Community and Industry Advisory Board

Rachel is the Chief Conservation Officer at WWF-Australia. Rachel was previously an advisor to Australia’s Threatened Species Commissioner and former Chair of Centre for Sustainability Leadership and International Zoos Educators Association. Rachel also sits on an Advisory Board to Parks Victoria. Rachel has developed numerous award winning programs securing a position on the Australian Geographic Magazine Australia’s Top 30 conservationists list (2016). In 2018 Rachel’s was awarded a position on the Top 50 Women in the Victorian Public Service by the Institute of Public Administration Australia. Rachel’s current focus is to lead an innovative, solution-focussed team that secures a New Deal for People and Nature whilst launching a $300M dollar program to catalyze Regeneration across Australia.

Lyn is the Executive Director for Energy Projects and Programs, for the Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.  She is responsible for a portfolio of innovative and clean energy technology programs including Large-scale Renewable Generation, Neighbourhood Batteries and Microgrid Initiatives, Hydrogen Commercialisation, and EV Charging Infrastructure.  She is also the Chair of the Department’s Customer, Stakeholder and Digital Experience Taskforce and is accredited as a Class 2 State Incident Controller in Emergency Management.

Throughout her career Lyn has led significant and transformational initiatives in the private and public sectors. She is passionate about helping Australians move to a clean, reliable, renewable and affordable energy future. Lyn joined DELWP as the Executive Director Customer Experience leading Solar Victoria’s ambitious scale up. Prior to DELWP Lyn led the national Solar, Storage and Energy Solutions business for Origin Energy, with responsibility for sales, service, solutions and programs across residential, small-to-medium sized businesses and commercial markets. Previous to that, she held numerous leadership roles at Telstra.

Lyn is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has served as a non-executive Director for Breakthru People Solutions, and Board Trustee of the Telstra Foundation (Philippines).

David Kennedy is a Professor in coastal geomorphology and the Director of the Office for Environmental Programs at The University of Melbourne. His research focusses on the impact of climatic and environmental change and how sea level, storms and tsunami drive our dynamic coast. David’s research partners with many agencies from Surf Life Saving Australia, to AusAID as well as state and federal government agencies in Australia and overseas (incl. U.K., Tonga, Niue and New Zealand). David is the elected chair of working groups for many academic societies such as The International Association of Geomorphologists. As Director of the Office for Environmental Programs, he oversees the University's large cross-faculty, interdisciplinary coursework program the Master of Environment.

I have developed a passion for sustainability through my workplace, as an animal house within a neuroscience research facility, we have a massive opportunity to reduce our waste and the amount of consumables used. I created a report on my team's current processes and procedures and have started to implement sustainable initiatives within my team. My next steps are to create a Sustainability committee to implement initiatives institute wide. I am studying a Master of Environment with a specialisation in climate change to enhance my current skill set and to improve our climate and create a liveable future together. I am the President of the UniMelb Postgraduate Environmental Network for 2022/2023.