Anne Obrien

Background

About Anne Obrien

I am a senior policy officer in the Australian Centre for Disease Control, in the National Health, Sustainability and Climate Unit. I have worked in air quality (for almost 5 years) infrastructure policy and data (for almost 3 years). I am extending my environmental health experience through working on greenhouse gas emissions reduction and adaptation to climate change in the health sector.I finished my PhD in 2017, working across disciplines in geography and philosophy. While I had strong humanities and social science research approaches in my PhD (on environmental ethics and how farmers learn to care for soil biodiversity) and my honours research in 2006 (on 'Just Transition' in the Hunter Region and the closure of the BHP steelworks) I have always had a strong science background to my work. I often combine scientific explanation and policy development in the research and briefing papers that I do. I have presented at many conferences, published journal articles and taught several university classes. I have broad interests, particularly ecological science, philosophy, adult education, urban planning, public economics, community development and renewable energy.