"I'm the disaster lady," Dr Liberty de Rivera says with a laugh. "At least that's how I'm known by my colleagues.
"When I was a child, my birthday was in the monsoon season. A lot of my birthdays are connected with memories of waiting for storms to come, or cleaning up after one had passed through."
Dr de Rivera is a Vice-Chancellor Research Fellow in the University's Faculty of Education. Her field of research is in evaluating policy as it relates to sustainable development, climate change and disaster risk reduction.
From her formative years – through a career spanning development work and research in Singapore, the Philippines, Vanuatu and Australia – her interests, the weather and its impact on humanity have been intrinsically linked.
"I grew up in the Philippines where there are a lot of natural hazards: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and typhoons, and with that you have landslides and floods," she said.
"They are not necessarily considered disaster events. In communities these events are part of the turn of the calendar, they are part of the rhythm of existence.
"Communities in hazard-exposed locations – culturally, technologically, architecturally and economically – have built a rich knowledge base on how to live with recurrent hazards.
"It was just part of my reality so it doesn't cause panic for me. But we are living in a world where these events will become more frequent and more extreme.
"We need to understand how we are responding to these changes. I am concerned that as we embrace technical and scientific approaches to the climate crisis, we may silence that rich knowledge which exists in people and communities."
Dr de Rivera came to Australia in 2010 to complete a Master of Development Studies with the University of Sydney.
It led to a role in Singapore and for five years her focus was on climate change research, working with other global and regional leaders in the field.
She continued to feel a career tension between development fieldwork and further research, until an at-times hair-raising trek through military-occupied Myanmar nudged her toward the latter.
As a recipient of the internationally competitive Australia Endeavour Leadership Program, she undertook research focused on disaster risk reduction education, travelling to cyclone-exposed locations in Western Australia, the Philippines and Vanuatu. She completed her PhD at University of Sydney in 2021, and the following year the research fellowship at Southern Cross University came into view.
"It felt like the job description was written for me," Dr de Rivera says. "It was after the Lismore floods. The impact on the community was profound and the University had positioned itself as a platform for helping the region recover.
"The impacts of those events are still felt very deeply in the community now."
At the centre of Dr de Rivera's work is the idea of 'cognitive justice'. As policy is considered and formulated, whose knowledge and perspectives are taken up, and whose are ignored?
It's a concept of profound importance in regions such as South-East Asia and Oceania where entire societies are being imperilled by the impact of climate change.
"I really want to bring to the front those communities that are getting left out of the way we devise policy to deal with the impacts of climate change," she said.
These are the voices of minority groups, migrants, children, refugees, Indigenous communities, fisherfolks, farmers, economically disadvantaged individuals, among others.
"I wake up each morning thinking about how these perspectives can be more visible."
The three-year fellowship allows Dr de Rivera to focus on research and she is putting the time to good use.
She has co-written a book with her supervisor, Associate Professor Alexandra McCormick; been part of the Floods + Me research project which was informed by young people's perspectives of the Northern Rivers floods (resulting in a community exhibition, 'Flood Rats'), and is part of an ARC-grant application centred on creating disaster-ready schools.
She is also teaching Southern Cross education students in her field of expertise.
Dr de Rivera is part of the University's Sustainability, Environment, and the Arts in Education (SEAE) research cluster.
The cluster is co-lead by Faculty Executive Dean Professor Amy Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, herself a nationally regarded researcher in the fields of sustainability, environment and education.
"We believe there is a very clear nexus in education and the importance of First Nations' knowledge systems in how we respond to climate crisis," Professor Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles said.
"Too often First Peoples' knowledge and perspectives are not taken up when it is clear a reliance on western perspectives alone haven't helped us get to grips with this challenge.
"This makes Liberty's work an exceptional addition to our efforts and we're really proud of the contribution she is making through the Fellowship."
SEAE is one of three areas of education research strength at Southern Cross, along with the TeachLab Research Group and Early Years Research Lab.
