Engineers Engaging Community

Carolyn Oldham graduated from a B.Sc. Hons (Chemistry) in 1984 and then lived for two years in Ladakh in northern India. After returning to Australia, she graduated with a Ph.D. (Civil and Environmental Engineering) in 1994 and took up an academic position at The University of Western Australia, teaching into Environmental Engineering and leading a research group focused on aquatic pollution. In 2010, she was awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) excellence award for her sustained commitment to increasing the diversity of student learning experiences in engineering. Carolyn has worked on engineering projects in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and the Cook Islands and since 2008 she has led AusAID projects on institutional strengthening in water and sanitation engineering in Timor-Leste. Since early 2010, Carolyn has been involved in the ALTC Research Project exploring how to teach social justice to undergraduate engineering students. Carolyn is challenged on a daily basisas she and her husband struggle to raise two teenage boys and for sanity she is currently training to be a yoga teacher. Gregory Crebbin completed a Master of Applied Science at the University of Melbourne in 1975 and a Ph.D. at the University of Western Australia in 1984. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and the Academic Chair of Engineering with the School of Engineering and Information Technology at Murdoch University. His research interests range from image processing and neuromorphic systems to electrical power systems. His teaching activities include delivering an undergraduate unit in engineering design that emphasizes the importance of embedding social justice and community engagement as core objectives in any large-scale engineering project. Stephen Dobbs is an Associate Professor and Chair of Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia. He has a long-standing interest in the history of the Southeast Asian region. He has published two major historical studies with aSoutheast Asian focus: "The Singapore River a Social History 1819-2002," and "Tuan Djek a Biography." He has recently been co-editing a book on the use and practice of oral history in Southeast Asia which will soon be published by Palgrave Macmillan entitled, Oral History in Southeast Asia. He has also published research on water and social justice issues in Southeast Asia, the early development of the port of Singapore, cleanup of the Singapore River in the 1980s and '90s and the diplomatic relationship between Singapore and Australia. Other publications include contributions to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History and The Southeast Asian Handbook by Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. He has taught a range of courses in history and Asian Studies at Murdoch University, Adelaide University and the University of Western Australia. Andrea Gaynor is Professor of History at The University of Western Australia. Primarily an environmental historian, she pursues various questions relating tothe historical relationships between people and places. She has published on topics as diverse as landscape art and feral cats, and in 2002 co-edited (with Mathew Trinca and Anna Haebich) Country: Visions of Land and People in Western Australia (W.A. Museum, 2002). Her latest book is Harvest of the Suburbs: An Environmental History of Growing Food in Australian Cities (UWA Press, 2006). She teaches in a range of areas including environmental history, history of technology, heritage, and history, Australian cultural history, gender in history, and Australian studies.