Rate My Professor Katherine Daniell

Professor Katherine Daniell serves as Director of the School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University (ANU) and as a Professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society. She earned a BEng (Civil) (Hons)/BA from the University of Adelaide, a PhD from ANU and AgroParisTech in France, and holds qualifications as MIEAust and GAICD. Her career encompasses roles as Associate Dean (Education) in the ANU College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics, Inaugural Convenor of the Master of Applied Cybernetics program from 2019 to 2022, and positions in the ANU Centre for European Studies, Centre for Policy Innovation, and H.C. Coombs Policy Forum at the Crawford School of Public Policy. Previously a Senior Lecturer in the Fenner School, she has contributed to projects like PACE-Net and PACE-Net+ on Pacific-European science, technology, and innovation dialogue. Daniell has supervised over a dozen PhD students and taught executive courses on multi-level governance and participatory resource management.

Her research centers on collaborative approaches to policy, action, and education for sustainable development, spanning water governance, cybernetics and AI-enabled systems, participatory processes, multi-level governance, risk management, sustainable urban development, politics and cultures of innovation, and climate change adaptation. She has authored over 100 academic and policy-relevant publications, including four books such as Co-Engineering and Participatory Water Management: Organisational Challenges for Water Governance (2012), Multi-Level Governance: Conceptual Challenges and Case Studies from Australia (2017), and papers like "Cyber-physical systems in water management and governance" (2023) and "Policy analysis and policy analytics" (2016). Daniell has received the John Monash Scholarship, election as a Fellow of the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust, and the Insignia of Chevalier (Knight) in the French Ordre National du Mérite for advancing Franco-Australian scientific cooperation and water management research. She serves as President of the Australian-French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) Inc., Director of the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust, Editor of the Australasian Journal of Water Resources, and member of committees including the National Committee on Water Engineering, the Independent Hydroclimate Expert Science Panel for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, and the World Economic Forum's Advisory Council on the Top 10 Emerging Technologies. Her work has shaped water policy and sustainable development practices across Australia, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific.