Anke Maria Hoefer is the ACT and Region FrogWatch Coordinator. Through her workshops, talks, and community programs, she has inspired thousands to care for our local amphibians and to get involved in citizen science. Anke Maria was awarded the 2025 Environmental Educator of the Year by the ACT Chapter of the Australian Association for Environmental Education. Her book, The Great Frog Choir, co-authored with Jed Pearson and illustrated by Nikki Morgan, brings the wonders of Australian frogs to even more young learners.
David Munns is a Professor of the History of Science and Technology at John Jay College, City University of New York. He earned his M.Phil from the University of Sydney, and his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University. His published work encompasses the history of modern life and physical sciences and technology, environmental history, Anthropocene studies, and waste studies. He is the author of three books, mostly recently Far Beyond the Moon: A History of Life Support Systems in the Space Age, co-authored with Kärin Nickelsen.
Dr Elise Stephenson is Deputy Director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at The Australian National University, founded and chaired by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. An award-winning political scientist and international relations scholar, she leads global research on gender equality in the space sector and is the author of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs’ Landmark Studies on Gender Equality in Space. Her new book, Space XX: Gender, Power and the New Space Race, explores who benefits – and who is being left behind – in humanity’s future beyond Earth.
Patricia A. O’Brien, born in Darlinghurst, Sydney, is a historian who has authored Errol Flynn: The True Story of Australia’s Hollywood Icon, Tautai: Sāmoa, World History and the Life and Ta’isi O. F. Nelson, The Pacific Muse: Exotic Femininity and the Colonial Pacific, and numerous other works. She has written extensively for The Conversation, The Diplomat, The Saturday Paper and other publications, and appears regularly in international media as a commentator. She teaches at Georgetown University, Washington DC.
Royce Kurmelovs is an Australian journalist and author of five books, including The Death of Holden (2016) and Slick (2024). His work has appeared in Drilled, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly and other publications.
Sophie Gee is Professor of English at Princeton University. She was inaugural Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Sydney, and now Director of Collaborative Inquiry, where her work is to build the public value of the humanities. She co-hosts the globally successful Secret Life of Books podcast. Her most recent scholarly book is The Barbarous Feast: Eating and Writing in the Eighteenth-Century World, a new account of the rise of the novel.
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