Alvina is a scholar with degrees in law, history, and Māori studies (PhD, Waikato). Her career combines academia and community service as a Māori mentor, researcher, and advocate. Her work on Māori identity, legal frameworks, and social justice demonstrates her commitment to cultural preservation and improving Māori representation and well-being.

Emily is a principal scientist in natural hazards and hydrodynamic focusing on flood, tsunami and storm surge inundation. She currently leads Mā te haumaru ō te wai - an Endeavour programme focused on understanding Aotearoa's flood inundation hazard and risk at a national level and using this to improve our resilience to flooding.

Silvia researches catchment scale planning for water sensitive city-regions and participates in interdisciplinary research on climate change adaptation, community planning for disaster recovery and resilience, and action/ intervention research applied to planning for climate change adaptation. She publishes on water resource management, climate change adaptation, and urban and regional planning.

Christina researches the governance of risk reduction and climate change adaptation, focusing on environmental planning. An important theme is applying managed retreats to reduce risks to human lives, assets, and ecosystems. Special focus areas include resource management instruments and frameworks, planning methods, spatial planning, collaborative planning and community resilience.

Rebecca McNaught is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University Centre for Rural Health in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. Her current research focuses on collaborative forms of disaster and climate change governance, community members as agents of change and the health implications of disasters and displacement. She currently volunteers as co-leader of the South Golden Beach Community Resilience Team.

David Schlosberg is Professor of Environmental Politics, Director of the Sydney Environment Institute and Co-Theme Lead of the Climate Disaster and Adaptation Research Theme. His work focuses on environmental, ecological, and climate justice; environment and everyday life; and climate adaptation planning and policy. David has worked extensively with local and state governments on just adaptation and resilience planning, the social impacts of climate change, and community-based food systems and policy.

Anna Sturman is a Lecturer in Human Geography within the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney. Prior to this, Anna was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Sydney Environment Institute on the project, 'Developing systems and capacities for protecting animals during catastrophic fires'. Anna works at the intersections of political economy and ecology, economic and political geographies, and rural sociology to examine critical climate adaptation pathways in colonial-capitalist economies.

Scott Webster is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sydney Environment Institute. Scott has previously investigated how communities self-organised before, during, and after the 2019-20 bushfires and multiple major floods in New South Wales since 2020. His research broadly explores connection to place: its meaningfulness, the knowledges and interventions it enables, and the suffering and injustice caused when these connections are ruptured.

Silvia researches catchment scale planning for water sensitive city-regions and participates in interdisciplinary research on climate change adaptation, community planning for disaster recovery and resilience, and action/ intervention research applied to planning for climate change adaptation. She publishes on water resource management, climate change adaptation, and urban and regional planning.

David Schlosberg is Professor of Environmental Politics, Director of the Sydney Environment Institute

Dr Sareh Moosavi is a lecturer in Environmental Planning and Design at the University of Melbourne. Her research and teaching activities focus on innovative landscape-led and nature-based approaches for climate responsive circular cities. Associate Professor Cathy Oke is the Director of Melbourne Centre for Cities, and Associate Professor / Melbourne Enterprise Principal Fellow in Informed Cities in the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning. Cathy's interests focus on research, policy and practice boundary spanning for increased nature and climate action in cities. She is Senior Advisor to the Innovate4Cities program of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.