Keynote speaker
Dr Carolyn Orr
Dr Carolyn Orr is a consultant neurologist based in Perth, WA. She originally comes from Scotland, and worked in the UK and the USA before making her home in Australia. She trained in medicine at the University of Glasgow, holds a PhD in Parkinson’s disease from the University of New South Wales, and did her clinical fellowships in the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She specialises in neurodegenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Carolyn is an environmental campaigner and speaker for Doctors for the Environment Australia.
This decade is a pivotal moment in human history, critical to determining the outcome of the climate emergency, and we’re flunking it. This is largely because of the malignant influence of the fossil fuel industry, who are behaving like the tobacco industry. Carolyn explains why the renewable energy revolution could be a health bonanza for everyone, by cleaning up our air and ending the climate emergency. She explains how we can and why we must fast forward from fossil fuels.
Dr. Audrey de Nazelle
Dr. Audrey de Nazelle is a senior lecturer and the Director of Research at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London. Her work, at the intersection of environmental sciences, health behaviour, transportation, urban planning, and policy, aims at promoting healthy, equitable and sustainable urban transitions. She has had a particular focus on active travel, from determinants to impacts (including emissions and exposures, health risks and co-benefits, societal engagement and barriers and enabler of action). Dr de Nazelle holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health in Environmental Sciences, a Maîtrise in Mathematics from the University of Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie.
Presentation Topic: Optimizing transport, environment, and climate strategies for health
Air pollution and climate change strategies are typically developed in silos, with little considerations of systemic roots of problems or spillover effects and feedbacks. Different sectors and government departments develop strategies focused on achieving a specific target, such as net zero emissions or compliance with air pollution standards. Health is the forgotten fundamental objective of many of these strategies. This presentation will demonstrate how considering explicitly health as the ultimate goal of urban transport air pollution strategies can change perspectives on the attractiveness of alternative policy options. Health and wellbeing can provide much needed impetus for sustainable urban transformations.
Dr. Kris De Meyer
Dr Kris De Meyer is a neuroscientist and director of the Climate Action Unit at University College London. He brings insights from neuroscience and psychology to how we tell stories about climate change, communicate about climate risk, and create opportunities for climate action. His TEDxLondon talk digs into the topic of why we need to change how we talk about climate change.
The land of climate and environmental action
If we really knew how to tackle the nature and climate crisis, there would be many things that we’d be doing differently from today. Let’s call that mythical, future world the land of climate action. Where do we live today? Let’s call it the land of climate change awareness. In this talk, we’ll explore what are some of the fundamental things we’d be doing differently in the land of climate action, and how we can make them a reality.
Antarctic speaker
Dr Marc Mallett
Dr Marc Mallet is an atmospheric scientist with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania. His research career has focused on atmospheric composition, aerosol-cloud interactions, and air quality across Australia, the Mediterranean, southern Africa, the Antarctic, and the Pacific, Arctic, Atlantic and Southern Oceans. Currently he is focused on collecting and using in situ and remote sensing observations, machine learning, and Earth System models to better understand links between marine biology, aerosols, clouds, precipitation, and radiation over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica.
Dr Elizabeth Shadwick
Dr Elizabeth Shadwick’s scientific expertise lies broadly in observational marine biogeochemistry, and specifically in detection and attribution of natural and anthropogenic changes in the ocean carbon cycle, with a focus on the Southern Ocean. Elizabeth leads the CSIRO Ocean Carbon Observations Team and the IMOS Southern Ocean Time Series and co-Leads the Biogeochemistry Project in the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership. Elizabeth is currently acting as Co-Chair of the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) Indian Ocean Sector Regional Working Group and sits on the Executive Committee of the global OceanSITES network. Her recent work includes new research focused on ocean-based carbon dioxide removal as part of the CSIRO CarbonLock Future Science Platform.
Dr Petra Heil
Dr Petra Heil is a climate scientist working in polar regions. She presently works in the Australian Antarctic Division’s Science Branch and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership. She holds various leadership roles including with the World Meteorological Organisation and the International Space Science Institute, and is part of a US-led team which has secured phase 2 support from NASA to scope design of EDGE, an Earth Explorer satellite.
Matthew Riley
Matt is the Director of the Climate and Atmospheric Science at the NSW DCCEEW. Matt has a proven track record of delivering high impact environmental research, services and programs that deliver significant public good and guide major NSW Government strategies and programs. With over twenty-five years of experience in the NSW Government, and more than a decade as a senior executive, he has delivered nationally-significant, multi-million dollar programs in climate change impacts and adaptation, greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, and air pollution. His critical advice and guidance has shaped NSW strategies for net zero emissions, climate risk and resilience, climate change adaptation, and clean air.
Presentation Topic: Integrated air quality services – blending observations, emissions, land use and modelling to deliver actionable information to the community
Cameron McNaughton
Cameron is a registered Professional Environmental Engineer in Canada and Australia and a Certified Air Quality Professional with CASANZ. He is a former NASA Earth System Science Fellow, has been a co-recipient of three NASA Group Achievement Awards, is a former Astronaut Candidate with the Canadian Space Agency, and is a Fellow International (FI’09) of the prestigious Explorers Club.
Cam is in Melbourne and in 2023 he became a Technical Fellow for Atmospheric Services with WSP. His professional experience includes environmental assessments for heavy industries (Rock et al., 2017; McNaughton et al., 2024), geochemical forensics (McNaughton et al., 2019), and life-cycle greenhouse gas inventories (Parker et al., 2016). Cameron and WSP’s Atmospheric Services team provide detailed technical expertise on air quality, greenhouse gases and climate change to WSP’s clients across Australia and Internationally.
Presentation Topic: Practical solutions for the energy transition: State of the Planet and GHG Emissions
Carlos Diaz
Carlos Nietzsche Diaz is director with Ambiente et Odora in Bilbao, Spain, a company focused on environmental consultancy with special focus on odour management. He has over 20 years of experience in odour management. He holds a BS degree in Chemistry from the University of Seville, in Spain. He has been responsible of projects related to odour management in many countries around the world. He is the main editor of the olores.org website and he has been keynote speaker in a few international conferences. Carlos served as president of the International Environmental Society of odour managers and he is member of several committees dealing with odour management in IWA, WEF, AMIGO, UNE and CEN.
Presentation topic: Changes in European Legislation and the Consideration of Odour Impacts and Health