Dr Deborah O'Connell
Dr Deborah O’Connell
SENIOR ASSOCIATE
Dr Deborah O’Connell has spent thirty five years as a researcher/practitioner across a range of disciplines, with the last twenty years at the forefront of climate and disaster resilience as Principal Research Consultant in CSIRO. She is now refocussing efforts with a commitment to building capability and implementation in Australia and internationally, using her expertise in systems science, social science, and science diplomacy.
Deb has led/co-led a range of innovative and impactful projects bringing together a very wide range of stakeholders across the country, different levels of government, different sectors of society, in highly contested spaces. She has secured, managed and delivered many millions of dollars of research, leading multi-agency teams of collaborators. Her capacity to understand, translate, synthesise and integrate across multiple perspectives, disciplines of science and various government planning and policy agencies and processes is demonstrated in numerous projects.
Deb has also been the Lead Facilitator for Homeward Bound, a global leadership initiative for women and non-binary people in STEMM. This role included program design and delivery, building community and together with the program psychiatrist and faculty creating ‘safe space’, creating and holding a trauma-informed leadership culture for the whole group (especially on the ship), as well managing the logistics of program delivery and constant changes in ship schedules and conditions during Antarctic voyages in 2019 and 2023.
She has routinely communicated with a wide range of audiences including regular briefings of politicians, agency executives, businesses and communities, conferences and print media.