Planetary Pedagogies Network

Wendy Steele is a Professor of Sustainability and Urban Governance at RMIT Melbourne and Chair of Future Earth Australia (FEA) whose research sits at the nexus of urban studies, social sciences and environmental humanities. She an award-winning researcher, writer, activist and educator who leads research and practice focused on the nature of wild cities in climate change. Her books include 'Planning Wild Cities: Human-nature relationships in the urban age' (Routledge 2020), 'Quiet Activism: Climate action at the local scale' (Palgrave 2021), ‘Hot Cities: A Transdisciplinary Agenda’ (Edward Elgar 2023) and 'The Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism’ (2024). Wendy is a founding member of the Planetary Civics Inquiry (PCI) working in collaboration with others to support and promote regenerative futures.

Chris Speed is Professor of Design for Regenerative Futures at RMIT, Melbourne, Australia, where he collaborates with a wide variety of communities and partners to explore how design provides methods to adapt toward becoming a regenerative society. Chris has an established track record in directing large complex grants and educational programmes with academic, industry and third sector partners, that apply design and data methods to social, environmental and economic challenges. Prior to joining RMIT, Chris was Director for the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and Co-Director of the Institute for Design Informatics, both at the University of Edinburgh.

Professor Naomi Stead is an architectural writer, critic, educator and researcher, and director of the Design and Creative Practice Enabling Capability Platform at RMIT, where she works with researchers across the creative fields to engage in interdisciplinary research leading to social and environmental benefit. Throughout her academic career she has been committed to research-based advocacy – particularly around gender equity, and work-related wellbeing in creative workplaces. Stead has edited or co-edited six books, including the award-winning After the Australian Ugliness (NGV & Thames and Hudson, 2020). She is a widely published critic and commentator – most recently for The Saturday Paper. In 2023 she was (state) winner of the Bates Smart Award for Architecture in the Media.

David Rousell is Associate Professor of Education for Regenerative Futures at RMIT University, where he teaches and researches in the areas of climate justice, regenerative art and design, and education futures. David's work focuses on the collective re-imagining of educational cultures and environments in response to climate change, the biodiversity crisis, and associated urgencies of decolonisation. His work has brought public attention to the diverse impacts of planetary changes in the lives of children, young people, and communities through the co-production of films, installations, exhibitions, alternative curriculum frameworks, and digital platforms in Australia and internationally. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books across a range of fields. His recent books include Immersive Cartography and Post-Qualitative Inquiry (Routledge, 2021), Doing Rebellious Research (Brill, 2022), and Posthuman Research Playspaces: Climate Child Imaginaries (Routledge, 2023).

Bonnie Lester is a Melbourne-based researcher, designer, educator and writer. She holds a MS in Synthetic Landscapes from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and has undertaken a research fellowship at Transformations of the Human exploring the philosophical implications of emerging technologies such as AI, synthetic biology and planetary technologies. Currently, she teaches Landscape Architecture at RMIT where she has led design research studios focusing on the intersection of technological and ecological systems at planetary scales. 

Professor Gary Thomas is a Yui and Australian South Sea Islander man from North Queensland. He is the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Education, Research and Engagement at RMIT University.

Professor Thomas has worked at the University of Southern Queensland, University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Queensland University of Technology, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education and the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has held academic, professional and senior executive roles.

He has contributed to national and international Indigenous education agendas as an office bearer within the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium and the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium. He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board to the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.

In 2016, Professor Thomas became the first Indigenous Australian to be awarded Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK).

Brigid Magner was born in Aotearoa New Zealand and now lives in Naarm/Melbourne. She is Associate Professor in Literary Studies at RMIT University and co-director of the non/fictionLab research group. Along with colleagues from Deakin and Macquarie University, she is working on the ARC Discovery project 'Understanding place-based repair in climate-affected communities'.

Julian CH Lee is the Associate Dean, Global and Language Studies, in RMIT's School of Global, Urban and Social Studies. In 2024, RMIT’s College of Design and Social Context awarded him a citation for Learning and Teaching Leadership for his contributions and achievements within and beyond RMIT. Among his achievements are that of Best Paper at the 2022 conference of the Australian Collaborative Education Network (ACEN; now WIL Australia), and in 2019 he received a Ralph Macintosh Commendation “for outstanding commitment to delivering engaging student experiences”. He is also a supporter and advocate for open access publishing and scholarship. He serves on the editorial board of the open access International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning (IJWIL) and in 2024, he collaborated with RMIT Library’s Open Access team to publish the co-edited volume A Skilled Hand and a Cultivated Mind, which follows his 2019 co-authored open access monograph Monsters of Modernity: Global Icons for our Critical Condition.

Dr. Kelly Hussey-Smith is a creative researcher specialising in photography as a social practice, the politics of representation, and art education. She is a Senior Lecturer in Photography at RMIT's School of Art. With a background in documentary photography theory and practice, Kelly’s research intersects socially engaged art, visual culture, pedagogy, and political theory. She is particularly interested in the civil potential of art and photography, as well as the production of counter-histories. Kelly frequently collaborates across disciplines to develop research projects that connect the university to local issues through creative practice. Her current research focuses on visual politics, youth history-making, and collective art practices. She has received multiple awards for her teaching, including an Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS) Teaching Award for 'The Photo Lab'. She has published numerous articles and book chapters in both refereed and non-refereed publications and exhibited her photography nationally and internationally.

Linda Daley is an Associate Professor of Literary Studies at RMIT University whose teaching and research focuses on the interrelations of ethics, politics and aesthetics and particularly from feminist, anti-colonial and planetary perspectives. She has co-designed curriculum across these intersections and perspectives and is a member of the Planetary Civics Inquiry (PCI) aiming to promote regenerative futures at RMIT. Her publications have appeared in journals such as Pedagogy, Culture and Society; Review of Education Pedagogy and Cultural Studies; Australian Feminist Law Journal; New Writing; Australian Feminist Studies; Contemporary Women’s Writing; Third Text, among others.

Cathy Greenfield is Associate Professor of Communication, in the School of Media & Communication, RMIT University. Her research deals with the role of media in the government of populations, across a range of topics such as populism, financialization, ecological sustainability, and political economic literacy, published in a range of journals, and in How We Are Governed: Investigations of Communication, Media and Democracy (2014) and Media & the Government of Populations: Communication, Technology, Power (2018). She is a teacher-researcher, responsible for an interdisciplinary Minor, 'Contemporary Politics and Communication'. A current project centers on communication studies’ role in the classroom in the 21st century and more broadly on thinking pedagogy in the higher education sector.  With Linda Daley, her most recent article in this space is "Drawing together the micro and macro politics of pedagogy as a formative cultural technology", Pedagogy, Culture & Society.