We are delighted to confirm that Prof. Mohan Munasinghe will be ouropening keynote speaker. He is an important figure in internation environmental affairs and was Vice-CChair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC - AR4), that shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with Al Gore. We are very fortunate to have him attend our World Congress. Born in Sri Lanka and educated at a number of the world's top academic institutions, Prof. Munasinghe is distinguished in many fields. He is Chairman of the Munasinghe Institute of Deve lopment (MIND), Colombo; Institute Professor at the Vale Sustainable Development Inst., Federal University of Para, Brazil; Distinguished Guest Professor at Peking University, China, and International Advisory Board member at SCI, University of Manchester, UK. He has earned post-graduate degrees inengineering, physics and development economics from Cambridge University (UK),Massachussetts Institute of Techology (USA), and McGill University and Concordia University (Canada). Prof. Munasinghe has also received several honorary doctorates. Highlights from 40 years of distinguishead public service include working as Senior Energy Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka, Advisor to the United States President's Council on Environmental Quality (PCEQ), and Senior Advisor/Manager World Bank. He has taught as Visiting Professor at several leading universities world wide, and won many international prizes and medals for his research and its applications. Prof. Munasinghe has authored 96 books and over 350 technical papers on economics, sustainable development, climate change, power, energy,water, resources, transport, environment,disasters, and information technology. He is a Fellow of several internationally recognized Academies of Science, and serves on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals. Mandy Martin
Mandy Martin is a renowmed and talented Australian and internacional visual artist. Born in Adelaide, she studied at the South-Australian School of Art and was a lecturer and fellow in the School of Art, Australian National University, in Canberra from 1978 to 2006. Currently, she is an Adjunct Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. Environmental art engages with landscape and its biota to capture humanattention through aesthetics. Adding a different perspective on the environmentand providing another vital way of engaging with it, art is a powerful ally ofenvironmental history and marks an important contribution to the discipline.Environmental history aims to bring understanding to nature and culture and toprobe the interstices between them. The artist can partner the historian inthis enterprise.
Mandy Martin has held numerousexhibitions in Australia, Mexico and the USA. She has also been exhibited in,France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Italy. Her works are in many public andprivate collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Galleryof New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, The Art Gallery of SouthAustralia and other state collections and regional galleries. In the USA she isrepresented in the Guggenheim Museum New York; the Los Angeles Museum ofContemporary Art, the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno and many privatecollections. But she also exhibits in small local and regionalgalleries, frequently with her collaborating artists – often AboriginalAustralians – and she produces books that record the projects she leads anddirects. These include contributions in DesertLake: Art, Science and Stories from Paruku (2013) Desert Channels: The Impulse to Conserve (2010) andStrata: Deserts Past, Present and Future.An Environmental Art Project about a Significant Place (2005).
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