Jon Altman is a research professor in anthropology and an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. He has a disciplinary background in economics and anthropology. He was the foundation director of CAEPR from April 1990-April 2010. Since 2001 Professor Altman has been an adjunct Professorial Fellow at the School for Environmental Research at Charles Darwin University in Darwin. In 2003, Professor Altman was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Professor Altman has also been awarded an ARC Australian Professorial Fellowship (2008 to 2013) focusing his research efforts on the project ‘Hybrid Economic Futures for Remote Indigenous Australia’.

Chris Ansell, is Professor & Director of Travers Program at The Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California Berkeley. He received his B.A. in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia in 1979 and worked at the US Office of Technology Assessment from 1979 through 1984. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1993. His fields of interest include organization theory, political sociology, public administration, and Western Europe. His current research focuses on risk regulation, collaborative governance, social network analysis, and crisis management. He is currently the U.S. editor of Public Administration: An International Quarterly and the author of the popular best seller book Pragmatist Democracy: Evolutionary Learning as Public Philosophy (Oxford 2011).

Juliet Christian-Smith is a Senior Research Associate with the Pacific Institute’s Water Program. Her interests include agricultural water uses, comparative analyses of water governance structures, water reuse, and climate change. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Biology from Smith College. Juliet is a recipient of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and serves on the Executive Board of the Agricultural Water Management Council. She is also a Frontiers of Science Fellow for the National Academy of Sciences. Prior to coming to the Pacific Institute, Dr. Christian-Smith was in Portugal on a Fulbright Fellowship studying the implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive and examining agricultural water usage in the Alentejo region.

Bob Costanza, is Professor and Chair in Public Policy at Crawford School of Public Policy. He is also currently a Senior Fellow at the National Council on Science and the Environment, Washington, DC, and a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm, Sweden, and an Affiliate Fellow at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. His transdisciplinary research integrates the study of humans and the rest of nature to address research, policy and management issues at multiple time and space scales, from small watersheds to the global system. Dr. Costanza is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics, and was chief editor of the society’s journal, Ecological Economics from its inception in 1989 until 2002.

Dipak Gyawali is currently Pragya (Academician) of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and research director of the non-profit Nepal Water Conservation Foundation. He is a hydroelectric power engineer and a political economist who, during his time as Minister of Water Resources, initiated reforms in the electricity and irrigation sectors focused on decentralization and promotion of rural participation in governance. He has been involved, inter alia, as guest scholar and researcher at various institutions such as the Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford, the Norwegian Center for Research in Organization and Management, the International Environmental Academy in Geneva, and at the London School of Economics. Mr Gyawali has been conducting interdisciplinary research on the interface between technology and society, and has published numerous articles on the topic of water, energy, dams, and climate change issues.

Manuka Henare is Associate Professor in Maori Business Development in the Department of Management and International Business and Associate Dean (Maori and Pacific Development). Manuka is also the foundation Director of the Mira Szászy Research Centre for Maori and Pacific Economic Development and leads a number of multidisciplinary research project teams. He is the Academic Coordinator of Te Tohu Huanga Maori Graduate Programme in Business Development within the Graduate School of Management and teaches Maori business and economic history, strategy, and management of tribal enterprises.

Manuka is currently a member of the National Strategy for Financial Literacy Advisory Group, government appointee to the Manukau Institute of Technology Council, and the Council of Te Wananga o Aotearoa. He has advised government departments, local authorities and other institutions on bicultural policies and also served on government advisory committees on development assistance, peace and disarmament, archives, history, social policy, environmental risk management and number of other ministerial appointments.

John Thwaites is Chair of the National Sustainability Council, a Professorial Fellow at Monash University and the Chair of ClimateWorks Australia and the Monash Sustainability Institute. He is a consultant at Maddocks Solicitors, providing advice to the firm and its clients on climate change, water, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He also chairs the Climate Group Ltd in Australia, the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Australian Building Codes Board. He is a director of the Australian Green Building Council. Professor Thwaites also chairs a project with the Brotherhood of St Laurence to develop policies to assist low-income Australians cope with the impact of climate change and chaired a joint Brotherhood of St Laurence/KPMG Report on a national energy efficiency program for low income households.

Professor Thwaites was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1999 until his retirement in 2007. He was a Member of the Victorian Parliament from 1992 to 2007, and was a barrister prior to entering parliament. He was a Councillor, City of South Melbourne (1985-1993) and Mayor in 1991-1992. He has degrees in Law (Honours) and Science from Monash University.

Richard Wilkinson is Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham and honorary professor at University College London and at the University of York. Over more than 30 years Richard has played a formative role in research and public awareness of health inequalities and the social determinants of health. His most recent book, written with Kate Pickett, is: The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better.  Richard is a co-founder of The Equality Trust, set up with funds from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, to increase public understanding of the damaging effects of large inequalities in income and wealth.