Keynote Speakers
Dr Deen Sanders
Chief Executive Officer for the combined Australian Government's Professional Standards Council
Working with industry, government, regulators and consumers, Deen leads the work on behalf of Australia’s Professional Standards Councils (PSC) to promote consumer protection and excellence in professional standards by encouraging professions in their self-regulation through ‘professional standards schemes’.
Deen comes from an extensive background in professions, standards, regulation, financial services law, corporate governance and education. He was previously head of the Financial Planning Association’s ‘professionalisation’ project for Australia’s financial planners and a member of the global regulatory taskforce for financial planning standards. As past General Manager of Australia’s Financial Services Education Agency (FSEAA) he is also the architect of Australia’s national competency standards and education regulatory framework in Financial Services.
Deen’s academic background includes undergraduate and postgraduate Law, Psychology and Business as well as professional education. In 2010 he finalised a Doctorate with a focus on how new professions are developed and the preferred regulatory systems to deliver Trust, Ethics and Professional Identity.
He is recognised as an expert in professions, standards, regulation and ethics and has published a number of articles in the area, as well as led government research projects.
Tom Harbour
Director of the Fire and Aviation Management program for the US Forest Service
Tom’s first experience with wildfire was firefighting in central California in 1970. Since then, Tom has been involved in wildland Fire and Aviation Management his entire career. Beginning as a firefighter, Tom has had opportunities to fight, prescribe, and manage fires across the United States and internationally. His emergency management experiences have included fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, riots, floods, and other types of disasters all across America. His prescribed fire experience includes opportunities across the United States. He has been a Burn Boss, an Incident Commander, and Area Commander at the highest levels of complexity.
Tom has a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of California Davis and a Bachelor of Science degree in forest management from Washington State University. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Davis and with Presidential Honors for a 4.0 GPA from Washington State University. Tom has done post-graduate work at the JFK School of Government, Harvard University and the Kenan-Flager School of Business at the University of North Carolina.
Tom served with faculty and leaders at the Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. The US Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management program employs over 10,000 firefighters and has a budget over $2 billion (US).
Therese Walsh
Head of New Zealand ICC Cricket World Cup 2015
A chartered accountant Therese began her career as an auditor at KPMG, moving to the role of Chief Financial Officer at the NZ Rugby Union in 2001. The highlight of her time at the NZ Rugby Union was being part of the team that worked on the winning bid to host RWC 2011 in NZ.
Therese then moved to work for the RWC 2011 delivery company RNZ 2011 in the role of GM Corporate Services and then Chief Operating Officer. Following the successful completion of RWC 2011, she was appointed Head of New Zealand, ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.
Therese also maintains a strong interest in the international aid sector having served on the Board of Save the Children and now Chairing the MFAT International Development Advisory and Selection Panel. She is a member of the New Zealand Major Events Investment Panel, serves on the Boards of NZX Limited and TVNZ Limited and was a previous Director of NZ Cricket.
She was recently named the inaugural winner of the Women of Influence Awards.
Vaughan Poutawera
Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Tauranga, Whakatane & Grace Hospitals, New Zealand
Vaughan Poutawera is an Orthopaedic Surgeon based in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. He practices at Tauranga and Whakatane public hospitals and Grace private hospital. Vaughan graduated from the University of Otago Medical School in 1999 and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 2008. Vaughan worked as an Orthopaedic Fellow at university hospitals in Toronto, Canada and Zurich Switzerland 2009-2010 before returning to New Zealand to take up his Specialist Consultant post with the Bay of Plenty District Health Board in 2011. His interest in working in the developing world was initiated in medical school when in his final year, he worked for three months in South Africa. Vaughan travels to Rarotonga to consult and operate on orthopaedic patients every 18-24 months, and is involved with the training of Pacific Island surgeons in the Solomons Islands. He also participated in the inaugural New Zealand Medical Assistance Team (NZMAT) team members course in 2013 and is involved with the ongoing development of NZMAT . He was the team Orthopaedic Surgeon on the Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT) Bravo rotation in Tacloban, Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
RESEARCH FORUM KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Professor David Johnston
Director, Joint Centre for Disaster Research, GNS Science / Massey University New Zealand
Professor David Johnston is a Senior Scientist at GNS Science (New Zealand’s Geological Survey), and Director of the Joint Centre for Disaster Research in the School of Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. His research has developed as part of multi-disciplinary theoretical and applied research program, involving the collaboration of physical and social scientists from several organisations and countries. His research focuses on human responses to volcano, tsunami and weather warnings, crisis decision-making and the role of public education and participation in building community resilience and recovery.
David is the Chair of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk Scientific Committee (IRDR), a program co-sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISCC), and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster reduction (UNISDR); on New Zealand’s Royal Society Social Science Advisory Panel; the Editor of The Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies; and founding Editor of the Journal of Applied Volcanology.
Associate Professor Rory Nathan
University of Melbourne/ Jacobs
Dr Rory Nathan has an international reputation for applying hydrological research to solving practical problems, with specialist expertise in the characterisation of hydrologic risk, the estimation of catchment yield, hydrologic modelling, regionalisation, and environmental hydrology.
Rory appeared as an expert witness before the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry, and was the lead author of the Australian national guidelines on the estimation of large to extreme floods. He has published around 150 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings, and has won several national and international awards for his research. He has been awarded national “Civil Engineer of the Year” and recognised as one of Australia’s “top 100 most influential engineers” by Engineers Australia.
Professor Kathleen Tierney
Director, Natural Hazards Centre, University of Colorado, USA
Kathleen Tierney is a professor in the Department of Sociology and the Institute of Behavioral Science and Director of the Natural Hazards Centre at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Kathleen’s research focuses on the societal dimensions of hazards, disasters, and risk. During her career as a disaster researcher, she has conducted research on hurricanes, including Hugo and Andrew; the Loma Prieta, Northridge, Kobe, and Haiti earthquakes; many technological disasters; and the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks.
Her current research interests include the politics and economics of disaster loss reduction, post-disaster recovery, and climate change and extreme events. Her articles have appeared in The Annual Review of Sociology, The Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Sociological Spectrum, the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and other publications. With William Waugh, she co-edited Emergency Management: Principles and Practice for Local Government (2007).
Kathleen is currently Vice President of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee to Advise the U. S. Global Change Research Program. With economist Adam Rose, she recently initiated a project focusing on business resilience following Hurricane Sandy. Her new book, entitled The Social Roots of Risk: Producing Disasters, Promoting Resilience, was published in June 2014 by Stanford University Press.