Wānanga Speakers
This page will be updated regularly
The Wānanga Creative Panel is excited to share our speakers for 2024. We're working on creating an engaging and participatory programme of content focused on high level learning and actionable takeaways.
Gavin Smith
North Carolina, USA
Gavin Smith is a Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at North Carolina State University. His teaching and research focus on hazard mitigation, disaster recovery, and climate change adaptation and the integration of research and practice through deep community engagement. Educational efforts focus on the oversight and teaching of core courses associated with a 13-credit graduate certificate titled Disaster Resilient Policy, Engineering, and Design. The curricula emphasize interdisciplinary coursework and includes three track options (policy, engineering, and design) developed in partnership with the Department of Public Administration, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning.
Marina Cervera
Barcelona, Spain
Marina Cervera is a highly accomplished Architecture and Landscape Architecture graduate from the prestigious Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) - Barcelona Tech. She holds a Master's in Landscape Architecture and a Master's in Urban Research. With a strong foundation in both academia and professional practice, Marina has made significant contributions to the industry. Her work spans planning, landscaping, and architecture, showcasing her versatility and commitment to design excellence.
David Godshall
Los Angeles, USA
David Godshall is a landscape architect, horticultural theorist and leads the Terremoto office in Los Angeles with Jenny Jones. David’s strategic approach to design is inherently rooted in philosophy and the idea that ecology, horticulture and landscape have transformative physical and metaphorical impacts upon a person and a place. David received a Master’s degree Cum Laude from UC Berkeley after receiving a BA Cum Laude from UC Santa Barbara.
Jocelyn Chiew
Melbourne, Australia
Jocelyn Chiew is an Architect, Landscape Architect and Urban Designer. As Director City Design at the City of Melbourne, she plays a key role in creating and enabling inclusive, sustainable and enduring public spaces. Jocelyn leads the city’s in-house multidisciplinary design practice. City Design plans, designs and delivers council strategies and public works, and provides design review for significant development proposals. Jocelyn also leads the city's Design Excellence Program and is Deputy Chair of the Melbourne Design Review Panel. Her industry appointments include member of the Victorian Design Review Panel, Fellow of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, member of Gender Equity Victoria's Put Her Name on It Reference Group, and former State and National Councillor at the Australian Institute of Architects.
You can follow Jocelyn on Instagram at @thecityarchitect
Jason Eades
Melbourne, Australia
Jason is a proud Aboriginal man born and raised on Gunnai country in south-east Victoria who brings a deep passion and experience in Aboriginal affairs to his role as Director, Aboriginal Melbourne. Aboriginal Melbourne is a branch within the City of Melbourne that is responsible for working with the Aboriginal community to ensure their needs are heard, respected and influence the delivery of a wide range of Council services and outcomes. Before joining the City of Melbourne, Jason was the inaugural CEO of welcometocountry.com a tech startup that created an online marketplace to connect travellers to First Nations tours and experiences across the country and an online store of products either made by First Nations people or genuine collaborations. He is a previous CEO of the Koorie Heritage Trust, and one of four Aboriginal co-owners that founded PwC’s Indigenous Consulting.
Claire Martin
Melbourne, Australia
Claire Martin is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA), a landscape architect and Associate Director of OCULUS where she has led a range of education, health, and cultural landscape projects. Claire’s contribution to public life centres on better connecting people to their environment and to each other. Through her work with AILA, and the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), she has championed knowledge sharing and Climate Positive Design and is passionate about mentorship, design advocacy, and landscape communication. Claire is a contributor to Landscape Architecture Australia, a juror, member of the Office of the Victorian Government Architect’s Design Review Panel, and guest critic and lecturer at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University.
Georgina Reid
Sydney, Australia
Georgina Reid is a writer and the editor of Wonderground print and online journal, and author of The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos and Plants (Thames and Hudson 2018). She’s also a PhD Candidate and sessional academic in the School of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney. Her essays and poetry have been published in books and magazines nationally and internationally. Georgina lives amongst she-oak trees on the banks of Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury River.
Mike Hewson
Sydney, Australia
Mike Hewson is a visual artist with a background in structural engineering and heavy-civil construction. His award-winning projects pioneer new ways to merge conceptual art projects into the public realm.
Hewson works to prove we can, in fact, do things that are considered untenable in a public setting. Each project aims to catalyse fresh conversation about how the bureaucratic and managerial aspects of power are shaping our public lives, asking if we like that shape or if we’d like to explore other freer options.
He has completed five large-scale public art commissions in Australia, many of them sculpture-park-cum-playgrounds that are sensibly strange and risk-positive. Hewson received a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 2007 and a Master of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) from Columbia University, New York in 2016.
Simon Upton
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment
Simon Upton was sworn in as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for a five-year term on 16 October 2017. He is now in his second five-year term. As a Member of Parliament between 1981 and 2000, Mr Upton held a variety of ministerial portfolios including Minister for the Environment and Associate Minister for Finance. After leaving politics, he worked at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) where he served as the Environment Director for seven years. He returned to New Zealand to take up the role of Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.
Wendy Saunders
EQC Toka Tū Ake
Dr Wendy Saunders is a Principal Advisor, Risk Reduction & Resilience, at EQC Toka Tū Ake. She is a specialist in risk-based land use planning for natural hazards risk reduction, with over 20 years experience in policy development, implementation, and development of guidance. She provides support to decision makers for all natural hazards, including the impacts of climate change. NZILA is delighted to partner with EQC Toka Tū Ake to bring Professor Gavin Smith to our shores. Dr Wendy Saunders will follow Gavin’s presentation with a look at some of the challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand and some actions to address these challenges.
NZILA is delighted to partner with EQC Toka Tū Ake to bring Professor Gavin Smith to our shores. Dr Wendy Saunders will follow Gavin’s presentation with a look at some of the challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand and some actions to address these challenges.
Di Lucas ONZM
Ōtautahi Christchurch
A Life and Registered NZILA member, Di began practice in 1974 with the Ministry of Works. In response to government mismanagement of rural landscapes in 1979 she resigned and established a rural-based practice in Geraldine to explore the potential to influence from outside. She has been variously appointed as an external advisor to government throughout the four decades since.
Frustrated at the superficial landscape assessments being undertaken by colleagues, she accepted the Lincoln University invitation to undertake the first MLA. In her thesis she explored the limits to acceptable change for high country vegetation. Her research contributed to the base methodology for the first regional landscape assessment under the RMA, for Canterbury in 1993, and the methods largely remain best practice today. The land typing method has been widely applied and is now uploaded to www.landtyping.nz
Di works primarily for communities and iwi through Aotearoa by assisting in planning and management for terrestrial and marine landscapes, including guidance toward the insetting of emissions to support a transition toward carbon zero.