Dear SEI Community,

At the end of last month, SEI hosted the first of our new public panel series on climate justice - Climate justice in the midst of climate turbulence. It was fantastic to see a full house at Greenhouse Tech for this important and timely discussion on Australia’s urgent climate, housing and energy challenges, exploring solutions through inclusive decision-making, First Nations leadership, and innovative design. Now more than ever are the complex intersections of climate action, equity, and systemic change evident. Challenging dominant narratives and proposing bold pathways toward a more just and sustainable future remains central to SEI’s mission.

If you missed this first panel, you can catch up on the discussion on the SEI podcast channel. Registrations are now open for the second panel in the series, Reimagining democracy: how diverse knowledges are creating more-than-human justice. This event will fall during SEI’s Multispecies Justice Symposium which will convene over 60 leading thinkers and practitioners from around the world to critically engage with the ethical, political, and legal dimensions of more-than-human justice. Taking place from 16 to 20 June, the symposium will offer a platform to explore how Indigenous knowledges and relational approaches to democracy can inform more inclusive forms of decision-making - ones that recognise and account for the interests of the more-than-human.

I am also delighted to welcome 2025 honours students, Catherine Gunawan, Arohi Saini and Dylan Shadbolt, who have been awarded SEI Honours Research Fellowships, and Cana Nongkhlaw, this year’s recipient of the Iain McCalman Honours Research Award in partnership with the Chau Chak Wing Museum. It is always a pleasure to support research students in their multidisciplinary environmental research journeys. You can read more about their projects here.

Finally, it is with mixed emotions that we say farewell to Genevieve (Evie) Wright who has been a member of the SEI team since 2020. Evie has made huge contributions to SEI including in leading the University-wide climate research mapping and coordination project, managing the Climate Disaster and Adaptation research theme and curating SEI’s public events program. She will be sorely missed but we are excited to see her taking a role with a key partner - the Reconstruction Authority - and wish her all the best.

The next SEI newsletter will reach your inboxes in July. Until then, stay safe.