Seth Westra, BE (Hons 1), MEngSc, PhD, MIEAust, CPEng (NPER), MAICD is Professor of Hydrology and Climate Risk at the University of Adelaide and a Founding Director of the Systems Cooperative. He has more than 20 years’ experience across both the private sector and academia, specialising in climate risk assessments, hydrology and the analysis complex systems. He has held numerous leadership positions, including as Program Leader of the One Basin Cooperative Research Centre—a 10-year $160 million program of research to support a productive, sustainable and resilient Murray Darling Basin, as well as being Director of the Water Research Centre at the University of Adelaide. He is also globally recognised as one of the world’s most influential experts in the field of climate risk, having recently been listed as a ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ in recognition of his research being in the top 0.1% by citation globally. In addition to his academic work, he regularly consults to government and private sector clients, and brings curiosity and a passion for generating real-world impact into all his work.

Holger Robert Maier, BE (Hons), PhD, MIEAust, CPENG, FMSSANZ is Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Adelaide and a Founding Director of the Systems Cooperative. He has more than 30 years’ experience in water resources planning and management, specialising in alterative water sources, decision support, multi-objective optimisation and trade-off analysis, climate risk assessment and mitigation, sensitivity, uncertainty and scenario analysis, decision-making under deep uncertainty, machine learning, and the development of integrated modelling and decision frameworks. Holger’s work is focused on improving industry practice and he has led or been involved with projects funded by six cooperative research centres, Water Research Australia, the Goyder Institute for Water Research, and a number of industry partners. He led the economics and strategic decisions research cluster for the Bushfire and Natural Hazard CRC from 2014-2021 and currently leads research projects for the Future Fuels and One Basin CRCs. Holger is a Fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand and a recipient of the Biennial Medals of the International Environmental Modelling and Simulation Society and the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Graeme Clyde Dandy, BE(Hons), MEngSc, PhD, FTSE, FIEAust, CPENG, FMSSANZ is an Emeritus Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Adelaide. His interests are in the planning and management of water resources and environmental systems. In particular, he has carried out extensive research into the use of multi-objective optimisation techniques for the planning and operation of water supply and water distribution systems. He has also undertaken research into the use of machine learning techniques for forecasting hydrologic and water quality variables in natural and constructed systems. Graeme is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, Engineers Australia and the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Aaron C. Zecchin, BSc, BE(hons), MMSc, PhD is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, the University of Adelaide. He has had over 13 years of experience in the university sector as a researcher and academic, and has worked across a broad array of projects ranging from fundamental research, to applied and contract research. Aaron has over 100 academic publications, and has attracted more than $3.6M in competitive research finding, including Australian Research Council Discovery and Linkage projects, and a range of CRC projects. Funded by the Australian Research Council, Aaron has worked on the analysis and simulation of water resource systems, involving a range of analytic and numerical methods, statistical signal processing, and evolutionary computational strategies. Funded by a range of Cooperative Research Centres, and through adopting an integrated and systems theoretic approach, Zecchin has worked closely with stakeholders from government and industry on projects relating to risk mitigation for natural hazards and the decarbonisation of gas networks.

Doug aims to contribute to improving the resilience of social, infrastructure and environmental systems against the complex risks associated with natural hazards and climate variability. Doug's research applies robust environmental modelling approaches to quantify these risks, with an interest in optimising risk management activities in order to further a communities' social, economic and environmental values. His interests include natural hazard risk, uncertainty, systems thinking and adaptive planning. Doug is a Westpac Future Leaders scholar, Associate Student at Natural Hazards Research Australia and a recipient of the University Medal at the University of Adelaide. Doug is a Director of the Systems Cooperative. He will complete his PhD studies in 2025.  

Sam Anthony Culley is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the field of Environmental Engineering at the University of Adelaide. He was also the quantitative foresight lead within the Strategic Foresight team in the Department of Premier and Cabinet (SA). His experience lies in applying systems thinking approaches to complex problems and developing strategies for decision making under deep uncertainty. Examples of this in the research space include projects funded by the Future Fuels CRC that work with a range of industry stakeholders to develop quantitative assessment tools for renewable energy systems, and a PhD in climate change adaptation that focused on performing stress-tests on complex environmental systems to identify key tipping points in the future. From his work within government, Sam has experience in facilitating participatory processes to develop exploratory scenarios, thereby improving the robustness of long-term strategies, and mapping out challenges and opportunities for the future of different sectors within SA, developing interventions in the present to shift towards a more desirable future.