PROFESSOR CHANDRA SALGADO KENT

Oceans Blueprint Founder and Marine Scientist, Edith Cowan University

Ever wondered what it’s like to navigate the oceans as a blue whale, the largest animal on Earth, or to explore an urban marine environment as an endangered sea lion? While we, as mammals, lack the ability to live underwater, Professor Chandra Salgado Kent brings us closer to these extraordinary creatures through cutting-edge technologies.

By deploying satellite trackers, using drones, and listening to their vocalisations, Chandra monitors whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions. She employs advanced statistics to evaluate how human activities impact these species and communicates findings to governments, industries, and communities to support protection of marine wildlife and their habitats.

Born in Venezuela to a Spanish father and American mother, Chandra’s early cultural connections to nature sparked her passion for marine science. She earned her PhD in Marine Ecology from Charles Darwin University and has since held leadership and mentoring roles at Curtin and Edith Cowan Universities. In 2018, she founded Oceans Blueprint to advance science communication and inspire action for sustainable oceans.

Chandra is a WA Parks Foundation Ambassador, represents Australia on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, and actively supports equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM.

DR ADELLE GOODWIN

Astrophysicist and Superstar of STEM, Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy

Dr Adelle Goodwin is an astrophysicist and Forrest Research Foundation Fellow at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research. Her career pathway was forged by a love of reading, understanding why things behave the way they do, and a deep curiosity about space (like do black holes really devour everything in their path?).

When you look up at the night sky, there are billions of stars twinkling, but, what happens when these stars die? Adelle’s research looks at the objects we don’t see: the dense remnants of dead stars called black holes and neutron stars.

One of four sisters (including an identical twin), Adelle comes from a family of strong women that values finding what you are passionate about and following that pathway; whether it is medicine, environmental conservation, 18th Century French literature, or astrophysics.

Adelle holds a PhD in Astrophysics from Monash University (2021), and a Bachelor of Advanced Science (Honours) from Monash University (2016). In addition to astronomy, Adelle is passionate about the environment, family, and playing team sports such as netball. In her free time, Adelle volunteers as a Night Sky Tour guide at the Perth Observatory.

DR TIM KITCHEN

Senior Education Specialist
Adobe

Following 23 years teaching Primary, Secondary & Higher Education, Tim has been Adobe’s Senior Education Specialist for Asia Pacific since 2013.

A passionate advocate for creativity in education, and a well-recognised education thought leader in Australia, Tim is a regular presenter for a wide range of national and international education events. Tim has also recently released his new book The Best Way to Learn is to Make – Creativity in a Gen AI World

He regularly liaises with schools & universities focusing on enhancing creativity in education. He also manages the Adobe Education leadership and active use programs throughout Australasia and helps lead the Adobe Education Exchange which now has over 900,000 members.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR PHOEBE TOUPS DUGAS

Exertion Games Lab, Creative Technologies Discipline Group
Monash University

Video games offer opportunities for play, learning, and work, but they can also propagate harm to marginalised communities. Information systems, including video games, are embedded in our lives. How can we design for joy, rather than harm?

A/Prof. Phoebe Toups Dugas “a queer, trans woman gamer” pulls apart games to understand how to make them better and how to use games to make the world a better place. This work supports underserved groups, most recently queer gamers, but previously disaster responders.

Phoebe earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University in 2010. She went on to work at the Disaster City responder training facility, then joined New Mexico State University for ten years. She co-founded the Transgender Name Change Policy Working Group, which transformed inclusive publishing practices. During her tenure, she attracted over $3 million in research funding from the National Science Foundation to support her work on disaster response. She recently relocated to Australia to join Monash University in the Faculty of Information Technology, where she is focused on transgender inclusivity in information system design.

BRETT SALAKAS

Hewlett Packard Education

Brett Salakas, the HP Education Ambassador, is an international keynote speaker, an author, the founder of #aussieED (the largest online network of teachers in Australia) and the co-founder of both the ED Poets Society and #TheWalkingED. Brett is a Primary School teacher and experienced leader who, over the past 20 years, has taught in South East Asia and Australia. He is passionately committed to turning educational theory into real classroom practice. Brett is all about connection, collaboration and inspiration.

DR TATHEER ZAHRA

Composite Materials Engineer, Queensland University of Technology
Superstar of STEM

Dr Tatheer Zahra is an engineer and academic focusing on creating high performance materials for disaster resilience of buildings to protect them from earthquakes, storms, explosions and collisions. Her research is inspired from various concepts ranging from Lego to memory foams used in shoes which have been redesigned for building damage protection applications.

She works with some major industry partners including Concrete Masonry Association Australia, Adbri Masonry and Brickworks to innovate masonry with mortarless interlocking blocks based on Lego design. She also works with recycled materials industries to develop concrete from recycled materials such as rubber tyre chips and demolished concrete aggregates. The most satisfying part of her work is when young engineers are inspired by her work and offer to help in her research.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ANITA PARBHAKAR-FOX

Mine Waste Geoscientist, University of Queensland
Superstar of STEM

Waste from mining isn’t just the mining sector’s problem. It is our problem too. We need a new generation of sustainability experts, geoscientists and engineers to combat Australia’s mining waste.

Associate Professor Anita Parbhakar-Fox has an Environmental Geosciences PhD and has spent several years at the Centre for Ore Deposit and Exploration Studies (CODES) at the University of Tasmania. Working with industry she has examined how tools used to find new ore deposits could be used to characterise mining waste. This helps with site rehabilitation after mining and the use of greener technologies when mining.

Anita leads the Mine Waste Transformation through Characterisation (MIWATCH) Group at the University of Queensland. Working with many industry and government partners they have already identified rare and critical minerals. We need to find these if we want to make the technologies needed to sustain humankind. Leading the MIWATCH team has enabled Anita to mentor and train a new generation of environmentally-focused geoscientists and STEM researchers.