Invited Speakers

We are in the process of building our invited speaker program. As our invited speakers are confirmed, they will be listed here, along with the grand challenges at the frontier of applied economics that they will be speaking to at the conference. 

John Quiggin
John Quiggin is a Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland. He is a prominent research economist and commentator on Australian and international economic policy. He is a Distinguished Fellow and past President of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. He has written extensively on agricultural and environmental economics, among other topics. He has published over 300 journal articles, including 30 in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Jonathan Rushton
Jonathan Rushton is an agricultural economist who specialises in the economics of animal health and food systems. His principal research interests are the: Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) where he directs a global programme with WOAH (founded as OIE); economics of antimicrobial use and resistance in livestock; and assessment of the multidimensionality of food quality and public health. He is involved in the EU funded projects: ROADMAP on the economics and social sciences of antimicrobial use in livestock; and DECIDE on data-driven approached for the prioritisation and control of non-regulated diseases. Jonathan embraces One Health approaches in the search for solutions to society’s health problems. Jonathan is professor of animal health and food systems economics at the Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, leads a University Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Food Systems and is part of the N8 Agrifood programme. He is also adjunct Professor in the School of Behavioural, Cognitive & Social Sciences of the University of New England, Australia and founding president of the International Society for Economics and Social Sciences of Animal Health. In 2020 he became a Senior IIAD Fellow in Epidemiology at Texas A&M.

John Thwaites
Professor John Thwaites AM is a Professorial Fellow, Monash University, and Chair of the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and Climateworks Centre. John is the Chair of the National Sustainable Development Council, which has developed the Transforming Australia: SDGs Progress Report 2018. He was previously Chair of the National Sustainability Council an independent Council appointed by the Australian Government, which produced the Sustainable Australia Report in 2013. He is a Co-Chair of the Leadership Council of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) launched by the Secretary General of the United Nations to provide expert advice and support to the development and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. He is also the Chair of the SDSN Association, which operates the SDSN network around the world. John was appointed Member of the Order of Australia for “significant service to the environment and to the people and Parliament of Victoria in the 2021 Australia Day Honours.

Pablo Juliano
Pablo Juliano is a supply chain transformation leader with strong background in innovation in food processing and food waste upcycling. He currently leads the Processing and Supply Chains Group, which delivers science innovation to the food industry as part of CSIRO's Food Program. His research focuses on reducing and value capturing on food losses and waste across the supply chain by upcycling into co-products using CSIRO platform technologies. Over 20 years of service to the food industry in 7 countries. He is the CSIRO representative on the National Food Waste Strategy and Implementation steering committee together with industry peak bodies, the federal and state governments and is working nationally with food clusters towards the implementation of horticultural ingredient hubs for regional development.

Dr Jenny Gordon
Dr Jenny Gordon is an Honorary Professor at the Centre for Social Research and Methods, at the Australian National University. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute, one of Australia’s leading think tanks on foreign policy. Jenny is a member of the Australian International Agricultural Research Centre’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Advisory Panel, on the Asian Development Bank Institute’s (ADBI) Advisory Committee, and a non-executive director with NCEconomics. She is recently was a co-chair for the taskforce on Peace, Stability and Governance for the T7, organised by the ADBI. Jenny was the Chief Economist at DFAT from 2019 to 2021, tasked with setting up the Office of the Chief Economist to integrate development and trade and investment policy analysis. Jenny joined DFAT from Nous Group, where she was the inaugural Chief Economist. Her work at Nous included a report for APEC on the economic impact of investment in earth observation, understanding the motivations for and impediments to business investment in innovation for Science and Innovation Australia, and an assessment of Queensland’s innovation program. From 2007 Jenny spent 10 years with the Australian Productivity Commission as Principal Adviser (Research), where she worked on a wide range of policy reviews including regulation reform, aged care, childcare, the not-for-profit sector and migration. Joining in 1995, Jenny became a partner at the Centre for International Economics (TheCIE), where her work included financial market stabilization and development in Indonesia. Jenny has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University and started her professional career at the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Prabhu Pingali
Prabhu Pingali is a Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Global Development, and the Founding Director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI). He is also the Chair of the Governing Board of ICRISAT. Prior to joining Cornell, he was the Deputy Director, Agricultural Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, from 2008–May 2013. He was director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Agriculture and Development Economics Division from 2002-2007. In addition, he worked with the CGIAR for 15 years from 1987-2002, first with IRRI in the Philippines and then with CIMMYT in Mexico. Dr. Pingali is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a member in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA), and a former President of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. Pingali has written 14 books and over 200 refereed journal articles and book chapters on agriculture and food & nutrition policy. 

Wahida Maghraby
Dr Wahida is an agriculture policy analyst at the Indonesian Center for Agriculture Socio Economics and Policy Studies (ICASEPS), Ministry of Agriculture.  Prior to this position, from 2016 to 2020 Wahida was assigned as the Agricultural Attaché to the European Union based at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Brussels, Belgium. From 2021-2022, Wahida participated in two ACIAR Small Research Activities, namely 1) Agricultural research and innovation In Indonesia: Assessment of constraints, challenges, and opportunities and 2) Digital Ag-tech in Indonesia’s Transforming Small Holder Agriculture Sector: Potential and Policy Options. Her daily responsibilities consist of analysing agriculture policy-related issues and providing policy briefs for the Ministry.