Affiliation: The University of Queensland
Discipline: Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Year elected: 2024
How would you describe your work at a dinner party?
I certainly wouldn’t start with “insurance” — that’s a quick way to lose your audience! I usually say that I study how we help people recover from disasters, particularly those triggered by weather or seismic events — floods, cyclones, earthquakes, wildfires. I also examine terrorism-related disasters. At its heart, my work is about understanding how we support people after devastating events.
What initially drew you to your field of study?
I study disaster risk financing — essentially, how we pay to rebuild more resiliently after disasters. A lot of my work focuses on insurance gaps: where insurance helps people recover after events like floods, cyclones, fires, earthquakes, and where it doesn’t. And importantly, what happens to people when they can’t access funding at all.
I’ve been exploring these issues around the world for nearly two decades. What drew me in was actually a grant opportunity early in my career that allowed me to work closely with the global reinsurance sector at a time when the industry was undergoing significant change. That experience opened my eyes to just how crucial this field is for people’s lives, for social stability, and for equity. Once I started, I realised the scale and importance of these challenges — and I’ve been committed ever since.
What role do the social sciences play in your work?
I am a social scientist. I’m a Professor of Strategy in a business school, and business schools are inherently interdisciplinary — we draw from economics, psychology, sociology, and management.
Social science is fundamental to how I understand the world. I use sociological theories of practice to make sense of how people act, how systems function, and why “solutions” work or don’t work in real contexts. What could be more important than understanding the social world? Every plan, every policy, every technical solution ultimately has to operate within society. For me, social sciences are everything.
What issues keep you awake at night?
One thing is the gap between good scientific results and real world impact. You can produce research that you know would be useful, but getting it into practice is incredibly difficult. Policymaking depends on political will, competing priorities, and funding constraints.
So I often find myself wondering: How do I keep this evidence in front of decisionmakers long enough for it to matter? They’re not always ready to act when I have results, but one day they might be — and I want the work to be there when that window opens. Staying relevant to policy, and maintaining that connection, is one of the hardest parts of what I do.
What should your field of study be doing more of right now?
We need to work more interdisciplinarily. Academia is traditionally organised into strict disciplines, which makes collaborative work difficult. But the problems we’re trying to solve — disaster incidence, recovery, resilience — are multilayered. They cut across engineering, planning, sociology, economics, psychology, and environmental science.
Complex problems require integrated thinking, and our academic structures haven’t quite caught up with that reality. We need to make interdisciplinary work easier, not harder.
Tell us about a recent moment of motivation or inspiration.
When I moved to Australia fulltime in late 2021, I didn’t expect my research interests to become so immediately relevant. Just a few months later, the catastrophic 2022 floods hit Southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. I watched an entire year’s worth of landfill flow past my home in three days. Even though I’d deliberately bought outside the flood zones, being so close to the devastation was confronting.
It made me feel strongly that whatever I’d learnt around the world, I wanted to bring it here — to help Australia understand and respond better to these events. And that motivation hasn’t faded. As we face more and more climate related crises, the work feels deeply important for the everyday lives of Australians and for our collective future. Disasters are inequitable but how we respond can improve equity — and that keeps me going.
What are you most proud of?
Honestly? I’ve had the usual academic highs — strong publications, an award or two. But the things I’m most proud of are more personal.
First, I’m proud that I’ve maintained strong relationships with industry partners, even when my research findings are challenging for them. Not everyone wants to hear that their systems aren’t working the way they think they are, but maintaining those relationships means the work has a real chance to make a difference.
Second, I’m incredibly proud of the people who have worked with me on different funded research projects. Many started their very first research job in my team. Some are now professors at major universities; others are beginning their careers as lecturers. A lot of them are independent scholars now, but if I helped them get a good start, that means a lot to me.
Where is your happy place?
One of the beautiful things about living in Queensland is the outdoors. My happy place is being outside — cycling, camping, swimming, anything in nature. Nature is paradoxical: it’s the source of many disasters, partially because of what we’ve done to it, but it’s also a powerful source of renewal. That’s where I reset.
What is your desert island book, song, or movie?
It’s hard to pick just one, but a book that has stayed with me is In Too Deep. It’s a sociological narrative following 35 middleclass women in Houston who experience three consecutive years of catastrophic flooding, including the devastating 2017 event.
The book shows why people don’t leave disaster-prone places — they’re “in too deep.” Their homes, schools, friendships, and communities anchor them. It’s beautifully written and deeply insightful, and it helps explain decisions that might otherwise seem irrational. It’s probably my desert island — or perhaps flooded island — book.
Affiliation: The University of Queensland
Discipline: Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Year elected: 2024
How would you describe your work at a dinner party?
I certainly wouldn’t start with “insurance” — that’s a quick way to lose your audience! I usually say that I study how we help people recover from disasters, particularly those triggered by weather or seismic events — floods, cyclones, earthquakes, wildfires. I also examine terrorism-related disasters. At its heart, my work is about understanding how we support people after devastating events.
What initially drew you to your field of study?
I study disaster risk financing — essentially, how we pay to rebuild more resiliently after disasters. A lot of my work focuses on insurance gaps: where insurance helps people recover after events like floods, cyclones, fires, earthquakes, and where it doesn’t. And importantly, what happens to people when they can’t access funding at all.
I’ve been exploring these issues around the world for nearly two decades. What drew me in was actually a grant opportunity early in my career that allowed me to work closely with the global reinsurance sector at a time when the industry was undergoing significant change. That experience opened my eyes to just how crucial this field is for people’s lives, for social stability, and for equity. Once I started, I realised the scale and importance of these challenges — and I’ve been committed ever since.
What role do the social sciences play in your work?
I am a social scientist. I’m a Professor of Strategy in a business school, and business schools are inherently interdisciplinary — we draw from economics, psychology, sociology, and management.
Social science is fundamental to how I understand the world. I use sociological theories of practice to make sense of how people act, how systems function, and why “solutions” work or don’t work in real contexts. What could be more important than understanding the social world? Every plan, every policy, every technical solution ultimately has to operate within society. For me, social sciences are everything.
What issues keep you awake at night?
One thing is the gap between good scientific results and real world impact. You can produce research that you know would be useful, but getting it into practice is incredibly difficult. Policymaking depends on political will, competing priorities, and funding constraints.
So I often find myself wondering: How do I keep this evidence in front of decisionmakers long enough for it to matter? They’re not always ready to act when I have results, but one day they might be — and I want the work to be there when that window opens. Staying relevant to policy, and maintaining that connection, is one of the hardest parts of what I do.
What should your field of study be doing more of right now?
We need to work more interdisciplinarily. Academia is traditionally organised into strict disciplines, which makes collaborative work difficult. But the problems we’re trying to solve — disaster incidence, recovery, resilience — are multilayered. They cut across engineering, planning, sociology, economics, psychology, and environmental science.
Complex problems require integrated thinking, and our academic structures haven’t quite caught up with that reality. We need to make interdisciplinary work easier, not harder.
Tell us about a recent moment of motivation or inspiration.
When I moved to Australia fulltime in late 2021, I didn’t expect my research interests to become so immediately relevant. Just a few months later, the catastrophic 2022 floods hit Southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales. I watched an entire year’s worth of landfill flow past my home in three days. Even though I’d deliberately bought outside the flood zones, being so close to the devastation was confronting.
It made me feel strongly that whatever I’d learnt around the world, I wanted to bring it here — to help Australia understand and respond better to these events. And that motivation hasn’t faded. As we face more and more climate related crises, the work feels deeply important for the everyday lives of Australians and for our collective future. Disasters are inequitable but how we respond can improve equity — and that keeps me going.
What are you most proud of?
Honestly? I’ve had the usual academic highs — strong publications, an award or two. But the things I’m most proud of are more personal.
First, I’m proud that I’ve maintained strong relationships with industry partners, even when my research findings are challenging for them. Not everyone wants to hear that their systems aren’t working the way they think they are, but maintaining those relationships means the work has a real chance to make a difference.
Second, I’m incredibly proud of the people who have worked with me on different funded research projects. Many started their very first research job in my team. Some are now professors at major universities; others are beginning their careers as lecturers. A lot of them are independent scholars now, but if I helped them get a good start, that means a lot to me.
Where is your happy place?
One of the beautiful things about living in Queensland is the outdoors. My happy place is being outside — cycling, camping, swimming, anything in nature. Nature is paradoxical: it’s the source of many disasters, partially because of what we’ve done to it, but it’s also a powerful source of renewal. That’s where I reset.
What is your desert island book, song, or movie?
It’s hard to pick just one, but a book that has stayed with me is In Too Deep. It’s a sociological narrative following 35 middleclass women in Houston who experience three consecutive years of catastrophic flooding, including the devastating 2017 event.
The book shows why people don’t leave disaster-prone places — they’re “in too deep.” Their homes, schools, friendships, and communities anchor them. It’s beautifully written and deeply insightful, and it helps explain decisions that might otherwise seem irrational. It’s probably my desert island — or perhaps flooded island — book.