Project team
Associate Professor Carol RichardsA/Prof Carol Richards is a food and agricultural sociologist specialising in sustainable food systems. She is a member of staff at the School of Management, QUT Faculty of Business and Law and is also the inaugural Program Leader of the Agrifood Systems program at the QUT Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy. Carol is also joint leader of the New Economies for Waste program at the Centre for a Waste Free World. Her work is informed by a systems approach that ‘joins the dots’ between the complex interplay of society, economy and environment as they relate to natural resources, agriculture and food. |
Karen GreavesKaren is the National Sustainability Coordinator & Regional Sustainability Manager – Queensland for the Communities business at Lendlease. She has undertaken studies in photovoltaic and solar energy engineering, environmental economics and architecture. Karen has significant experience as the Sustainability Lead on major multidisciplinary projects. Before joining Lendlease, Karen spent 10 years at AECOM where she worked across the Building Engineering, Planning, Design and Development and Environment business lines. Karen is an Accredited Professional for the Green Star and Infrastructure Sustainability rating tools. Karen has not only lead teams in the preparation of a Green Star Submission but through her understanding of the principles of sustainability, including environmental, social and economic has been able to guide design teams through the process of developing a holistic approach to achieving sustainability beyond that required by rating tools. |
Dr Samuel SmithDr Samuel Smith is currently a Senior Research Officer in both the School of Computer Science and the Faculty of Business and Law at QUT. His role in the circular food economy project is that of software developer and is responsible for the mobile app and its server application. His previous work has examined the relationship that researchers have with visualisations in the bioinformatics space, especially in respect to analysing large data sets. He has also worked on design studies to investigate how similarity between entities is judged across network visualisations. |
Dr Alan WoodleyDr Alan Woodley is the leader of the Spatial Informatics Laboratory and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science. He has a background in data and computer science with a Bachelor of Information Technology and a Ph.D. from QUT. His research has focused on applying efficient ‘big data’ solutions covering data analytics, computational modelling, and visualisation. His work has been applied to the mining and environmental domains and has developed research frameworks and tools to improve industrial sustainability and to bridge the social-technical divide. He has obtained research funding of over 3 million dollars and published over 60 articles. |
Dr Rudi MessnerRudi is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Management/QUT Faculty of Business and Law. He is an investigator within the QUT Centre for a Waste Free World and the Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy. His research focuses on food waste prevention, sustainability transitions of food supply chains and agrifood systems. Prior to becoming a researcher, he worked in senior management within the fast-moving consumer goods industry for over 25 years. |
Dr Elaine MitchellDr Elaine Mitchell is an environmental scientist specialising in the measurement of greenhouse gases and carbon storage within food systems. Her work is currently focused on carbon within agricultural landscapes and understanding how farmers can be rewarded for the environmental stewardship that they provide. She is part of several national research programs including Meat and Livestock Australia’s Carbon Neutral by 2030. |
Dr Hope JohnsonDr Hope Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at QUT. She researches food and agricultural law, policy and politics using social scientific and legal methods. |
Natalia AdanNatalia’s research explores food waste governance in the hospitality sector in Australia. Her work focuses on understanding how current environmental initiatives respond to the challenges of reducing food waste in small scale restaurants. It will analyse perceptions and knowledge about food waste management practices to understand innovations solutions adopted. This work will produce knowledge that will help develop public policies to promote innovations to the reduction of food waste in this sector. |
Yanxia LiYanxia’s research interest areas range from local food systems transformation to human-food interaction. By understanding the residents’ food environments and food literacy, her work explores potential opportunities for a transition to a local food system in the master-planned community, Yarrabilba. In her spare time she enjoys volunteering at local farms and learning from small farmers. |