Meet our Ambassador

Libby Hepburn

Organisation

Australian Citizen Science Association; Citizen Science Global Partnership

Position

Member

E-mail

libhepburn@gmail.com

Phone

‭+61 0458 798 990‬‬‬

Country

Australia, State of New South Wales

Ambassador Group

Policy maker or institutional representative

Gender

Female

University, Municipality, or Community Group

Community Group

Languages

English, French

Biography

Bachelor Education – Leicester University, Master of Business Administration – Heriot Watt University Edinburgh. Libby has worked as a teacher, established and run a fishermen’s co-op of 60 boats in England, and a business with 70 people, and been a national advisor on organisational development and strategy in Scotland. Since her retirement she has dedicated her life to developing and promoting citizen science for sustainability – locally, nationally and globally. After 8 years running the community-led project to build the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre, Libby has spent the last 12 years leading the Atlas of Life Far South Coast NSW (https://atlasoflife.org.au) a regional biodiversity monitoring project. The Atlas now has over 2,629 contributors, 104,300+ records, 7 Bioblitzes, many diverse projects and a long-term community of interest with expertise in many aspects of local ecology and biodiversity. Libby’s continuing quest is to encourage more scientists and policy-makers to work with communities in place-based science and evidence based actions towards sustainable practices. Libby is a founder and continuing advocate for the Australian Citizen Science Association (https://citizenscience.org.au) and the Citizen Science Global Partnership(CSGP, https://citizenscienceglobal.org). She is working globally to leverage citizen science into its rightful place as a mainstream science process by advocating for Open Science and co-chairing the CSGP “Scaling-up citizen science Air Quality monitoring” Community of Practice.

Motivation

Since the 1970’s it has become ever clearer that global warming is THE existential threat to the world, its people and its ecosystems and I have worked in citizen science believing that the more people engage and understand, the more they will act to improve things. In this part of Australia the Clean Energy for Eternity group (https://cleanenergyforeternity.net.au/about-cefe) has been flourishing since 2014 and now Bega Valley Shire is on target to hit 100% clean energy by 2030. All public and many community buildings are solar powered. I am a long time member and supporter of this group and live myself with an energy independent house and electric car (which is still unusual in Australia).
I believe strongly that citizen science can be scaled up and replicated globally to make a huge contribution to the science needed for current and future challenges. Place-based science is key to this, working with communities on issues they care about enriches people’s lives, deepens their relationship, understanding and enjoyment of their world and gives them increased agency with respect to how their place evolves, so I have spent much of the last 20 years working in this space.
The Aurora approach mirrors my beliefs and approach so it is a privilege to become an ambassador for this initiative.

Receive the latest news

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Fields marked with (*) are required.