Dianne Nicol
Project Leader
Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics, The University of Tasmania
Dianne Nicol is the Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania. She is leading two Australian Research Council-funded projects which examine the legal, research and social issues associated with genomic data sharing and the regulation of innovative health technologies including somatic cell genome editing. Dianne’s expertise offers a unique combination of her PhD research in the field of biology and her legal specialisation on patenting of biotechnology inventions. She is a member of the Australian Academy of Law and holds the title of Distinguished Professor.
Dianne’s primary roles in the project involve framing the citizen deliberations with the broader ethical, legal, and social context of genome editing, and articulating the outcomes of the deliberations in various forums.
Project Team
The Australian Citizens’ Jury on Genome Editing brings together Australia’s foremost experts in law and genetics and deliberative democracy. This innovative collaboration builds on over 25 years of high-impact scholarship on the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in genomics and the power of citizen deliberation in making inclusive, informed, and considered collective decisions.
The project is co-organised by the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania and the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra.
Project Leaders
Dianne Nicol
Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics, The University of Tasmania
Dianne Nicol is the Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania. In addition to leading this project, she is also leading two Australian Research Council-funded projects which examine the legal, research and social issues associated with genomic data sharing and the regulation of innovative health technologies including somatic cell genome editing. Dianne brings a combination of PhD-level research in the field of biology and legal specialisation on the regulation of genomics and related technologies. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and holds the title of Distinguished Professor.
Simon Niemeyer
Director of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Simon Niemeyer is the Director of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Simon has designed, implemented and assessed over twenty deliberative forums in the past ten years on a range of topics—from biobanking in British Columbia to climate change in the Australian Capital Territory to begging in Uppsala, Sweden. His work has been published in top academic journals including The American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Science, Science and Nature. Simon was one of the organizers of the pioneering Australian Citizens' Parliament.
Nicole Curato
Professor, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Nicole Curato is a sociologist specializing on the role of emotions and non-verbal communication in public deliberation. She has experience running deliberative forums in communities affected by armed conflict and police brutality. She is the editor of the Journal of Deliberative Democracy and the author of three books, including Deliberative Minipublics: Core Design Features.
John Dryzek
Centenary Professor, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
John Dryzek is a Centenary Professor and a former Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow at the University of Canberra. He is the author or editor of twenty books on democracy and environmental politics, and a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences in Australia. He was one of the organizers of the pioneering Australian Citizens' Parliament.
Researchers
Nardine Alnemr
PhD student, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Nardine Alnemr is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She researches how algorithms in online communication affect deliberative democracy. Her research interest also includes internet governance and digital rights.
Madeleine Egan
PhD student, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Madeleine Egan is a PhD student at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her work focuses on social movements, constitution-making, and mass participation in deliberative democracy. She previously completed an Honours thesis on social trust and deliberative politics in Argentina.
Prior to beginning graduate studies, Madeleine worked in community engagement for local government and non-profit organisations, as well as in communications, community organising and campaigns for environmental and social justice.
Lucy J. Parry
Research Associate, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Lucy J. Parry is an Associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. Her research interests include deliberative systems, deliberative mini-publics and democratic innovations, and animal ethics. Lucy has worked on deliberative processes in the U.K. and Australia, and has documented a large number of cases on the Participedia database, from mini-publics to protests. Uniting these areas is a commitment to bringing deliberative theory and practice together, along with her methodological expertise in Q Methodology. To this end, Lucy has published widely across her research interests, with her current work examining the everyday impacts of deliberative mini-publics in Australia.
Chris Rudge
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Law and Genetics, The University of Tasmania
Chris Rudge is postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Law and Genetics, University of Tasmania. Chris was previously (2020) postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Melbourne, where he examined the regulation and governance of autologous stem cell therapies in Australia and globally. Chris’s background is in health and medical law, including the regulation of psychiatry and brain interventions. He is author and co-author of several articles on the regulation of medical devices and therapies. In 2018, Chris authored a major report for the Medical Council of NSW relating to the Council’s powers to sanction or suspend medical practitioners in the ‘public interest.’
Rebecca Paxton
Research Associate, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Rebecca Paxton is a researcher at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra and a research assistant with the Food Values Research Group at the University of Adelaide. Her research interests centre on decision-making in food and farming systems, including value trade-offs related to animal welfare and food system management in the context of disasters. Most recently, she has researched community attitudes towards the use of gene editing in the Australian livestock sector.
Francesco Veri
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Francesco Veri is a Postdoctoral fellow for the Swiss National Science Foundation at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He specializes in quantitative and set-theoretic methods with an emphasis on fuzzy logic applied to social sciences. Before moving to Australia, he completed his MA in contemporary history at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and his PhD in political science at the University of Lucerne.
Events Team
Anne Nygaard Jedzini
Project Manager, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Anne Nygaard Jedzini is a PhD student on deliberative integrity at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance where she also works as a business developer. She is the former Vice Mayor of the City of Aarhus in Denmark where she served on a number of deliberative task committees with politicians and citizens as well as facilitated deliberative policy processes herself with the local community. Anne is contributing to the Global Citizen Assembly project with her expertise on citizen engagement, deliberative governance and political power-sharing.
Rose Koellner
Intern, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Rose is a fourth-year student at the University of Canberra studying a double bachelor’s degree in Business and Arts, majoring in International Business and Global Studies. Her time at university has developed an understanding of how our globalised world connects within various markets across international borders as well as the importance of gaining a global awareness of the implications behind political and economic policy on social and ecological issues. Rose is currently interning at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance to help run the Australian Citizens’ Jury on Genome Editing.
Mia McGaffin
Event Manager, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Mia McGaffin is a research assistant at the Centre of Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Mia is currently studying a Bachelor of Politics and International Relations/Bachelor of Communication in Media and Public Affairs at the University of Canberra and is in her fourth and final year. Mia first joined the Centre of Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance in May 2020 as a research intern, where she conducted a research project on water policy and how strategies of deliberative democracy could improve it. Mia has now taken on the role as an event manager at the Australian Citizens Jury event that the Centre is hosting in June 2021.
Emerson Sanchez
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian National University
Emerson M. Sanchez recently completed his PhD at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra and currently works as research support adviser for the Faculty of Business, Government and Law. He researches the role of environmental knowledge in contributing to industrial disasters and exploring ways to avert such tragedies.
Aside from his work in UC, he is also a Senior Research Officer at the Institute for Infrastructure in Society (I2S) at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy. At I2S, he is part of a team researching community engagement in infrastructure projects. He has also conducted research on social movements, indigenous rights, social health, and gender and development.
Josephine Wright
Project Manager, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, The University of Canberra
Josephine Wright is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, science communicator and project manager with extensive experience as a producer across many genres including science, wildlife, history and contemporary factual programs. Jo has coordinated projects in difficult environments from Svalbard to Chernobyl to outback Australia. She has delivered projects to Broadcasters around the world, from ABC Australia to BBC UK to RTBF in Belgium. Jo has been working since 2019 as the Communications Manager and Project Coordinator for the associated Global Citizens’ Assembly project.
Collaborators
Sofie Marien
Associate Professor, University of Leuven
Sofie Marien is an Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Leuven where she leads the Democratic Innovations & Legitimacy Research Group. Her research interests are focused on democratic innovations, political behavior, political psychology, political communication and comparative politics. She is interested in participatory and deliberative processes. She studies deliberation in likely places such as deliberative mini-publics but also in more unlikely places such as televised election debates. In 2018 she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant “Meeting Great Expectations Through Democratic Innovations” from the European Research Council. Her research has appeared in journals such as Political Behavior, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Deliberative Democracy.
Lisa van Dijk
PhD student, University of Leuven
Lisa van Dijk is a PhD student at the Democratic Innovations & Legitimacy Research Group at the University of Leuven. In her PhD, she asks whether and why deliberative minipublics can build the perceived legitimacy of political decision-making. Her research is part of the Excellence of Science inter-university RepResent project and the 'Meeting Great Expectations Through Democratic Innovations' project funded by the European Research Council. Sofie Marien (University of Leuven) supervises Lisa’s PhD trajectory together with Jonas Lefevere (VUB, University of Brussels).