Alison Atherton is Program Lead for the Business, Economy, and Governance Program at the Institute for Sustainable Futures and has two decades of experience in sustainability research and consultancy. Her expertise spans corporate sustainability, responsible investment and sustainable finance. She has directed and managed numerous large-scale projects for government, non-profit, and private sector clients.

Alison's research focuses on sustainable finance and corporate sustainability. Her recent work includes assessing corporate sustainability performance for responsible investors, designing learning modules on sustainable finance, and advising on climate-related financial disclosures. Alison's leadership in sustainability is evident through her extensive project portfolio, publications, and active participation in industry conferences and advisory groups.

Alison has a background in social sciences, audit and accountancy. Previous roles included corporate sustainability advisory and assurance at KPMG, corporate sustainability consultancy at a leading UK leading sustainable development organisation, Forum for the Future, and administration of a private environmental fund.

Dr Mona Mashhadi Rajabi is the Decarbonisation Stream Lead at the Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience, where she specialises in climate policy, climate reporting, decarbonisation strategies, and net-zero transition pathways. Her recent work on the impact of the net-zero transition on global financial markets has received widespread coverage in Australian media which highlights its relevance to policy and practice. In recognition of her contributions, she received the 2025 Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Award for Transformative Action and Innovative Approaches to Climate Change.

Focusing on market-based policies, Dr Rajabi has examined the impact of carbon taxes on the economy and renewable energy transitions in Europe, and has applied these insights to design carbon tax policies for Australia that deliver both environmental and economic benefits. She has also developed methodologies to quantify climate risk at both the firm level and across the broader economy.Her research has been published widely in top-tier journals (A*/A/Q1), and she serves as a peer reviewer for leading sustainability and finance journals.

She has also received competitive grants from UTS Business Research Grant, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ), and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for projects including “Capacity Development in Indonesia Carbon Market.”

Dr Rajabi is appointed to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) expert panel on corporate net-zero strategies, advising on policy and implementation.

Prior to her academic career in Australia, she worked as a lead researcher in industry, providing consulting to corporations on managing climate risk, low-carbon transition strategies, and climate policy impacts on the agri-food and energy sectors, bridging rigorous research, policy advice, and practical industry applications.

Awards and Scholarships:

• ABDC Award for Transformative Action and Innovative Approaches to Climate Change (2025)
• UTS Strategic Research Accelerator (SRA) Postdoctoral Fellowship (2024)
• 1st Place – MQBS Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition (2022)
• International Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship (iMQRES) (2021)

Fiona Armstrong is a PhD student at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF). Her research explores how the cultivation of imagination can help shift mindsets and facilitate ambitious responses towards sustainability transformations. Her supervisors are: Professor Chris Riedy (ISF); Dr Susanne Pratt (TD School); and Professor Rob Raven (Monash). 

Fiona is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at Monash University. She is the former Executive Director of the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA), Australia's peak body on climate change and health, an organisation she founded and led from 2010-2023.

Donna is a passionate sustainable finance practitioner and researcher with expertise spanning responsible investment, decarbonisation and collaborative investor engagement.

She completed a PhD at UTS on the superannuation sector’s net zero transition, using systems theory to highlight the need for a coordinated climate response and advance sustainable finance.

Donna has experience bringing people together across sectors to address complex climate and sustainability challenges. This includes investor engagement initiatives, facilitating Climate Action 100+ groups and contributing to its global net zero company benchmark and engagement progress committees during her role at IGCC.

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Prior to then, Donna worked at Morningstar in the Manager Research team, where she developed a strong focus on ESG and sustainable funds research and provided thought leadership in these areas. Her diverse professional background also includes practice as a commercial interior designer, where sustainability was a consistent thread - applying passive design principles, embodied energy considerations, and lifecycle analysis in her projects.

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Donna holds a PhD from UTS, a Master of Finance from the University of Sydney, and a Bachelor of Interior Design from RMIT University.

Professor Martina Linnenluecke is an internationally recognised scholar in climate risk, corporate adaptation and resilience. Her research examines the strategic and financial implications of global environmental change, with a particular focus on how climate risks reshape firms, industries and financial markets. Her work has advanced understanding of sustainability, resilience and environmental finance, and has been widely published in leading academic outlets.

She is the author of The Climate Resilient Organization and has published more than 100 academic articles, book chapters and conference papers. Her research has received multiple international awards and has informed policy and practice through close engagement with government, regulators and industry on climate risk and adaptation strategies.

Professor Linnenluecke has served as Chief Investigator on several Australian Research Council funded projects covering climate risk disclosure, financial market responses to climate policy, political economy dimensions of the clean energy transition, and sustainability oriented fintech. She contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group II) and has served on the College of Experts of the Australian Research Council.

She currently holds a professorial position at the University of Technology Sydney and leads the Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience, an interdisciplinary research centre with more than 50 members focused on the financial, strategic and policy dimensions of climate risk. The work of the Centre supports business, community and policy stakeholders in taking urgent and immediate collaborative action to decarbonise the economy and regenerate Country and planetary health.

Previously, Professor Linnenluecke was based at Macquarie University, where she founded and directed the Centre for Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Finance. Under her leadership, the centre secured more than $3 million in external funding, supported postdoctoral and doctoral training, and produced a substantial body of research and policy work on decarbonisation, climate resilience, ESG investing and asset valuation under climate change.

Anne Griebel is a landscape ecologist specializing in land-atmosphere interactions, carbon and water cycling, and ecosystem responses to climate change and disturbances. She is the research leader of the Atmospheric Ecosystem Research & Observation (AERO) lab at UTS, where we utilize advanced techniques like eddy covariance flux measurements, remote sensing, and data-model integration to explore how ecosystems respond to climate change, extreme weather, and disturbances.

Key research themes of the AERO Lab include:

1. Biosphere–atmosphere fluxes: Understanding controls on carbon, water, and energy exchange across semi-arid, forest, and urban ecosystems using long-term eddy covariance observations.

2. Vegetation structure and ecosystem function: Linking vegetation structure, phenology, and functional traits to ecosystem productivity, water use efficiency, and resilience under climate variability.

3. Climate extremes and disturbance responses: Quantifying ecosystem responses to drought, heatwaves, and fire, and their effects on land–atmosphere coupling and ecosystem processes.

4. Scaling ecosystem processes: Integrating flux observations with remote sensing and models to scale ecosystem processes from site-level measurements to landscapes and regions.

5. Land management and ecosystem services: Assessing how land management and disturbance legacies influence ecosystem processes and services to inform climate adaptation and sustainable land use.

In addition, Anne Griebel leads the NSW Hub of Ecosystem Process sites from Australia's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, and is Principal Investigator of the Alice Springs Mulga and Ti Tree East flux towers in central Australia. She collaborates with a range of partners including the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, NSW Health, NSW Rural Fire Service, and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. Anne supervises UG Internships, Honours, Master's and PhD students, is an editor at Ecological Processes (Springer Nature) and Critical Insights in Plant Sciences (Taylor & Francis), a regular reviewer for the ARC and Q1 journals, and has published over 40 journal articles and book chapters. 

Evgeny Guglyuvatyy is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Bond University. His expertise spans climate change law and policy, taxation, artificial intelligence, and sustainability. He has taught and conducted research across several leading institutions, including the University of New South Wales, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Western Australia, and Monash University. He has an extensive publication record in peer-reviewed journals, with research focusing on climate law and policy, taxation, AI governance, and sustainability-related issues.

Dr Yun Shen completed her PhD in Applied Finance at the University of South Australia in 2020, where her doctoral research examined chief executive officers (CEOs) and how their characteristics influence firm behaviour and performance. From 2020 to 2023, she undertook a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Macquarie University, leading both qualitative and quantitative research projects and further developing her methodological expertise through Australian National PhD Courses, applied research projects, and hands-on, industry-relevant research experience. In April 2023, Dr Shen was appointed Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience (CCRR), UTS Business School.

Dr Shen’s research agenda focuses on the resilience of firms and financial systems in the face of economic, governance, and climate-related risks. Her work spans climate-related financial disclosures, ESG performance, corporate governance, default risk, sustainable and green finance, corporate culture and fraud, CEO characteristics, (anti-)money laundering, and accounting conservatism. By examining how governance structures, disclosure regimes, and managerial behaviour interact with regulatory and market pressures, her research advances understanding of how firms adapt, remain resilient, and create long-term value in periods of heightened uncertainty.

The multifaceted nature of Dr Shen’s research has strong policy and industry relevance, with implications for the design of mandatory climate-related financial disclosure frameworks, corporate risk governance, and sustainable finance practices. Her work aims to inform regulators, guide industry decision-making, and support investors in assessing long-term risk and resilience, contributing to the development of a more transparent, accountable, and sustainable corporate landscape.

At CCRR, Dr Shen contributes to research that informs climate risk governance, regulatory design, and industry decision-making, particularly in the context of mandatory climate-related financial disclosures, net-zero transitions, and digitally enabled decarbonisation strategies. She is committed to translating complex financial and climate data into insights that support more resilient, transparent, and sustainable economic systems.

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. 

Expertise: Sustainability | High-Performance Building Design | Energy Retrofit | Energy Analysis | Building Auditing | Adaptive Reuse | IEQ Assessment | Health and Well-being | Thermal Comfort | Urban Heat Islands | Outdoor Thermal Comfort | Air Quality Assessment | CFD | Visual Quality Assessment | Room Acoustics | Future Cities | Urban Zoning | Climate Resilience | Renewable Energies | Generative Design | Parametric Design | Multi-Objective Optimisation | BASIX | NABERS | Tool Development

Ph.D. outcome: Development of a solar-driven urban zoning framework (potential tool) for Western Sydney suburbs.

1st highest scoring publisher (among non-staff) and 7th (among staff) in 2023 ROC.

Mathieu brings a strong translational and commercial lens to his research, with a focus on developing microalgae for feed and human food applications. He spearheaded Project Red, delivering a patented algae‑based pigment technology for plant‑based meat through a collaboration between UTS, v2food, LGEM and CSIRO, achieving a ten‑fold reduction in pigment cost. He is a founding team member and leading scientist of Algenie, a UTS spin‑out developing technologies to radically reduce the cost and improve the scalability of microalgae production. Alongside his academic role, he works closely with industry to optimise algal systems for large‑scale deployment, positioning microalgae as a competitive and scalable biomanufacturing feedstock.

Alex has a variety of teaching and research interests around environmental policy, rural land use sustainability and innovation. He teaches subjects on transdisciplinary practice and industry innovation and is the Director of Teaching Learning for Transdisciplinary School at UTS. He has previously taught on environmental management, sustainable engineering and renewable energy policy.

Alex's research focuses on community engagement and policy options for emerging practices that offer potential environmental benefits. He has recently undertaken research on collaborative carbon farming funded by AgriFutures Australia, as well as research into the social licence of the sharing economy with colleagues from the UTS Business School. Other completed projects cover co-benefits of carbon farming, landholder collaboration for landscape-scale conservation, revegetation strategies and low-carbon tourism. In 2016 he released his first book, exploring ways in which the production of woody bioenergy crops can create incentives to restore degraded land, while addressing concerns around food security and climate change. His research has been published in the Journal of Environmental Management, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Science and Policy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Annals of Tourism Research, Biomass and Bioenergy, Rural Society and The Rangeland Journal.

Prior to joining UTS, Alex was based at UNSW for 10 years, teaching a range of subjects and working on research projects on landholder collaboration, low-carbon tourism and revegetation. From 2005 to 2008 he worked on the FATE (Future of Australia's Threatened Ecosystems) Program looking at commercial uses for Australian native species that could contribute to conservation goals, including kangaroos in the rangelands and multi-species plantations for bioenergy and other products. Prior to this, he spent three years at the Department of Environment and Heritage in Canberra (which has since undergone at least two name changes), working on international trade in wild plants and animals. His undergraduate studies were undertaken in Environmental Science at the University of Wollongong.

Professor Juliet Willetts leads applied research addressing social justice and supporting sustainable development. A recognised global expert in water and sanitation in Asia, the Pacific and other low-resource settings, making significant contributions to advancing these human rights, and to gender equality, climate resilience, governance and accountability. 

She is recipient of multiple professional awards for research excellence and impact, including the 2024 International Water Association Gender, Diversity in Water Award and is listed in the Australian FInancial Review's '100 Women of Influence'. She has co-led sectoral efforts to promote evidence-based development policy and programming and a global coalition on climate resilient sanitation, and plays advisory roles for International Water Association (IWA) and Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) partnership. A long-term expert and partner to the Australian development program, bilateral and multilateral agencies and civil society organisations, including WHO, UNICEF and the World Bank. She is widely published with more than 160 peer-reviewed publications on inequalities and pro-poor service delivery, accountability, human rights and systems strengthening and public health, financing and climate change in relation to water and sanitation services. 

Erica is a public health researcher and educator, and an organisational and ADHD coach. Her research is cross-disciplinary and spans the intersection between environments and human and planetary health, the psychosocial impacts from environmental change, and behaviour and decision-making for health and wellbeing, and experiences of ADHD in complex systems. Her program of research draws on psychological theory and complex systems thinking to explore the intersection of these topic areas to build community and individual resilience for health and wellbeing.

Erica has worked extensively with government and industry partners in the health and planning sectors including Local Health Districts, the NSW Ministry of Health, Health Infrastructure NSW, NSW Department of Planning and Environment, NSW Environmental Protection Agency, and local governments to implement interventions to promote health and wellbeing in unique contexts through partner and stakeholder engagement and collaboration. With extensive expertise in health and wellbeing research, Erica has worked on a range of projects related to environmental change and health. She was a key collaborator in an ISF team that won a research impact award for a transdisciplinary project that informed the Australian National Remediation Framework, and a guideline for stakeholder engagement plans for contaminated sites adopted as best-practice by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority.

Erica is also a member of the UTS Climate Change and Health Research Collaborative within the Research Institute for Innovative Solutions for Well-being and Health (UTS). As an active member of the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) Erica has contributed to policy development including leading their policy position statement on mental health and climate change, and held positions as co-convenor of their Mental Health and Ecology and Environment Special Interest Groups.

As an Adjunt Fellow in the Instiute for Sustainable Futures, she is supervising graduate research students conducting research in the areas of health behaviour, planetary health and healthy eating, impacts of green infrastructure and urban health islands on health, and the impacts of climate change on community health workers.

Erica is currently involved in research projects focused on the the impact of the workplace environment on academics with ADHD, the experience of university students with ADHD and autism, and the experience of women and gender diverse individuals with ADHD and their self-care.

Dr. Malik earned her Ph.D. in Biotechnology with a focus on microalgae and cyanobacteria for sustainable biorefineries, addressing critical challenges at the Energy–Water–Environment nexus. Her expertise spans upstream to downstream process optimization, multi-omics analysis, and the molecular mechanisms of self-flocculation—a phenomenon with applications in eco-friendly biomass harvesting and insights into the origin of multicellularity.

She has authored more than 35 peer-reviewed publications, including original research and reviews in leading international journals, and is the recipient of multiple national and international fellowships and scholarships. Dr. Malik is also an active member of the Young Scientists Division of the Asian Federation of Biotechnology.

Working at the intersection of algae biotechnology, carbon capture, and the circular bioeconomy, her research focuses on developing sustainable biorefinery pathways and optimizing wastewater-based algae systems. She integrates AI and robotics to identify and enhance elite algal strains for industrial and environmental applications. With over eight years of experience, she has advanced wastewater-driven multiproduct biorefineries through cascading extraction approaches, adaptive laboratory evolution, metabolic pathway engineering, and phenomics to unlock algae’s potential for carbon-neutral solutions.

At the University of Technology Sydney, Dr. Malik extends this work by mentoring startups through the Deep Green Biotech Hub, managing client and stakeholder projects, and overseeing research operations. She is also a graduate of the UTS Early and Emerging Leaders program, reflecting her commitment to leadership and innovation. In addition, she lectures and co-coordinates subjects for Honours and Master's programs and supervises interns, Honours, and HDR students, fostering the next generation of scientists.

Passionate about bridging cutting-edge science with real-world impact, Dr. Malik is dedicated to developing scalable and sustainable technologies that align with global climate and resource challenges, contributing to a greener and more resilient future.

Sina Lengelsen-Brown is a Principal Innovation Programs at Climate-KIC Australia and a Research Principal at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF), University of Technology Sydney, where she leads and manages national and international innovation, research, and systems transformation initiatives focused on climate action, sustainability, and societal impact.

Drawing on expertise spanning innovation, entrepreneurship, research translation, and systems change, Sina designs and delivers complex multi-stakeholder projects that bring together government, industry, academia, investors, and communities to address sustainability challenges. Her work is underpinned by a strong commitment to gender equality and empowering women founders, with particular expertise in entrepreneurship support, commercialisation, collaborative practice, facilitation, and capacity building for climate and social impact innovation.

Over the last eight years, Sina has directed the design, development, and delivery of Climate-KIC Australia's entrepreneurial and innovation programs, supporting and accelerating nearly 600 entrepreneurs, researchers, innovators, and impact ventures. Her experience spans climate and clean technology innovation, social impact entrepreneurship, investment readiness, educational program design, strategic project management, and the development of innovation ecosystems that drive systemic change.

At ISF, Sina contributes to applied sustainability research and policy evaluation. Her recent work has included research supporting the independent review of the Product Stewardship (Oil) Act 2000, examining the effectiveness of Australia's Product Stewardship for Oil Scheme in encouraging the reprocessing of waste oil and reducing environmental harm. 

Sina is also the Network Designer and Project Manager for the Collaboration Network for Systems Transformation (CNST) Industrial Regions Network (IRN), a national initiative that supports collaboration, learning, and systems innovation across Australia's industrial regions as they navigate the transition to a net-zero economy. In this role, she leads network design, stakeholder engagement, monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), and the facilitation of cross-sector collaboration between industry, government, research organisations, and communities to accelerate regional transformation and strengthen innovation capability.

Prior to joining Climate-KIC Australia, Sina fostered EU-Australian dialogue and cross-institutional collaboration between policymakers, industry, and academia on climate change, energy challenges, regional governance, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the European Union Centre on Shared Complex Challenges at the University of Melbourne. She designed and facilitated the Collaborative Climate Leaders Lab for the City of Greater Geelong and led the creation of an international medical research collaboration platform spanning 14 countries.

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.

Christina Nikitopoulos is an experienced researcher in energy finance, renewable energy, sustainable finance, commodity markets and interest rate modelling.

Christina’s research projects develop mathematical frameworks and conduct empirical studies to analyse the dynamics of prices and volatilities in crude oil, gold, electricity and energy markets. Her research has addressed important aspects and issues associated with commodity/energy markets, such as the financialization of commodity markets, the return-volatility relation in commodity markets, the pricing and hedging of commodity derivatives and the economic determinants of oil futures markets volatility.

She leads several projects addressing the impact of renewable energy generation on electricity price dynamics that aim to inform the debates regarding the system’s security and reliability, and to provide context on the notion of a renewable-led energy transition. This research informs policy makers, governments, electricity generation developers and consumer groups.

Her research portfolio also includes sustainable finance projects addressing the challenges of fossil fuel divesting and the evaluation of the premium in green bond markets. This research assesses the risk and return characteristics of fossil fuels and renewables, and investigates realistic portfolio construction strategies to inform the optimal method of reduction in carbon exposure. Further, her projects identify and gauge effects of attribute associations of green bond yield spreads offering screening mechanisms to facilitate decision making for investors, issuers and policy makers.  

Christina is included as an expert in Funding and Financial Services at the CSIRO Enabling Resilience Investment Panel. She is a member of several research associations and centres including the Centre of Climate Risk and Resilience (CCRR), Centre for Business and Sustainable Development (CBSD), Financial Research Network (FIRN), and the Australian Accounting & Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ). 

Internationally, she is a member of the Commodity and Energy Markets Association (CEMA), the Academic Female Finance Committee (AFFECT), and the International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE).

Christina has been awarded two ARC grants; one on modelling and estimation of volatility in energy markets (2010-2013) and one on risk assessment of climate change measures (2013-2017). She has recently been awarded a UTS Collaborative Scheme grant (2025) on Next-Gen AI platform to enable smart home electrification, and the UTS Strategic Research Accelerator (SRA) grant (2024-2025) on developing a decision-making and benchmarking tool to assist corporations achieving their net-zero goals. Other grants incude a Dean's Strategic Fund Collaboration and Networking grant (2023), a CBSD Research Partnership grant (2023-2024) on green bonds.

Christina publishes in leading finance journals including the Journal of Banking & Finance, Energy Economics, Quantitative Finance, Applied Mathematical Finance and The Journal of Futures Markets.