About.

Iain Stewart is the El Hassan bin Talal Research Chair in Sustainability at the Royal Scientific Society (Amman, Jordan), Visiting Professor in Environmental Studies at Ashoka University, India, and Professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth. The founding director of the University of Plymouth’s ‘Sustainable Earth Institute’, Iain’s long-standing research interests are in natural hazards, sustainable geoscience, and earth science communication.

Iain’s geo-communication work has built on a 15 year partnership with BBC television presenting geoscience programmes (notably ‘Earth: The Power of the Planet’, ‘Earth: The Climate Wars’, ‘How Earth Made Us’, ‘How To Grow A Planet’, ‘The Rise of the Continents’ and ‘Planet Oil) and recently was academic advisor on the BBC’s acclaimed landmark series ‘Severn Worlds, One Planet’.

Awarded an MBE for his services to geography and geology education, Iain is President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, was the Communications Lead and Evidence Chair for the Scottish Climate Assembly, and holds a UNESCO UNITWIN Chair in Geoscience and Society.

Dr. Özlem Adiyaman Lopes

Programme Specialist, UNESCO Natural Sciences Sector, Paris, France

Dr. Özlem Adiyaman Lopes is a geologist with a background in Earth resources exploration, an MSc from IFP and a PhD from Paris 6 University on Volcanology and active tectonics. Her current concerns are:
• Through the Education, Science & Culture programmes, helping lift the third word out of poverty.
• UNESCO has declared a focus on both Africa and gender equality while specifically seeking to sponsor early career geo-scientists.
• UNESCO is targeting future ‘sustainability’ in its programmes, a transition in energy to a lower carbon future.

Prof. Chris Jackson

Chair in Sustainable Geoscience, University of Manchester, UK

Prof. Chris Jackson is a geologist and adventurer. His research focuses on the application of geophysics to understand a wide range of geological processes on the topics of geohazards, energy and carbon capture and storage. Chris is a passionate educator and geoscience communicator and actively engaged in efforts to improve equality, diversity, and inclusivity in Earth Science and Higher Education. Chris presented a Royal Institution Christmas Lecture in 2020 for BBC Four. Chris has also appeared in several Earth science-focused documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic and Channel 5.

Stephen Oliver

Manager of Documentaries, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Australia

Stephen is passionate about telling stories with real world impact. As Manager of Documentaries at the ABC, Stephen oversees some of the national broadcaster's biggest hits including Fight for Planet A, Big Weather (and how to survive it), Australia’s Ocean Odyssey,  Love on the Spectrum, Revelation, War on Waste, Employable Me, The Cult of the Family, Don’t Stop the Music and Exposed: The Case of Keli Lane.

Before joining the ABC, Stephen was an award-winning filmmaker, making both comedic docs including “Chateau Chunder – A Wine Revolution” and “Stop Laughing, this is Serious” on the history of comedy in Australia, as well as hard hitting campaign series “What’s the Catch”, on sustainable seafood that led to a Senate Inquiry in 2014 and “For the Love of Meat” on the impacts of eating meat, both for SBS. “How to Save the World” was a one-hour ABC Foreign Correspondent special on solutions to the climate crisis broadcast on the opening day of the COP21 Climate Summit in Paris.  Stephen has brought that program-making and impact campaign experience to his commissioning role at the ABC with great success.

In 2020 he headed up a suite of ground-breaking climate-themed series and game-changing associated impact campaigns including Australia’s Ocean Odyssey on the interconnectedness of species, Fight for Planet A: Our Climate Challenge on how we can all help reduce our carbon emissions, Big Weather (and how to survive it) on how to survive and thrive in a time of increasing extreme weather events and the ambitious Reef Live which broadcast the incredible annual coral spawning live from the Great Barrier Reef.  He recently oversaw journalist Sarah Ferguson’s explosive investigation of abuse in the Catholic church in Revelation, as well as meaningful factual entertainment like Love on the Spectrum.

Catherine Jackson

Founder - My Fave Places; Business Project Consultant, New York City, USA

Catherine is a business project director, consultant, and founder with experience in Financial Services, Biotech, Start-ups, and the Cultural sector. Catherine has worked for E*TRADE, Westpac Bank, Macquarie Group, as a marketer and as a project leader championing world-first fintech initiatives and leading global projects. As part of the Carnegie Grant, she led a major digital program at the New York Public Library focused on releasing previously never seen historic recordings from NYPLs renowned Audio and Moving Images collection.

She has founded a mobile tech start-up My Fave Places and consults on projects for companies in biotech and other high innovation sectors. Catherine has a BA from Sydney University, an MBA (Project Management major) from the University of Technology, Sydney, a Diploma of Marketing from Sydney Institute of Technology, and an SCPS - Certificate in TV and Film Production from New York University.