CASPR is committed to advancing evidence-based policymaking for issues concerning the environment and sustainability. Our work supports decision-makers and practitioners in a variety of domains and applications, including defence, climate resilience, disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation in the Indo-Pacific. Systematic and well-focused evidence-based policy research responds to rapid social and environmental change, which is crucial for good practice.
Based at Flinders University in South Australia, our group assists government and private sector stakeholders to achieve greater accountability, effectiveness and innovation locally, nationally and globally.
Shani is CASPR's professional and project manager and research assistant. She has a diverse background in sustainability practice and teaching, environmental policy, sustainable architecture and permaculture.
Kristin Clark
Project Manager
Kristin’s role at CASPR is project manager. She has a diverse background in positions in the not for profit, university and government sectors.
Anthony J. Langlois is a critical human rights theorist. He has a keen interest in the way in which rights language is used for politics, policy and theory, including how this applies to environmental and sustainability concerns.
Professor Tania Leiman
Tania is a lawyer, legal academic and Dean of Law at Flinders University. She is currently involved with projects regarding delivery of access to justice in disaster impacted areas, and developing a disaster resilient model for delivery of legal services following bushfires. Her work on future mobility has alerted her to the looming environmental and social aspects of increasing demands for critical and rare earth minerals.
Associate Professor Joshua Newman
Joshua's research interests involve the use of information, evidence, and lesson learning for informing policy decision making. He has written about research utilisation and evidence-based policy, policy outcomes and evaluation, managing wicked policy problems, transport policy, climate change, and urban infrastructure development. He is especially interested in the relationship between government and private sector organisations.
Associate Professor Kirstin Ross
Kirstin’s research is focussed on the way the environment affects human health. This includes pathogens and toxins in our water and wastewater, waste, and built environments. She is interested in community engagement on these issues, and is particularly interested in the effect of climate change on human health.
Sabine’s expertise lies in coastal ecosystem ecology, restoration and Blue Carbon. She is working closely at the interface between research and environmental management, through translation of research outcomes into scientific advice to achieve ecosystem health and conservation outcomes.
Dr Alessandro Antonello
Alessandro is an environmental historian who works on polar and oceanic environments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He is interested in how environmental knowledge is formed in a variety of institutional contexts at national and global scales, how environmental knowledge is acted upon to preserve or exploit the Earth, and how communities build affective and ethical relationships with remote and extreme environments.
Dr Claire Nettle
Claire joined CASPR in 2019 after working in the community sector and in academic publishing. She has experience in community development, health promotion and policy, and brings expertise in social research, research translation and communication. Her research interests are in environmental social movements, urban environments and food systems. Her book, Community Gardening as Social Action, was published by Routledge in 2016.
Dr Kirstie Petrou
Kirstie is a human geographer with a decade of experience conducting research in the Pacific. Her research interests include migration, guestworker schemes, urbanisation and development.
Cobi has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of environmental governance, science communication and disaster response. She has worked in organisations from the UN in Geneva to state environment and disaster response agencies. Cobi has been Visiting Scholar at Melbourne Law School and has experience with Aid-funded programs in Asia and the Pacific.
Dr Helen McLaren is motivated by research that can be applied to building healthier environments, stronger communities and improvements to people’s lives. Recent projects are focused on climate and disaster resilience, the future of sustainable development goals in the context of climate change and Covid-19, and allied health worker secondary trauma and resilience related to climate and drought.
Matt conducts research and supports practical projects that strengthen the quality and legitimacy of policy and law through citizen participation. As Deputy Chief of Staff to a South Australian Premier he led work on the government's internationally-recognised democratic reform program, helped craft a strategic policy agenda, and advised on climate policy and the state’s participation in the Paris Climate Summit.
CASPR once again welcomed research interns in February 2022. CASPR’s internship program gives undergraduate and Honours students the opportunity to hone their research skills and have a taste of academic life at Flinders. Maya, Abby Read more…
The CASPR Group has secured funding for vital research into the efficacy of bushfire action plans of the elderly living independently in high danger bushfire areas. CASPR Research Lead Beverley Clarke, CASPR Associate Kirstin Ross, Read more…
The ‘Black Summer’ of 2019-20 saw bushfires raging across Australia for months, with devastating loss of life, biodiversity and property. In the aftermath of the disaster, the South Australian Bushfire Legal Project was piloted in Read more…
The devastating floods in Queensland and New South Wales have left thousands of Australians with major property damage that will be ongoing as the flood waters start to recede. The emotional toll of surviving a Read more…
CASPR Honours graduate Ellen Fogarty has just published the article ‘Investigating food waste recycling in local food service businesses: A case study from a local government area in Australia’ in Sustainability journal, with CASPR research Read more…
It is no secret that the rental market in Australia is tough. High levels of investment housing combined with a limited supply of housing stock have seen rental costs and competition increase — barriers which Read more…
May 26 is National Sorry Day/National Day of Healing. CASPR acknowledges the Stolen Generations and recognises the ongoing injustices and trauma to First Nations communities.
Assessing the efficacy of Coastal Adaptation Plans in South Australia
Cole Williams
PhD Student (Current)
Tourism sustainability for destination communities in the Global South
Elizabeth Forrest
PhD student (Current)
Sustainable materialism, farmers markets and alternative food systems
Judi Storer
PhD Student (Current)
Sustainable Development and Climate Change: How Sustainable is Sustainable Development?
Paige Fletcher
PhD student (current)
Effectiveness of NGO influence on policy formation - a case study of women's organisations and domestic violence policy
Komalee Nadeeka Damayanthi Mahamadachchi
PhD Student (Current)
Local governance and service delivery challenges: an investigation into waste management Policy in Sri Lanka
Daniel George Louhenapessy
Phd Student (Current)
Understanding the role of indigenous engagement in marine park management: a case study from Indonesia
Matthew Ryan
Honours Student (Completed)
The politics of democratic innovation
Ellen Fogarty
Honours Student (Completed)
An Analysis of Food Waste Management Habits in Local Food Service Businesses
Dr Han Lin
PhD student (completed)
Actors, implementation and implications of China’s climate-related energy policies: analyses of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and the Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Scheme (ECERS)
Rakhmindyarto
PhD Student (Completed)
Formulating policy in Indonesia: perceptions of key stakeholders on the conditions for the introduction of a carbon tax
Dr Bimal Regmi
PhD student (completed)
Identifying operational mechanisms for the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in Nepal
Dr Lorraine MacIntosh
PhD student (completed)
The effect of financial crisis and global recession on climate change policy as explained by ecopolitical theory
Fajar Fadli
PhD student (completed)
Exploring policy for energy governance in Indonesia
Cole Williams
Honours Student (Completed)
Big business and sustainable development
Maddie Hand
Honours Student (Completed)
Understanding household recycling attitudes and practices in the City of Mitcham
Dr Nachalida Yukalang
PhD student (completed)
Municipal solid waste management in a rapidly urbanising area in Thailand: Barriers and recommendations
Dr Thi Thanh Trang Pham
PhD student (completed)
Improving the efficiency of the management and operation of small and medium irrigation systems with Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) in Vietnam.
Clare Phillips
PhD Student (Completed)
A cross disciplinary study on formulating child health policy with a focus on the social determinants of health - an Australian perspective
Ros Wong
PhD student (Completed)
Fatally flawed public policies - The cruel optimism of self-employed women’s retirement planning
Dr Ben Lohmeyer
PhD Student (completed)
The conforming power of neoliberal violence in youth and hyper-governed young people’s stories of resistance
Dr John Tons
PhD student (completed)
Global Justice: A Rawlsian Perspective
Get in Touch
Find us at the office
Room 3.13, Social Sciences South, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, 5042.