Centre for Policy Development
Staff
Miriam Lyons is the Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Development. Formerly the Policy Coordinator of New Matilda, Miriam has a long history of bringing policy ideas to new audiences, as the founding director of the Interface Festival of Ideas in Sydney, and director of the Ideas Program for the Straight out of Brisbane Festival. Miriam has also worked as a freelance writer and a media development consultant in East Timor with the international NGO Internews. She co-convenes ‘Plus 20’, a network dedicated to long-term planning for social change, and is on the steering committee of Project Australia.
Download a full bio here.
View Miriam's recent work here.
Contact: miriam.lyons(at)cpd.org.au*
Marian Spencer is the Administrator for The Centre for Policy Development. Marian worked in London as the membership secretary for The Women's Environment Network and then as the administrator for The British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. She moved to Sydney in 1998 and worked as the NSW Manager for The Wilderness Society. She has been out of the paid workforce for seven years working at home as a mother and homemaker.
Contact: marian.spencer(at)cpd.org.au*
Antoinette Abboud is the newest staff member at CPD, and has the challenge of growing the CPD supporter base to help sustain its ideas into the future. Antoinette has wide experience in the not-for-profit sector and advocating on many local and international issues. This includes advocacy for refugee and Indigenous Australian rights, anti-war and climate change campaigns and her recent work at Union Aid Abroad, the humanitarian aid arm of the trade union movement. Her bag of tricks includes skills and experience she picked up working in community development, union and community campaigns, the arts, communication, fundraising and education. Antoinette enjoys finding opportunities to collaborate efforts and resources to make things happen and coming up with creative ideas and solutions to push for social change. As well as being part of the CPD crew, Antoinette teaches research and writing skills in a Tertiary Preparation Course at Sydney Institute TAFE.
Contact: antoinette.abboud(at)cpd.org.au*
Christian Smyth is the CPD's InSight editor. Christian has been an editor, writer and broadcaster. He was part of the team that launched The Big Issue in the UK and has written for the Times, GQ and the Observer. He has worked at Christian Aid and the King’s Fund health think tank and has been involved in projects in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda and Ethiopia. He has a degree in Peace Studies and an MBA and most recently worked with Leader’s Quest, a foundation that provides leadership fellowships in India and China. He emigrated to Australia in July 2008 and is completing his major project for an MA in Photojournalism with Westminster University.
Contact: editor(at)cpd.org.au*
James Murray is the Research Coordinator (Economics Policy) at the the Centre for Policy
Development. James has worked in banking and finance in both Sydney and
London, and as a
policy analyst in the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. James' passions include
industry policy, taxation, governance structures, risk, and financial
stability. He is also a member of the NSW Amnesty business network and a
board member of Jubilee Australia.org.
ontact: james.murray(at)cpd.org.au*
Barry Saunders Research Coordinator of CPD's Democratic Renewal program. Barry is a social and new media consultant and researcher from Queensland, specializing in citizen media, government transparency, community outreach and democratic engagement. He worked on the YouDecide2007 project and has also worked for Vibewire, the National Student Media Conference, NewStandardNews, 4ZzZFM and Brisbane Indymedia.
Contact: barry.saunders(at)cpd.org.au*
Interested in getting involved? Why not volunteer
*Antispam note: To avoid attracting spam email robots, email addresses on this site are written with (AT) in place of the usual @ symbol. Replace (at) with the correct symbol to get a valid address. We regret the inconvenience this entails.
