Katherine is a Professor at the ANU School of Cybernetics and the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society.

Katherine’s work focusses on collaborative approaches to policy, action and education for sustainable development. In this field, she has worked in Europe and the Asia-Pacific on projects related to international science and technology cooperation, water governance, risk management, sustainable urban development, politics and cultures of innovation, and climate change adaptation. Katherine has produced over 100 academic publications including 4 books and a diverse range of book chapters, papers, reports and edited collections. Katherine is convenor of the Master of Applied Cybernetics program and delights in the clash and novel synthesis of disciplinary cultures.

Katherine is also currently President of the Australian-French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) Inc, a member of the National Committee on Water Engineering (Engineers Australia) and a Director of the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust. She has also worked in the ANU’s Centre for European Studies, Centre for Policy Innovation and the H.C. Coombs Policy Forum at the Crawford School of Public Policy on a range of projects, including the PACE-Net and PACE-Net+ EU projects on developing Pacific-European bi-regional dialogue on science, technology and innovation.

The world is currently facing a range of rapid technological, environmental and social shifts. And part of the work of IWF is to investigate these in our water systems, and how people might want to transform our relationships to technologies in the environment. Automation and artificial intelligence are just one example that have long been present in the water sector. IWF has a chance to investigate and lead work on how integration of these AI-powered cyber-physical systems will further transform our collective futures as they are taken to scale in the world around us.