Dean is one of the Curtin University team that brought a new form of electric road-based mass transit, the trackless tram, to Australia. He is manager of the national Net Zero Corridors project with the Sustainable Built Environment Research Centre which links electric mobility to improving urban place, all with zero emissions and zero embodied carbon.

As Telstra's Chief Transport Strategist, he ensured the company was part of the Smart Shuttle AV consortium, and previously he was Director of Infrastructure, Transport and Logistics at CSIRO. Dean has deep experience with CRCs, having designed the research program and signed the major industry partners for the Smart Services CRC and is currently technical lead for the RACE2030 Net Zero Precincts initiative. He has co-founded several start-ups, including shared mobility provider Liftango, establishing it in the USA as Senior VP Americas. As a member of the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, he has a leading role in understanding how to accelerate the transition to distributed renewable energy. Dean holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, with studies in High Technology Marketing and Customer-led innovation at Stanford and UC Berkeley respectively.

Rohit is an Associate Director at AECOM and leads their WA Transport Advisory team. He was a contributing author of the Transport Chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has delivered guest lecturers on sustainability, transport appraisal, economics and business cases to – the Department of Transport (UK), University of Cambridge and other universities.

Rohit has extensive experience leading the development, scrutiny and evaluation of multi-disciplinary strategies and business cases, ensuring the wider case and benefits, such as environmental, land value uplift, and health impacts, are included. He assesses these within the context of integrated land use planning, social value, and sustainable development. He has also represented clients in assurance reviews of major projects business cases.

Nikki Palmbachs is Senior Public Policy Advisor within the Social and Community Impact division at RAC WA. She is a policy professional with over seven years’ experience across several industries. At RAC, she is responsible for managing research projects and providing evidence-based policy and technical advice complemented by community input, to help reduce harmful vehicle emissions for cleaner, healthier air.

Nikki will be presenting on RAC Member Priorities Tracker survey results, to bring the community’s perspective on topics such as vehicle emissions, and active and public transport, to the conversation. These surveys are used to better understand what’s important to RAC members, who are broadly representative of the WA community, to support safe, sustainable and connected communities now and into the future.

Margaret has been a sustainability professional for 22 years in a range of policy, advocacy, consulting, research and teaching roles. She has worked in fields including integrated transport and land use planning, climate change mitigation and adaptation, urban forestry, local and state government sustainability policy and strategy, waste management and circular economy, regional development, behaviour change and corporate sustainability. Margaret designs and facilitates participatory engagement processes that are essential to understand and address complex, value-laden sustainability problems.

Teresa has extensive experience in transport advisory and has led AECOM’s Western Australia Advisory group. Teresa comes from a multi-disciplinary background which is reflected in her diverse range of transport experience, from multi-modal infrastructure design projects to strategic planning projects for major freight precincts in Perth.
She has provided technical input on transport design and planning projects across the WA Transport Portfolio to support robust infrastructure development, business cases and option selection processes.