Find an expert

Dr Jim Watson is Principal Scientist (Remote Sensing) at the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment, and a member of the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program (https://www.jrsrp.org.au/).

He designs and leads research projects for monitoring native vegetation, with a focus on algorithms for extracting information from satellite datasets and aerial photography.

Jim received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Queensland. He has previously worked on the statistical inference of network interactions at the School of Computing (University of Leeds, United Kingdom), crop-climate modelling at the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science (University of Leeds), and agricultural proximal sensing at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (University of Queensland).

He is a contributing author of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR5), has developed a number of novel feature detection algorithms, and is experienced in high performance computing.

Dr Gaala Watson is a Gangalu and Birri-Gubba (Wiri) scholar, strategist, and governance expert whose work bridges Indigenous governance, systems innovation, and impact enterprise. Based at the University of Queensland Business School, she leads research on Aboriginal governance, Indigenous economics, Indigenous management and leadership.

Her practice is grounded in cultural integrity, nation-building, and systems change, bringing together Indigenous knowledge systems with foresight and strategy to shape ethical, inclusive, and future-oriented governance. Gaala has advised national organisations, contributing to reforms that embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance principles in leadership education and policy frameworks.

With experience across academia, business, and community sectors, she is recognised for her ability to build trust across diverse stakeholders, translate research into practice, and design culturally grounded approaches. Her research and practice advance Indigenous-led models of governance and enterprise that reframe economic participation through principles of relationality, collective benefit, and self-determined development.

Professor Mark Watson Professor Watson has had a long association with the School of Education through his collaboration with Dr Mary McMahon. They have a number of joint research projects and their cross-cultural and cross-national perspective adds significantly to the power of their research designs on career development and career counselling. Professor Watson is a scientist with the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa. He is also Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Mark is a member of the following Editorial/Advisory Boards: British Journal of Guidance and Counselling; International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, Indian Journal for Career and Livelihood Planning.

James is an applied conservation scientist and bioegeographer working at the interface between ecology, policy and management to improve outcomes for biodiversity. He has a particular interest in understanding how humanity influences landscape and the climate, and what this means for biodiversity and ecosystem service outcomes, and the implications of this for environmental policy setting and management.

As a Professor of Conservation Science at The University of Queensland, he leads two research groups. The Green Fire Science research group (www.greenfirescience.com) mission is to do applied research that is linked directly to the practice of large-scale conservation and the Research and Recovery of Endangered Species (https://raresgroup.com.au) mission is to focus on Australia's rarest, least studied species to try and work out their needs and work with those on-ground practioners to try and save them.

James has been passionate conservation for decades. As a Rhodes Scholar, James undertook his PhD research studying in Madagascar, trying to come up with conservation plans to save endemic bird species inhabiting the country’s remaining littoral forest. Since then he has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and reports on conservation related matters, ranging from assessing the impacts of climate change on species to mapping the effectiveness of protected areas on biodiversity conservation outcomes globally. He has served on the International Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Data and Knowledge Task Force, and is a Research Fellow for the United Nation’s Environment Program, a Senior Technical expert for the United Nations Development Program’s Global Programme on Nature for Development, and was the founding chair of the International Union for Nature Conservation Climate Change Specialist Group. James sits on the scientific committees of BirdLife Australia and SUBAC. James was global president of the Society for Conservation Biology in 2015-17.

I am also an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science.

Dr Kïrsten Way is an Associate Professor and Program Director at the Centre for Business and Organisational Psychology at UQ where she conducts research on safety regulation, work-related mental health, work design, human factors, and occupational health. Her work focusses on psychosocial hazards both systemically and focally (investigating specific hazards such as conflict, bullying, fatigue, and sexual harassment). Dr. Way is an Organisational Psychologist, Occupational Therapist and Certified Professional Ergonomist. She has significant industry expertise having worked as the Director of a private consultancy specialising in WHS and organisational psychology and having held positions for Australian and UK WHS regulatory authorities, including Principal Inspector (Ergonomics), Manager Psychosocial Strategy Unit, and Manager WHS Policy Branch. She has provided expertise to the Australian and UK Governments and, for example, has assisted in the development of the Safe Work Australia Handbook Principles of Good Work Design, NSW’s Mentally Healthy Workplaces Benchmarking Tool and The Mentally Healthy Workplaces Strategy 2018-2022, as well as numerous WHS jurisdictions’ Psychosocial Regulations and Managing the Risk of Psychosocial Hazards at Work Codes of Practice.

Prof. Gregory E. Webb is a palaeontologist and carbonate sedimentologist who has occupied the Dorothy Hill Chair of Palaeontology and Stratigraphy at the University of Queensland since 2011. He is the head of the Integrated Palaeoenvironmental Research Group in the School of Earth Sciences. He obtained his BSc in Geology with highest honours at the University of Oklahoma (OU-1983) followed by an MSc in Geology (OU-1984) and a PhD in Palaeontology at The University of Queensland in 1989. His research interests are clustered within the fields of carbonate petrology, reef palaeobiology, geomicrobiology, carbonate geochemistry and carbonate stratigraphy. These fields have major implications for understanding Earth history, palaeoclimatology, and mineral and energy exploration. In general, Prof. Webb's research focuses on understanding how organisms make rocks – how the biosphere interacts with the lithosphere through time - and how those rocks are preserved and how they record evidence of past environmental conditions in their geochemistry.

Heloise Weber’s research is animated by an interest in the historical and contemporary politics of inequalities and injustices in the organization of development globally. She approaches questions over development from a critical perspective, which considers ‘the international’ as a product of development, and the 'development' we experience as advanced crucially also through the ‘international’. Her research addresses how knowledge-production and representation shape and justify framings of ‘development’ at a macro-political level, and what this means for people. A correlate of this is her interest in struggles against such schemes, and for ‘development otherwise’. The conceptual and theoretical concerns raised in this context form the basis of her interest in the politics of method and methodological choices, notably with regard to social science staples such as the (formal) comparative method, and its consequences and implications. Her theoretical and analytical approaches are informed by a critical interest in colonialism and its legacies, and post-colonial and decolonial thought and politics. She is also interested in how such insights can contribute to contemporary critical revisions of global public political histories.

Research

• Critical Development Theory and International Relations
• Politics of the Comparative Method
• Colonialism, Post-colonial Relations, and Decolonial Politics
• Critical Approaches to Human Rights and Inequality
• Critical Approaches to Security and Development
• Global Political Economy, Finance, and Development
• Politics and Political Economy of Microcredit and Microfinance
• Trade, Development and Inequality
• The UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

Heloise has been an active member of the Global Development Studies Section(GDS) of the International Studies Association(ISA), has twice served as Section and Program Chair, and serves on the GDS Eminent Scholar Committee. She is a founding member of the GDS/ISA Edward Said Graduate Paper Award.

In 2022, Heloise was elected President of the Development Studies Association of Australia (DSAA), serving a full term until 2024. She facilitated the organisation of the Third Biennial Conference held at the University of Melbourne and, among other initiatves and responiosbilties associated with the role introduced the inaugural biannual online seminar series with a presentation by Adjunct Prof. Mary Graham and Associate Prof. Morgan Brigg.

She is a member of the editorial boards of Contexto Internacional- Journal of Gobal Connections, and of Globalizations.

She has served as Associate Editor of International Political Sociology (2017-2021). IPS is an official journal of the International Studies Association.

Books:

Co-authored

Phillip McMichael & Heloise Weber, Development and Social Change – A Global Perspective – 7thEdition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing, 2021 (copyright 2022).

Mark T. Berger & Heloise Weber,Rethinking the Third World: international development and world politics Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Edited volumes

The politics of development: A survey London, U.K.: Routledge, 2014.

Co-Edited volumes

War, peace and progress in the 21st century: Development, violence and insecurity London United Kingdom: Routledge, 2011. (With Mark T Berger)

Recognition and Redistribution: Beyond International Development London: Routledge, 2009. (With Mark T Berger) *This was originally a Special Issue of Globalizations.*

Book Chapters

Afterword:Imperialism and Global Inequalities. in G. Bhambra & J. McClure Imperial Inequalities: The politics of economic governance across European empires (forthcoming 2022). Manchester, Manchester University Press .

The political significance of Bandung for development: challenges, contradictions and struggles for justice (2016). In Quynh N. Pham and Robbie Shilliam (Ed.), Meanings of Bandung: postcolonial orders and decolonial visions (pp. 153-164) London, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield.

From land grabs to food sovereignty (2016) In Jan Aart Scholte, Lorenzo Fioramonti and Alfred G. Nhema (Ed.), New rules for global justice: structural redistribution in the global economy (pp. 109-124) London, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield.

Gender and microfinance/microcredit (2016). In Jill Steans and Daniela Tepe-Belfrage (Ed.), Handbook on gender in world politics (pp. 430-437) Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar.

Introduction (2014) In Heloise Weber (Ed.), The Politics of Development: A Survey (pp. 3-9) London, United Kingdom: Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780203804919

Global politics of human security (2013) In Mustapha Kamal Pasha (Ed.), Globalization, difference, and human security (pp. 27-37) Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315886923

Global Poverty, Inequality and Development (2012) In Richard Devetak, Anthony Burke and Jim George (Ed.), An introduction to international relations 2nd ed. (pp. 372-385) Port Melbourne Vic., Australia: Cambridge University Press.

Global poverty and inequality. (2007) In Richard Devetak, Anthony Burke and Jim George (Ed.), An introduction to international relations: Australian perspectives (pp. 283-294) Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Microcredit Schemes (2007) In Roland Robertson and Jan Aart Scholte (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Globalization (pp. 780-783) New York, USA: Routledge.

The global political economy of microfinance and poverty reduction: locating local 'livelihoods' in political analysis(2006) In Jude L. Fernando (Ed.), Microfinance: Perils and prospects (pp. 43-63) London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis.

Global governance and poverty reduction: the case of microcredit (2002) In Steve Hughes and Rorden Wilkinson (Ed.), Global governance: critical perspectives (pp. 132-152) Abingdon, United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. doi:10.4324/9780203302804_chapter_8

Journal Articles

Poverty is not ‘another culture’: Against a right of children to work to live. Review of International Studies (published online, Feb 5, 2022). *With Aliya Abasi.

Contribution to the Giucciardini Prize Forum: Racist Origins of IR: Thakur and Vale on South Africa's formative influence on the discipline. Cambridge Review of International Affairs (published online Oct 26, 2021)

Colonialism, genocide and International Relations: the Namibian–German case and struggles for restorative relations, (2020) European Journal of International Relations Vol. 26 (S1): 91-115. DOI: 10.1177/1354066120938833 .*With Martin Weber.

When Means of Implementation meet Ecological Modernization Theory: A critical frame for thinking about the Sustainable Dvelopment Goals initiative. (2020) World Development.*With Martin Weber.

Global development and precarity: a critical political analysis (2019) Globalizations, 16 4: 525-540. doi:10.1080/14747731.2018.1463739 *With Samid Suliman.

Collective discussion: Diagnosing the present (2018) Walker, R. B. J., Shilliam, Robbie, Weber, Heloise and Du Plessis, Gitte (2018) Collective discussion: Diagnosing the present. International Political Sociology, 12 1: 88-107. doi:10.1093/ips/olx022

Politics of ‘leaving no one behind’: contesting the 2030 sustainable development goals agenda (2017) Globalizations,14 3: 1-16. doi:10.1080/14747731.2016.1275404

The ‘Bandung spirit’ and solidarist internationalism (2016) Australian Journal of International Affairs, 70 4: 391-406. doi:10.1080/10357718.2016.1167834 *With Poppy Winati*

Is IPE just ‘boring’, or committed to problematic meta-theoretical assumptions? A critical engagement with the politics of method (2015) Contexto Internacional: Journal of Global Connections, 37 3: 913-943. doi:10.1590/s0102-85292015000300005

Reproducing inequalities through development: the MDGs and the politics of method (2015) Globalizations, 12 4: 660-676. doi:10.1080/14747731.2015.1039250

Global Politics of Microfinancing Poverty in Asia: The Case of Bangladesh Unpacked. (2014) Asian Studies Review,38 4: 544-563. doi:10.1080/10357823.2014.963508

When goals collide: politics of the MDGs and the post-2015 sustainable development goals agenda.(2014) SAIS Review of International Affairs, 34 2: 129-139. doi:10.1353/sais.2014.0026

Politics of global social relations: Organising 'everyday lived experiences' of development and destitution (2010)Australian Journal of International Affairs, 64 1: 105-122. doi:10.1080/10357710903460048

Human (in)security and development in the 21st century (2009) Third World Quarterly, 30 1: 263-270. doi:10.1080/01436590802623001 *With Mark T. Berger*

War, peace and progress: Conflict, development, (in)security and violence in the 21st century (2009) War, peace and progress: Conflict, development, (in)security and violence in the 21st century. Third World Quarterly, 30 1: 1-16. doi:10.1080/01436590802622219 *With Mark T Berger*

A political analysis of the formal comparative method: Historicizing the globalization and development debate (2007)Globalizations, 4 4: 559-572. doi:10.1080/14747730701695828

Conclusion: Towards recognition and redistribution in global politics (2007) Globalizations, 4 4: 603-605. doi:10.1080/14747730701695869 *With Mark T. Berger*

Introduction: Beyond international development (2007) Globalizations, 4 4: 423-428. doi:10.1080/14747730701695612 *With Mark T. Berger*

A political analysis of the PRSP initiative: Social struggles and the organization of persistent relations of inequality(2006) Globalizations, 3 2: 187-206. doi:10.1080/14747730600702998

Beyond state-building: global governance and the crisis of the nation-state system in the 21st century Third World Quarterly, 27 1: 201-208. doi:10.1080/01436590500370095 *With Mark T. Berger*

GATS in context: development, an evolving lex mercatoria and the Doha Agenda (2005) Review of International Political Economy, 12 3: 434-455. doi:10.1080/09692290500170809 *With Richard Higgott*

Beyond US grand strategy?: Critical analysis and world politics (2005). Critical Asian Studies, 37 1: 95-102. doi:10.1080/1467271052000305287 *With Mark T Berger*

The new economy and social risk: Banking on the poor (2004) Review of International Political Economy, 11 2: 356-386. doi:10.1080/09692290420001672859

Reconstituting the 'Third World'? poverty reduction and territoriality in the global politics of development (2004)Third World Quarterly, 25 1: 187-206. doi:10.1080/0143659042000185408

The imposition of a global development architecture: The example of microcredit (2002) Review of International Studies, 28 3: 537-555. doi:10.1017/S0260210502005375

Martin Weber’s main research clusters are in International Social and Political Theory, in (International) Environmental Politics, and in PE/IPE. His work has focussed on contributions that Critical Theory can make to developments in normative International Political Theory, and to the ‘social turn’ in IR theory in general. It is also concerned with limitations and lacunae in critical theoretic approaches, and how these may be addressed. These theoretcial interests are complementary to the more empirically oriented other clusters, informs these, and are in turn informed by them (see articles in European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, Alternatives, Globalizations, as well as in contributions to edited volumes). In Environmental Politics, and PE/IPE, his work has focussed on the political analysis of global governance, and in particular on global health governance and global environmental governance. He has published book-chapters and articles in key journals on these issues (Review of International Political Economy, Global Environmental Politics, Global Governance), and is currently finishing on a monograph on ‘Critical Theory and Global Political Ecology’.

Teaching Interests:

POLS2115 Environmental Politics and Policy

POLS7251 Theories in International Relations

POLS7115 Politics of Environmental Change

Tony is an expert mining structural geologist who applies his skills to problems of deep earth mass mining, giant open pits, near-mine exploration, and the local and regional lithostructural controls on complex metalliferous mineral deposits. As a Senior Research Fellow in mining and engineering geology at the University of Queensland, Tony’s pioneering research focussed on the geological modelling and data inputs required for planning deep cave mining operations, an area that had received little previous consideration from geologists. He led the Geology and Mass Mining Project (GMM), which examined the geoscientific inputs required for exploring, defining, establishing, and mining block and sub-level caving operations that were being developed on giant porphyry copper-gold systems and IOCG deposits. While much research was being done in Australia to explore the deep earth environment, very little was being done to model the geology of large and deep mineralized systems, and then to use the new data and models to plan and extract any large discoveries made. Tony’s pioneering work was some of the first and most comprehensive to be done in this field.

• Fellow and chartered professional (geology) of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
• Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists
• Fellow of the Geological Society
• Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists
• Member, Geological Society of Australia
• Member, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology

Tony is presently a Principal Structural Geologist with a Brisbane-based geophysical and geological consulting group.

Andrew is a specialist General Practitioner (FRACGP) who relocated to Brisbane in 2023 after spending most of his early career in the Northern Territory. He has worked as a GP in rural Western Australia and the Northern Territory, including as the Chief Medical Officer of Danila Dilba Health Service in Darwin.

Alongside clinical work in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, Andrew is developing his teaching and research skills as a GP Academic with UQ. Andrew has a Bachelor of Medical Science by research and a medical degree from the University of Western Australia and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Cambridge.

Andrew's background in primary care management and administration inform his research interests which are focused on using clinical and administrative data to understand variations in access to primary health care.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. habil Franzisca Weder, Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Brisbane (Australia), is researching, writing and teaching in the areas of Organizational Communication and Public Relations with a specific focus on Sustainability Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility.

She worked as Guest Professor at University of Alabama (USA), University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (GER), University of Waikato (NZ), RMIT (Melbourne, AUS) and University of Ilmenau (GER).

Franzisca Weder is Chair of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA) -> check this out (and become a member :-): https://www.theieca.org

Curious about her work? check…

• her eco-culture jamming
• her sustainability related conversations with artists and campaigners
• one of her papers on Sustainability and Storytelling
• one of her books
  • on Sustainability Communication: THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION READER
  • on integrated CSR Communication: INTEGRATED CSR COMMUNICATION
  • or (in case you speak German..) on Organizational Communication and PR
• or other recent papers:
  • on how (much) Covid made us more sustainable
  • on sustainability as cognitive friction https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00008/full
  • or on antagonistic framing and CSR Communication https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CCIJ-01-2018-0014/full/html
  • or (in case you speak German), her ideas on cultures of sustainability