Executive Committee

Our SSEAC Executive Committee includes five senior academic staff associated with the centre. Committee members are drawn from a range of faculties across the University. The Executive Committee advises the Director and is responsible for ensuring the smooth running of the centre.

Community Outreach Advisor

Associate Professor Lesley Harbon
Faculty of Education and Social Work

Associate Professor Lesley Harbon has held the position of Associate Dean International in the Faculty of Education and Social Work since mid-2009. She works with pre-service language teacher education students and currently supervises PhD students from Southeast Asia. Her research and project activities focus on teacher professional learning in Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.

Curriculum Advisor

Professor Adrian Vickers
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Over the last 30 years Professor Adrian Vickers has published extensively on the cultural history of Indonesia and its connections between other parts of Southeast Asia. He currently teaches a number of units of study on Southeast Asian history, and is the director of the Asian Studies Program.

Policy and Regional Outreach Advisor

Professor David Guest
Faculty of Agriculture and Environment

David Guest is Professor of Plant Pathology and President of the Asian Association of Societies of Plant Pathology. His research focusses on the biology and management of diseases of cocoa, durian, jackfruit, rubber, oil palm and coconut. During his work he collaborates with researchers, extension agents and farmers in Asia, the Pacific and South America. He believes that horticulture has an important role in poverty alleviation in the tropics.

Research Advisor

Professor Peter McMinn
Sydney Medical School

Professor Peter McMinn is Bosch Professor of Infectious Diseases. He has had personal and high-level interactions with individual researchers, research institutes and public health laboratories in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. His work in the region focuses on research and capacity building for communicable disease surveillance. He is currently working with the Timor Leste Ministry of Health on a large-scale project to eliminate lymphatic filariasis and control soil-transmitted helminth infections within the country.

Research Training Advisor

Professor Philip Hirsch
Faculty of Science

Professor Philip Hirsch is the Director of the Mekong Research Group and has worked on Southeast Asia for more than 30 years. He conducts interdisciplinary research on natural resource governance, environmental politics, development and livelihoods in the region. Since 1988 he has run 11 undergraduate field schools to Southeast Asia and has supervised many PhD students focussing on the region.