2026 Keynote Speakers

Professor Emma Thomas

Professor Emma Thomas is a social psychologist at Flinders University, where she serves as an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Deputy Director of the Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technology. Her work uses experimental, longitudinal and computational methods to understand when, why and how people commit to engaging in (violent and non-violent) action to bring about a desired social change. She has been funded via multiple grants from the Australian Research Council and government (through the Office of National Intelligence, Department of Defence). Her research has been featured in national and international media, and recognised with awards from the Australian Psychological Society and the Australian Institute of Policy and Science, amongst others.

Keynote title: From Vulnerability to Mobilisation: Person × Situation Interactions in Conspiracy-Based Radicalisation

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Professor Julie Lee

Julie Anne Lee is the Founding Director of the Centre for Human and Cultural Values and a Professor in the Marketing discipline at the UWA Business School. Julie completed her PhD in Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1996, and has been a faculty member at several universities, including the University of Miami and the University of Hawaii. She currently serves on the Australian Research Councils (ARC) College of Experts. Her research focuses on values theory, measurement, and expression. Most recently, she has been examining the complex relations between values and behaviour, especially in consumer, tourism, work, and learning contexts.

KEYNOTE TITLE: FROM WHAT WE VALUE TO WHAT WE DO: RETHINKING THE SCIENCE OF PERSONAL VALUES

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