rely on coastal fisheries and aquaculture.

Kate has also been commissioned to do fisheries research for organisations such as WWF, Greenpeace, the UN Development Program, the European Parliament, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, the World Bank, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Pacific Community.

She was a member of the NSW Government Marine Estate Expert Knowledge Panel from 2017 to 2021. Since 2013, she has been a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the International Pole and Line Foundation, which promotes the development of socially and ecologically responsible tuna fisheries. In 2022 she joined the Advisory Board of the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, which promotes social responsibility in seafood industries.

Kate is also on the editorial boards of journals Conservation and Society, and Journal México y la Cuenca del Pacífico.

She supervises higher degree research students on a wide range of topics, including the international relations of fisheries, globalization and governance in seafood value chains, fisheries and aquaculture in international development and community development, and gender analysis in seafood industries. See the Learning & Teaching tab for further details.

Dr Anja Bless is a Lecturer in Sustainability and International Relations (education-focused) in the School of Communication and Social Sciences, Faculty of Design and Society. 

Anja’s research focuses on environmental politics and policy, food politics, and the political economy of agri-food system transformations. She has received the 2025 Australian International Political Economy Network (AIPEN) Richard Higgott Journal Article Prize and the 2025 Pete Hay Early Career Research Prize for Environmental Politics and Policy in recognition of her work in these areas. 

Anja completed her PhD with the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS. Her thesis was titled ‘The Politics of Regenerative Agriculture: Looking beyond the farm-gate’ and was awarded the Australian Political Studies Association 2025 Best PhD Thesis Prize. She also holds a Masters of Environment (with Distinction) in Sustainable Food Systems from the University of Melbourne, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours I) in Government and International Relations and Sociology from the University of Sydney. Anja is a Future Leaders Fellow of the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse, Australian National University and a founding member of the Climate Agencies Research Collective. 

Anja is the Acting Course Director for the Bachelor of Sustainability and Environment and also teaches into the Masters of International Relations at UTS. Her contributions to teaching and learning in this role has been recognised with the 2025 UTS Faculty of Design and Society Early Career Teaching Award.

Anja has previously worked in the community and government sectors, primarily with the Victorian State Government as a Policy Officer and Senior Policy Advisor. She brings to her work a professional background in public policy with a grounding in political and sociological theory and environmental studies. 

Dr. Milena Bojovic is a lecturer in the Bachelor of Sustainability and Environment at UTS. She completed her PhD in Discipline of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University, Sydney in 2024. Her thesis investigated just and sustianable transitions for Aotearoa New Zealands dairy sector. 

She has a background in sociology, social policy, environmental science and human geography. Her research interests are the intersections of climate change, animal agriculture and transitions to alternative proteins, while also looking at the environmental and social justice issues within food systems.

Since 2024, Milena has chaired the Faculty level GenAI Community of Practice to facilitate discussions about the impacts of GenAI on research, teaching and learning in higher education.

I am Adjunct Professor of Society & Environment and former Acting Dean, Acting Deputy Dean and Associate Dean (Research) in the former Faculty of Arts & Social Science at UTS. My research and teaching have largely focused on how people perceive and interact with the material world. They have been motivated by concern about the escalating scale, scope and magnitude of human impacts on the Earth. I was educated at the universities of Oxford (BA Honours) and British Columbia (MA, PhD). Prior to joining UTS, I was a Professor of Geography at the University of Wollongong (Australia). I am currently a Professor of Geography at Manchester, where I've worked for many years, punctuated by leaves of absence to take up roles in Australia.

The discipline of Geography provides a rich arena for exploring the dynamics of people-environment relationships. These dynamics now preoccupy researchers across very many disciplines and interdisciplines as the Earth is forced out of its Holocene (inter-glacial) state towards an uncertain future. I have spent most of my career in departments of Geography, and continue to publish in the discipline as well as to coedit the journal Progress in Human Geography (Sage publishers) and the Key Ideas in Geography book series (Routledge). I am also the founding editor of Environment & Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice (Sage publishers, launched in 2021), a whole-of-Geography peer review journal (the first issue appeared in late 2022).

However, my research and teaching interests increasingly span several fields and I draw on thinking in philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, media studies,  legal studies, global change science and other fields to make sense of human perceptions and uses of a fast-changing planet. This is why my adjunct title is, somewhat immodestly, professor of 'society and environment'. My most recent publications have appeared in the journals Anthropocene Review, Environmental Humanities, WIREs Climate Change and Ambio - among others. 

My recent research examined whose knowledge of global change will shape human responses to looming environmental problems. I have recently authored a book entitled What Future For the Earth? Speaking for People and Planet in 'The Age of Consequences' (Routledge, 2026, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003010616/future-earth-noel-castree). I have also co-authored The Anthropocene, with Martin Mahony (Routledge, 2026).

My current focusses on the 'AI industrial complex' or 'stack'. This includes but goes beyond the environmental impacts of the industry. My understanding of AI is shaped by my deep knowledge of critical political economy and Science & Technology Studies. So, while it is a new empirical focus, my analytical and normative approach draws on work undertaken throughout my career.

I enjoy all aspects of academic life: teaching, research and service to colleagues. I regard it as a privilege to work in a public university with so many gifted people.. 

Lai-Ha Chan is an International Relations scholar specialising in global governance and Indo-Pacific politics. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Social and Political Sciences Program, School of Communication and Social Sciences, and a Research Associate at the Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI), University of Technology Sydney. She was a Fung Global Fellow (2016-2017) at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University, New Jersey; a Japan Foundation Indo-Pacific Research Fellow (2025-26); and a Senior Visiting Fellow at Ritsumeikan University (2025-2026), Kyoto and Osaka, Japan. 

Her research examines the politics of global governance, with particular interest in deep-sea mining governance, critical minerals, China-US strategic competition, and middle-power diplomacy and minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific. 

Selected Research publications (2026): 

• Lai-Ha Chan & Pak K. Lee (2026). Who Governs Deep-Sea Mining? A Battle Between Global Governance and National Governance. Cambridge Unviersity Press, Cambridge Elements in Earth System Governance. 
  • Watch the accompanying video: Who Governs Deep-Sea Mining? 
• Pak K. Lee & Lai-Ha Chan (2026). "The Limits of Autocratic Collaboration in Stabilizing Spheres of Influence: Legitimacy in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor," Global Studies Quarterly, Vol.6, Issue 2 (Open Access) 

Policy & Public Commentary (2026)

• Lai-Ha Chan (2026). "Recalibrating Ties with the US: Australia's Autonomous Middle Power Ambitions," Italian Institute for International Political Studies Dossier, 9 July. 
• Lai-Ha Chan (2026). "In Forum USA250: The Future of the Liberal International Order in the Indo-Pacific - Middle Power in a World of 'Bullying' Great Powers," 9Dashline, 1 July. 
• Lai-Ha Chan (2026). "Beyond Hedging: Australia and Middle Power Diplomacy in the Age of Trump 2.0," Australia-China Relations Institute, 29 May. 
• Lai-Ha Chan (2026). "How Japan's Prime Minister Hijacked A Deep-Sea Rare-Earth Exploration," E-International Relations, 27 February.  

In 2026, Dr Chan led the successful application for the University of Techonlogy Sydney to obtain observer status at the International Seabed Authority (ISA). This achievement enables UTS researchers to participate in ISA Council and Assembly meetings and engage directly with international discussions on the governance of deep-sea mining. 

Dr Chan is an Executive Editor of International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (IRAP), a leading Q1 journal published by Oxford University Press. She is also the co-convenor of the Asia Pacific Research Group within the Faculty of Design and Society at UTS. 

Professor Jua Cilliers is Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Design and Society at University of Technology Sydney, and Professor of Urban Planning. She is also appointed as visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa in the department of DFC Town & Regional Planning. She previously served as the Head of the School of Built Environment at UTS and directed the UTS Green Infrastructure Lab. 

Jua is the President of the President of the Commonwealth Association of Planners, representing over 40,000 professional planners across 30 national planning organisations worldwide. She is professionally registered with both the South African Council for Planners and the Planning Institute of Australia. Her academic background includes a four-year professional planning degree, a Master’s in Urban Planning, a Master’s in Economics, and a Doctorate in Urban and Regional Planning. She has published 200+ academic papers and supervised 100+ undergraduate, 30+ Master-level, and 19 Doctoral students, as well as 4 Post-Doctoral follows.

Jua is also an alternate member to all Sydney District and Regional Planning Panels. She is a graduate of the Ethos Research Leadership Program, and the Collaborative Leadership Program which was hosted by the Department of NSW Premier and Cabinet and Western Sydney University. She is a former finalist of the prestigious National Science and Technology Awards in South Africa and the Woman in Science Awards, and winner of the South African National Teaching Excellence Award. She is also the recipient of the 2024 NAWIC NSW Executive Leadership Award. 

Jua leads public workshops, symposia, and industry training events focused on sustainable urban planning, green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, and community engagement. Her research and leadership have driven projects across Africa, Europe, and Australia. Through her work, she remains deeply committed to shaping sustainable, resilient cities, and empowering the next generation of urban leaders.

Alexandra is an internationally recognised design anthropologist and visual communicator. Her current research is focused on more-than-human design and recombinant ecologies in urban environments. Here, she explores systems and ecologies that will be critical to overcoming the impacts of climate change on our cities. 

Key projects include Surfacing urban wetlands in two urban renewal sites in Sydney, Mapping Edges, a transdisciplinary research studio in partnership with Associate Professor Ilaria Vanni Accarigi, and Repair.Design. 

Alexandra’s previous research looked at the decolonisation of design, emphasising design process and practice in Indonesia. Key projects include Reframing Tobacco Control: A Wicked Problem in Indonesia, in partnership with global public health organisation Vital Strategies, in which she used design research and creative thinking to reduce tobacco consumption in various Indonesian provinces. In 2012, she collaborated on a visual storytelling project called Papuan Voices, which enabled residents of West Papua to share their stories of conflict and political disenfranchisement. She received the 2008 Kirk Robson Memorial Award for Leadership in Community Cultural Development in Indonesia and the 2012 UTS Creative Media Social Justice Award.

Alexandra publishes widely in top-tier journals, including Australian Geographer; Visual Communication; Design Issues; She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation; The International Journal of Cultural Studies; and The Australian Journal of Anthropology. She has also contributed to various reports that impact industry and government, including 'Made in Marrickville: Enterprise and cluster dynamics at the creative industries-manufacturing interface, Carrington Road precinct', and 'Technology and protest in Indonesia for the Global Information Society'. 

She also writes for The Conversation, Inside Indonesia, Garland and ArchitectureAU. She has contributed entries to The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design and the Living Lexicon of the Environmental Humanities. At UTS, Alexandra is a Professor in the Faculty of Design and Society and has led numerous Global Studio tours to Indonesia.

Mark works as a sociologist in the discipline of Social and Political Sciences, School of Communication, Faculty of Design and Society. His current research is focused upon two related areas.

The first area investigates processes of deindustrialisation, the emergence and configurations of service economies, and develops a critique of the shifting forms of managerial discipline and measure of labour.  My first book based on this research, Motivations for Refusal: Labour, Value and the Limits of Postworkerism, is published with Brill (hardcover 2025) and Haymarket (paperback in 2026). 

The second area investigates processes of deindustrialisation, working-class environmentalism, and the class composition of contemporary climate movements. The research currently focuses upon the WHS campaigns of workers in high emission industries as a mode of environmental politics, and looks to identify how 'class' and 'community' movements come together in deindustrialised regions of Australia, such as the Illawarra. 

James Goodman conducts research into global politics, socio-cultural change and climate justice. He is a Professor in Social and Political Sciences at the Faculty of Design and Society at UTS (FASS) where he has been based since 1996. He draws from a disciplinary background in political sociology, international relations, political economy and political geography, and has led several large collaborative research projects.

He has published six authored or co-authored books, and nine edited or coedited books, and has supervised 22 doctoral students, mainly in the area of climate change, NGOs and international politics. He has coordinated a range of sociology and politics subjects, most recently in politics and ideologies and in climate justice and climate policy. He has led three Australian Research Council Discovery projects and a project investigating the future of academic work funded by the Federal Department of Education. 

He has initiated and led two interdisciplinary research centres. In 2006 he was one of the three co-founders of the Research Centre in Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, and he remains editor of the CCS Journal. In 2017, with seven other academics, he initiated the Climate Justice Research Centre. The Centre developed research projects focusing on the relationship between climate change and social justice, in terms of impacts, technologies and advocacy. In 2023 it was combined into the larrger 'Climate Society and Environment Research Centre' (C-SERC). 

At UTS he has had various roles - in research centres and also as convenor for the Social and Political Sciences Program and deputy for the School of Communication. As school head in 2025, in the context of a wave of sector cuts, he helped UTS retain programs in Education and International Studies. He is a strong advocate for public universities, and for the rights of university workers and students. From 2026 he has been an honorary Emeritus Professor at UTS. 

Dr Elizabeth Humphrys is a political economist of labour and work. She researches the impact of economic crisis and climate change on workers, and control within the labour process. She takes a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on sociology and history, seeking to make work safer and more equitable.

Elizabeth's current and recent projects have investigated: climate change and workers' health and safety; impacts of neoliberalism on labour; industrial and social contexts of hi vis clothing in Australia; experiences of disabled professional workers; and, the 1970 West Gate Bridge disaster. Her book, How Labour Built Neoliberalism, was described in the Sydney Review of Books as a ‘tremendously important’ contribution to understanding economic change in Australia’s recent past.

Elizabeth is the Head of Discipline of Social and Political Sciences, and an Associate Director of the Ultimo Institute at UTS. 

Since joining UTS in 2016 Elizabeth has designed and taught subjects on the future of work and global political economy in the School of Communication, and overseen industry placements in the final year of the Social and Political Sciences degree. She has also taught in the Bachelor of Communications core and electives curriculum, to students in many disciplines, on Australian history, digital literacies and inclusive citizenship. 

Elizabeth is an Associate of the independent policy think tank the Centre for Future Work, and she was previously an Editor of the Q1 journal Social Movement Studies, and an Associate Editor of Economic & Labour Relations Review. The UTS Research Groups she participates in are: the Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC); the Australian Centre for Public History (ACPH); and, the Disability Research Network. 

I’m a design academic with a background in the humanities whose primary area of expertise and instinct for interest is in the strategic and creative dimensions of communication. My research focus for the next 5-10 years is socio-technological change for sustainable transitions in the Australian grazing industry, particularly grazing/ meat and livestock. How such change is envisioned and the complexities of its implementation is crucial to understanding whether such change is necessary, achievable, and whether it meets the needs of the farming community. I grew up on a farm, worked as a part-time farm labourer in the family business as soon as my feet could reach the peddles of a bike, and my family and oldest friends are farmers. I want what's best for the people in those communities driving genuine sustainable improvements. As an academic I see my role as a connector between university research capabiltiies and the knowledge and needs that exist in the livestock sector. 

My core capabilities:

- Design and implementation of qualitative research focused on current and future human-technology interactions

- Analysing the way narrative and metaphor structure human action and values

- Creating and communicating future scenarios focused on end-users in context

- Expertise managing multi and cross disciplinary design projects from conception to completion

- Working across humanities, social sciences and natural sciences

My academic work has appeared in the Journal of Cleaner Production, Futures Journal, Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology, People and Nature Journal, Pedagogy Culture and Society, The International Journal of Food Design, The Design Journal, Design and Culture, Human Ecology Review, and Environmental Humanities.

I am a former research fellow at the University of Cambridge. I previously been invited to deliver a guest lecture within the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. I am an ARC assessor and have contributed to the assessment of ARC Future Fellowship, Industrial Transformation Training Centre and DECRA applications.

Professor Abby Mellick Lopes is a social design expert and design researcher in the Design Studies program at UTS. 

An award-winning teacher, highly successful researcher, and experienced postgraduate supervisor, Abby is engaged in interdisciplinary, design-led social research and teaching that advances the critical role of design in addressing the impacts of climate change and promoting the transition to more sustainable cultures and economies. She works with academic, industry, and government partners in applied research contexts. Her research practice brings design into relation with geography, urban design and planning, cultural studies, anthropology, and sociology. 

Abby was a founder and co-leads the multi-institutional, internationally recognised initiative Cooling the Commons, which explores the capacity of communities to respond to urban heat and the role of the built environment in creating socially just and liveable futures in Western Sydney and other hot cities. Abby is currently a Chief Investigator on three Category 1 research projects. She co-leads the ARC Linkage project Living with Urban Heat: Becoming Climate-Ready in Social Housing (2022-2026), which is focused on building creative, community-led solutions to the challenge of urban heat across different communities and housing typologies. She is a Chief Investigator on the RACE for 2030 CRC project Energy Scenarios for Future Living (2024-2027), which aims to support better decision-making capacity for the Australian energy sector through scenarios, models, tools, and design innovations that centre people’s everyday lives and expectations alongside emerging technology and energy trends. She is also a Chief Investigator on the NHMRC Targeted Research Call project, Community Resilience Centres for Improving Climate Adaptation to Bushfire Smoke and Heatwaves in Changing Urban Environments (2025-2028). This project engages communities in the design of accessible resilience centres that protect people from bushfire smoke and heat, and assesses implementation challenges and scalability opportunities in fast-growing, heavily affected suburbs in Western Sydney and Canberra.

Abby also leads research on Circular Economy transitions, and was previously a Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery project Investigating Innovative Waste Economies: Redrawing the Circular Economy (2021-2024). This project explored economic and social innovation in three key waste streams: organics, single-use plastics, and textiles. A key focus of this study was understanding exactly how more circular practices are created. This question also informed consultancy work Abby led for Circular Australia, resulting in the Citizens' Report Circular Economy Community Hubs: a vision for a zero-waste, zero-carbon future, available in short and extended forms on the Circular Australia website.

Abby's award-winning teaching practice is governed by a commitment to research-led education. This commitment led to a teaching award for a five-year engaged design studio funded by Sydney Water, in which visual communication design students developed ambitious communication strategies to promote the world-class safety of Sydney's tap water over plastic bottled water, and less water-intensive household practices. Currently, Abby co-leads with Professor Cameron Tonkinwise a cross-disciplinary design studio funded by the Energy Scenarios for Future Living project that will engage students and partners in developing novel products and services to support a people-centred approach to the energy transition.

Prior to her role at UTS, Abby built a body of expertise in design research and community engagement at Western Sydney University (WSU), where she was a School-based member of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) and a design educator and researcher in the Visual Communication Design program (2009-2019) and the Industrial Design program (2003-2009). She is currently an adjunct professor at the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and a research associate at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) at WSU. Abby is also a member of the International Community Economies Institute (CEI) and the Community Economies Research Network. With colleagues across these institutions and organisations, she is advancing the role of design in contributing to social justice and environmental change. 

Abby is co-editor and contributor to the book Design/Repair: Place, Practice and Community (2023, Palgrave Macmillan). She has contributed book chapters to a range of design and transdisciplinary publications and has been published in highly ranked journals such as Design Studies, Design and Culture, the Journal of Cultural Economy. She has co-produced a range of reports for industry, government and academia, including Cooling Common Spaces in Densifying Urban Environments (Landcom), Closing the Loop on Waste: community engagement, cultural diversity and shared responsibilities in Waste Management in Canterbury Bankstown (City of Canterbury Bankstown), Circular Economy Community Hubs Report (Circular Australia; previously NSW Circular) and a report on Understanding the Drivers of Public Trust in Sydney Water (Sydney Water. See paper here). She writes public commentary for The Conversation, the Sydney Environment Institute, and the Integration and Implementation Insights blog.

Professor Anna Cristina Pertierra is an anthropologist and cultural studies scholar with international expertise in urban ethnography, consumption and material culture, digital media, and popular culture. Regionally, her expertise is in Southeast Asia (Philippines) and Latin America (Cuba and Mexico), with an attention to the connections between these regions.

From 2019-2024, Anna was the lead Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council project New Consumers of the Global South, a transnational ethnography of the former urban poor in Metro Manila, Mexico City, Guangzhou and Rio de Janeiro. She is also a Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council project Transborder Electricity Infrastructures and Geopolitics, working with a team of researchers from Australia, Asia and Europe to understand the transregional political implications of energy grids connecting Australia and Southeast Asia.

From 2022-25, Anna was Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (DAB). A recognised academic leader, she has played a key role in establishing research programs for the UTS x Powerhouse partnership, the UTS Green Infrastructure Lab and the 2025 Creative Places initiative.

After gaining her PhD in Anthropology from University College London in 2007, Anna joined the University of Queensland (2008-2014) where she was awarded two competitive ARC-funded fellowships and focused on building her research and leadership skills. Prior to joining UTS in 2021, Anna held several research leadership positions at Western Sydney University (2015-2021), in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, and at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS). 

Anna has published widely in top tier journals and has authored and edited seven books. Her collaborative monograph New Consumer Cultures in the Global South is under contract to de Gruyter for publication late 2025. Previous books include Media Cultures in Latin America (with Juan Francisco Salazar, Routledge 2020); Media Anthropology for the Digital Age (Polity 2018); and Locating Television: zones of consumption (with Graeme Turner, Routledge 2013). She is a passionate advocate of Philippines studies and Latin American cultural research.

Anna is a Co-Editor of International Journal of Cultural Studies, and is on academic journal advisory boards in the Philippines and the Netherlands, She is a member of the Australian Anthropological Society and the Cultural Studies Association of Australia.

To date, Anna has engaged in externally funded research with a total project value of over $1.5 million AUD through various funding bodies and has supervised six PhD students and three Honours students to completion. Anna has received numerous grants, awards and fellowships for her research including the Australian Anthropological Society Article Prize for best scholarly article in 2018.

Committed to making research accessible to broad audiences, Anna has contributed to non-academic publications including the Inside Story newspaper supplement and The Conversation website. In 2023, she curated a series of Industry Breakfasts in Design, Architecture and Built Environment. Diverse topics have included urban green infrastructures, the future of fashion technology and creative circular economies. In 2021, she co-convened several community and industry engagement forums hosted by Western Sydney University, including the online event Living With Border Closures: Western Sydney Migrant Stories.

Matthew is a Chancellor's Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He is an inter-disciplinary scholar, working across environmental history, political economy and critical geography. His research is concerned with socio-natural relations across space and time, especially as they concern changing energy regimes. His current project considers the way the history of energy in Australia might inform and contribute to contemporary energy policy. 

Previously, Matthew was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Climate & Energy Program at the Australia Institute. He has taught at The University of Sydney, the Australian National University and the University of New England. He completed his PhD in Political Economy at The University of Sydney, and has published in Competition & Change, Review of International Political Economy and Journal of Agrarian Change. 

I am a Professor of Organisational Project Management at the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the Faculty of Design and Society the and a Core Member of the Robotics Institute at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology and member of the Industry Transformation Research Stream at my School.  I am also a core member of the UTS Climate Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC) at my faculty. I joined UTS in 2006 as a Senior Lecturer and was promoted to a Professor in 2014.

The research areas where I am creating  an impact are Project Governance,  Project Leadership and Sociotechnical Systems.

I am a Chief Investigator of the ARC Research Hub for Human-Robot Teaming for Sustainable and Resilient Construction (www.hartcon.org) since 2025. My role in this research hub is to develop sociotechnical systems principles to guide the development of human robot teaming solutions for industry. I am also the outreach and training leader at this hub to promote educational programs for professionals from the hub. From 2026, I am also a Chief Investigator in an ARC Discovery Grant investigating Project Governance and Governmentality as Collaborative Challenges led by the University of Sydney.

I have been involved in supervising 51 higher degree research students to completion and four of the students I supervised have been recognized for their excellent work through awards and recognition by the faculty and university.

The books I am working on in 2026 include  ‘Getting strategy implementation right: How can grand challenge projects help achieve the SDGs', 'Generative AI in managing projects: Balancing technology, ethics, and sustainability, 'Social licensing for large-scale renewable energy projects: From community opposition to co-creation through integrated technology, economy, governance and social life cycle assessment' and 'Projects in times of polycrises: A forward-looking synthesis of project management research for a world defined by turbulence, polycrises and complexity'. My full list of publications is available on Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UZSbLncAAAAJ&hl=en) 

I have won awards with Ralf Müller and Nathalie Drouin, including the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Research Achievement Award in 2022; the International Project Management Association Research Award in 2021; PMI’s David Cleland's Literati Award in 2021 and the David Cleland's Literati Award in 2026 for a book with Alejandro Romero-Torres and Jo Griffin.

I was a lead chief investigator in an Australian Research Council linkage grant on project governance and a chief investigator of an ARC linkage grant on leadership of not-for-profit organizations in aged and community care. I was also a principal investigator in three PMI-sponsored research programs: Balancing person-centered and team-centered leadership in projects; Governance of innovation in portfolios, programs and projects; and Practice-based study of portfolio management and strategic alignment in the construction sector.

I am an Associate Editor of the Project Management Journal where I promote research on how projects and programs help to alleviate humanitarian and societal concerns. I am a member of the College of Leadership and Management at Engineers Australia from where I promote Engineers Australia’s Initiative on Project Governance by Engineers since 2022. I am a Fellow of Engineers Australia, Project Management Institute(PMI) and International Project Management Association (IPMA).

Dr Carla Sbrocchi is an applied marine social scientist whose research centres human wellbeing and social values in fisheries and marine restoration practice. She investigates how governing institutions can better account for community values and navigate competing interests, recognising that effective management emerges from this deeper understanding. 

With interdisciplinary expertise spanning marine ecology, resource management, and qualitative social sciences, she collaborates with small-scale fisheries operators, coastal communities, and government resource managers to identify pathways where environmental conservation and community wellbeing reinforce one another.

Carla's current research examines satisfaction and food safety networks in recreational fishing in Australia, the governance of coral restoration initiatives in the Philippines, and the socioeconomic dimensions of urban marine restoration in Sydney Harbour. She also has research interests in AI applications in marine and social sciences, and local community adaptation responses to changing economic and climate conditions.

Prior to joining UTS, she worked as a consultant advising on coastal management, disaster resilience programs, institutional resilience, and cultural land activation strategies. She co-convenes the Australian Marine Social Sciences Network and is an affiliate of the Centre for Marine Socioecology in Tasmania.

Dr Kate Scardifield is an aclaimed artist and Associate Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. Kate leads an expansive and highly collaborative program of research that brings together materials science, sustainable design and material culture studies. Her research focuses on the design, development and integration of novel biomaterials and biofabrication processes. She is an expert in connecting science with creative practices and driving innovation through expanded forms of design.

Kate is the founder and Director of Deep Blue Bio, a transdisciplinary studio and research network for designing with biological processes and complex living systems. She is Co-Director of the Material Ecologies Design Lab, and a member of the Algal Biosystems and Biotechnology group in the UTS Climate Change Cluster (C3). Key projects include designing with algae-based biopolymers as alternatives to petrochemical plastics, and the development of biomaterials from algae and aquaculture waste streams to provide carbon capture and storage solutions in the built environment. Her research on new materials and material systems has been published across a range of platforms and academic journals including the Journal of Applied Phycology, the Journal of Cleaner Production, World Futures Review, Art Monthly Australasia, and The Lifted Brow.

Recent exhibitions include Siteworks: From a Deep Valley, Bundanon Art Museum (2022-23); Pliable Planes: Expanded Textiles and Fibre Practices, UNSW Galleries, Freemantle Art Centre (2022-2024, touring); FREE/STATE: The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, The Art Gallery of South Australia (2022); The lighter a thought the more it rises, Toi Moroki Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, New Zealand (2019); Ley Lines, St Andrews Museum, Hawick Museum, and Calendar House, Scotland (2017-2018); Microgravity, The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (2017).

Kate is a Freedman Scholar and a previous recipient of the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship. Her projects have been funded by Creative Australia, its prcinciple Arts Investment and Advisory Body (2010, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021 and 2025) and her work is held in public collections including the Australian Government Office for the Arts in the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. Kate has undertaken international residency programs in Paris (2012, 2020 and 2023), Glasgow (2016), Oaxaca (2014) and New Delhi (2012), has served on the Artist Advisory Group for the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2018-2020) and is a former Research Fellow at the Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Observatory (2017-2018). She was the 2019 recipient of the Eva Breuer Scholarship and Cité Internationale des Arts residency awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Dr Julia Scott-Stevenson is a researcher and maker of interactive and immersive factual media. Her current Chancellor’s Research Fellowship project uses practice-led research to explore how immersive media (virtual, augmented and mixed reality) can address the climate crisis. Using creative practice experiments, Julia is exploring how we might enable audiences to not only imagine tangible and just climate futures, but to enact them. 

Julia directed the collaborative, interactive screen experience 'Collective Visions', which showed in its first iteration in the UTS Data Arena during Climate Action Week Sydney in May 2024. Collective Visions invites audiences to prompt generative AI to collectively design visions of a desirable climate future. An expanding collage was built over five days – a growing collective vision of a rich, diverse and very possible climate future. Julia was creative producer for 'Privy To', an XR project exploring privacy rights, which was one of 14 projects globally to be showcased at CPH:DOX's Inter:Active Exhibition in 2021. 

Julia chairs the International Advisory Board for Immersive Arts – a £6 million, three year, UK-wide scheme that offers an inclusive and accessible programme of research, training, funding opportunities and events for over 200 artists experimenting with immersive materials. Funding for Immersive Arts comes from an ambitious partnership between the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Arts Council of Wales. Julia also sits on the advisory board for Frame Documentary, Australia’s first and only organisation supporting non-fiction artists working with emerging technologies. 

Prior to her current role, Julia spent three years as a research fellow in interactive factual media at UWE Bristol, UK, co-convening the i-Docs research network and Europe’s leading academic conference on emerging documentary forms. In 2019 she was an immersion fellow on the UK’s South West Creative Technology Network, where she developed a manifesto for virtual futures. 

Julia previously worked with Antenna Documentary Film Festival for 6 years developing the festival’s innovation strand. Julia holds a PhD in interactive documentary and social impact, and has taught and mentored in XR/VR/AR, nonfiction media and digital cultures at UTS, UWE Bristol (UK), AFTRS, Macquarie University and institutions such as the BBC.