PROFESSOR
STEVE LARKIN

Professor Steven Larkin is a Kungarakan man from Darwin in the Northern Territory, Australia. He is currently the Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement at the University of Adelaide.

Professor Larkin was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. Prior to that, he held the roles of Pro Vice-Chancellor for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Newcastle and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Indigenous Leadership at Charles Darwin University.

Professor Larkin’s appointment as Pro Vice-Chancellor at Charles Darwin University in 2009 was historic as he became the first ever Aboriginal person to be appointed to a senior executive position at any Australian university.

Professor Larkin holds a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the Queensland University of Technology, a Master’s degree in Social Science from Charles Sturt University, and a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Queensland.  Professor Larkin has served on numerous Australian advisory committees in Indigenous Affairs.

Professor Larkin’s research concentrates on Indigenous health, education, and public policy. His expertise is as a practitioner, policy maker and researcher in the field of Indigenous knowledge, race and cultural studies and he regularly advises on the development of a culturally based measure of wellbeing from an Indigenous perspective.

This keynote address will be delivered in a digital format
Following the presentation Professors Steve Larkin and Melissa Nursey-Bray will connect for a Q&A with the audience

MELISSA NURSEY-BRAY

Melissa Nursey-Bray, Deputy Director, Institute of Sustainability, Energy and Resources and ARC Future Fellow

Melissa has over twenty years’ experience in working with Indigenous communities in Australia, including work training Indigenous Rangers on Country, development of land and sea co-management plans and programs, including climate adaptation. 

PROFESSOR
RAUNA KUOKKANEN

Rauna Kuokkanen is Research Professor of Arctic Indigenous Politics at the University of Lapland (Finland) and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on comparative Indigenous politics and law, Indigenous feminism and gender, Arctic governance, and settler colonialism in the Nordic countries. She is the editor of the Settler Colonial Studies journal. 

Professor Kuokkanen is a member of Sámi Climate Council, an independent expert body formed in accordance in the 2023 Climate Act in Finland, and of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Involvement, International Arctic Science Committee.

Professor Kuokkanen was a Fulbright Arctic Initiative 3 Fellow from March 2021 to April 2023. The FAI3 Arctic security team produced an Arctic security policy brief, launched in Washington DC in April 2023.

Professor Kuokkanen’s most recent book Restructuring Relations: Indigenous Self-Determination, Governance and Gender by Oxford University Press (2019) has been awarded with three prizes. It has also been selected as the semi-finalist for the US-based Grawemeyer 2021 Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Drawing on extensive interviews and political theory, the book is an Indigenous feminist investigation of the concept of Indigenous self-determination, governance and gender regimes in Indigenous political institutions.