About

I am independent scholar, advisor and mentor.

Currently in 2026, I am member of the first cohort of Grass Tree Fellows in Australia. This fellowship program is designed to co-create knowledge for nature-inclusive governance. It is hosted by the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA).

I have a background in sustainability research, education and community engagement. I have been researching the uses and abuses of the notion of sustainability, in theory and practice, with regard to its intention to include the protection and flourishing of animals, and to facilitate animal agency and self-determination. The dominant sustainability discourse has excluded animals (as well as nature) as subjects and bearers of interests in their own rights. However, I believe that the notion of sustainability can be redeemed when reclaiming it as an interspecies concept based on ecocentric and critical theory perspectives. This underlies the work that I have been focussing on for some time, in theory and practice.

With a background in environmental education, my work also always considers the question of how do we build individual and societal capacity for a truly sustainable future, that is a future in which animals, nature and humans flourish, recognising that we are all interconnected and part of nature?

My “official” entry into animal studies began with the award of the Factory Farming Grant by Voiceless the animal protection institute in 2008. This award was to research attitudes towards, and knowledge of, industrial animal agriculture in Australia. I was then Research Fellow at RMIT University. Between 2013 and 2021, I have been based at the University of Sydney, School of Geosciences. There, I developed a notion of interspecies sustainability to use as a framework to analyse the stated intention of an animal using industry – in this case the thoroughbred racing industry – to protect thoroughbred horses. For that research, as well as for education and community engagement projects prior to that, I used photography as a research tool for photo-elicited interviewing, for reflection and as a way of knowing. In the course of the data analysis for the thoroughbred project, my focus was shifted onto the notion of naturalness and the horses’ subjective experiences of racing practices, as if called for by the horses themselves who were depicted on these images… That was the precursor for engagement with photographic images at another level.

Over the years, I have had an interest in intuitive interspecies communication, but marginalised it in favour of the standard rational paradigm. Then the time came when I took up formal training in this innate, ancient skill and truly other way of knowing. Unexpectedly, things came full circle: I learnt that intuitive interspecies communication has become a subject of academic interest, and that it has found a home within the field of animal studies.

I co-founded InterspeciesTalk-TierGespräch in 2024, a collective of animal communicators with members based in Australia and Germany, and completed formal training in animal communication in 2025. I am working as independent scholar, mentor and animal communicator to give animals a voice, to support animal self-determination, reconnect humans with all life, and facilitate the representation of animals and nature in governance, policy development and the sustainability discourse.

My academic qualifications include :

PhD (Sustainability and Animal Studies | Geography), The University of Sydney
PhD (Environmental Education and Cognition), Southern Cross University
DipEd, Scientific Institute for School Practice, Bremen
BEd, University of Bremen

Other academic activities and affiliations :

Member of

• Australasian Animal Studies Association (AASA), Member since its foundation in 2005
• Animals & Society Institute (ASI), Charter Member since 2011

Other not-for-profit engagement

Waterfall Way Community Land Trust
Interim Resident Director (since 2025).
Member of the Nomination Committee (since 2026).
Member of the ESG Committee (since 2026).

Animal Justice Party
Lower House Candidate for 2022 Victorian State Election (2022).
Member of the Policy Working Group (2022).

Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Member of the General Assembly (2008-2020).
Member of the Board and General Assembly Nomination Committee (2012-2014).

WIRES (NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service)
Inaugural Chairperson of the Northern Rivers Branch (2004-2006).
Wildlife rescuer and carer (2004-2006).

Northern Rivers Wildlife Carers (NRWC)
Wildlife Rescuer and Carer (2000-2004).
Committee Member and National Parks and Wildlife Service Liaison Officer (2002-2003).