Alumni

Alumni

Samuel Alexander

Samuel Alexander has an LLB from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and an LLM (Hons) from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. After graduating Sam practiced employment law in Christchurch, New Zealand, before joining Melbourne Law School in 2006 as a PhD student. Sam's thesis was titled 'Voluntary Simplicity: Towards a Post-growth Theory of Property' (supervisors Lee Godden and Jenny Beard). Sam has also founded the Life Poets' Simplicity Collective (http://simplicitycollective.com/) which is a grass roots environmental organization dedicated to creatively promoting and celebrating sustainable culture.

Takele Bulto

Takele Bulto holds LLB and MA degrees from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and an LLM degree from University of Pretoria, South Africa. Takele worked as a judge and lecturer in Ethiopia and a visiting lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. He also worked as Programme Coordinator for Child Rights and Child Rights Programming in Eastern and Central African Regional Office of Save the Children, Sweden. Just before taking up his PhD studies at Melbourne Law School Takele was a Legal Officer in a PanAfrican Pioneer NGO. Takele's thesis was entitled 'The Imperatives of Extraterritorial Application of the Human Right to Water: A Case Study of the Nile Basin' and explores the operationalisation of the emerging human right to water in Africa (supervisors Jacqueline Peel and Carolyn Evans, completed in 2012).

Lisa Caripis

Lisa Caripis was an RA with CREEL between 2011-2013. After leaving CREEL, Lisa lived in South America where she worked at the Centre for Climate and Resilience Research at the University of Chile and volunteered with Tierra Digna, a local Colombian human rights organisation supporting communities affected by extractive projects. Since 2016, Lisa has worked as Research and Policy Manager for Transparency International's global Accountable Mining Programme where she leads on research, knowledge-sharing and policy advocacy. Working with local TI partners in twenty countries, the programme aims to combat corruption in the mining sector by enhancing transparency, accountability and civic participation in government decisions to approve exploration and mining projects. Adopting a multi-stakeholder approach, Lisa has worked in collaboration with a diverse range of organisations from the World Economic Forum to local civil society groups and networks.

Virginie Tassin Campanella

Virginie completed her doctoral degree n 2010, a double badged PhD from Melbourne Law School (Grade 1) and the Sorbonne University (High distinction, Prize & Funding for Publication) on the subject “The Extension of the Continental Shelf”, which was awarded the 2011 Prize of the Economic Law of the Sea Institute (INDEMER) of Monaco. She was co-supervised by Stuart Kaye, Andrew Mitchell and Jean-Marc Sorel (Sorbonne University). After completing her PhD, worked as Associate Legal Officer at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) where she worked, among other cases, on the first Seabed Dispute Chamber advisory opinion and the first extended continental shelf delimitation. In 2016, Dr. Tassin Campanella founded “VTA Tassin”, a law firm specialized in Ocean Law & Policy. She has developed since then a solid cross-sectoral and cross-field practice of the law of the sea anchored in the Science-Policy-Business nexus. The Prince Albert II of Monaco appointed her by Royal Ordinance, in June 2020, as a Member of the Scientific Committee of the INDEME along eminent scholars. She is the first “Avocat à la Cour” (Attorney-at-law) to have been appointed so far to such role.

Angus Frith

Angus Frith's PhD thesis was entitled, 'Sustainable Indigenous Entities for Making Agreements' and was co-supervised by Lee Godden, Professor Marcia Langton (Centre for Health and Society, Melbourne School of Population Health) and Maureen Tehan. Angus completed his degree in 2014.

Anita Foerster

Anita Foerster completed a double degree in Geography and Law (Honours) at the Australian National University. She joined the law school as a PhD candidate in 2005, researching the law, policy and practice of environmental water allocation. Anita's thesis was titled 'Law, policy and practice for ecologically sustainable water allocation and management? An analysis of institutional developments to provide for environmental water needs in the Murray-Darling Basin (NSW and Victoria), 1994-2008'. She completed her degree in 2010 co-supervised by Lee Godden and Jacqueline Peel. Anita is currently a Senior Lecturer at Monash University, teaching Corporate Sustainability Regulation. Anita’s current research projects include an exploration of the role of institutional investors, such as superannuation funds, in addressing climate change through investment decision-making and practice.

Steven Geroe

Steven's PhD with Lee Godden examined consultative drafting for Chinese renewable energy regulation. I’ve been teaching at La Trobe since 2013 in environmental law, climate law, contract and property. Steve have a couple of papers under review on using experience of Chinese ETS pilots in drafting the national ETS. One is co-authored with Hao Zhang, comparing enforcement measures under the national ETS and the Chinese Environmental Pollution Tax. He has a forthcoming book with Lexis Nexis: Victorian Environmental Law in Context - a concise introductory textbook for non-law students. He is currently researching on Australian low-carbon policy, including regulation on electricity prices and energy security.

Myriam Amiet-Knottenbelt

While undertaking her Juris Doctor studies at Melbourne Law School, Myriam worked as a Research Assistant to Professor Lee Godden, co-writing a book chapter on International Environmental Law and microplastic pollution as well as researching hazardous waste regulation across Australia. She also founded the Victorian Environmental Law Student Network. Presently Myriam worked as a Legal Adviser within the Public Law and Litigation Team, at the Office of the General Counsel in the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety and an offer holder for the Master of Philosophy in Law Program at the University of Oxford (commencing September 2022).

Jenny O'Connell

Jenny worked as CREEL Administrator for Professor Lee Godden and Professor Michael Crommelin AO from 2010-2013. While working part-time as CREEL Administrator, Jenny studied her Master of Arts (Cultural Material Conservation) at the Grimwade Centre (University of Melbourne). Jenny’s Master thesis researched documentation of Aboriginal art collections in remote art centres, focusing on the permanent collection at Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in Kununurra, WA. Since graduating from her Masters, a career highlight for Jenny was traveling to Gjirokastra, Albania as lead conservator for the volunteer organisation ‘Adventures in Preservation’ to document wall paintings on Ottoman Tower Houses. Jenny currently works as Senior Conservator (Painting) at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) to care for the painting collection which includes Colonial artworks by John Glover, William Charles Piguenit and Benjamin Duterreau, as well as works by modern and contemporary Tasmanian artists, such as Dorothy Stoner and David Keeling.

Yoriko Otomo

Yoriko Otomo has worked in several government and non-government environmental organisations, and has contributed to publications relating to sustainable development, environmental law and humanitarian issues. Her doctoral thesis on The Changing Landscapes of Risk (supervised by Anne Orford) seeks to develop a semiology of law through a poststructural feminist analysis of key texts within the law of occupation and international economic law, completed in 2013. Yoriko was teaching the undergraduate Environmental Law subject at Melbourne Law School.

Rafael Plaza

Rafael Plaza is an expert in Energy, Natural Resources & Environmental Law. As specialist legal counsellor, Mr. Plaza has vast experience in regulated markets, international business transactions, taxation and comparative applied legal research. Rafael conducted his PhD thesis on Transnational Power Transmission (completed in 2013), a study aimed at exploring international legal mechanisms to further power grids interconnections, unrestrained cross border power transit and the integration of renewable sources of energy into domestic energy matrices. After leaving CREEL he conducted a two-year post-doctoral research stay at China University of Geosciences (CUG) in Wuhan. Currently, Rafael divides his time between Mexico, Spain, and Chile, lecturing, researching and acting as legal counsel for private corporations and public institutions. He is a Research Fellow and Assistant Professor of Energy Law, Water Law, Macro and Microeconomics and serves as Deputy Director of the Department of Economic Law of the School of Law, the University of Chile. Recently, he was appointed Director of the Economic Law Journal of that School of Law. He also evaluates competitive research projects and future indexed scientific journals for Chile's National Agency for Innovation and Development.

Hao Zhang

Hao Zhang was a PhD student with CREEL between 2010 and 2015, under the supervision of Professor Lee Godden and Professor Sarah Biddulph. After completing his PhD, Hao worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK Law) and he is now an assistant professor at the same institution. Hao teaches energy law, environmental law and Chinese law at CUHK Law, and his research interests are primarily in the fields of Chinese energy law and climate law. Inspired by legal and regulatory issues surrounding the green economic transition in China, Hao’s recent research focuses on integration of renewable energy in China and he leads the China case study for a major research project funded by the German Environmental Agency on the interaction between carbon market regulation and electricity market regulation. At CUHK Law, Hao is the director of the LLM programme in Energy and Environmental Law, which is the first programme in the region specifically dedicated to provide legal training focusing on energy projects, the promotion of clean energy investments, local air quality, global warming and more generally the law applicable to energy security and sustainable development.