2026 Special Guests
Quentin Grafton
Quentin Grafton is Emeritus Professor of Economics and UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a former President (2017-18) of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society and an Australian Laureate Fellow (2020-25). Quentin is the recipient of several awards for his water-related research including the Eureka Science Prize for Water Research and Innovation. He established the International Day for Water Justice in 2025, and co-organised the Second International Day for Water Justice in Mexico in 2026. Quentin founded and convenes the Water Justice Hub, co-convenes the Just Water Alliance, and is the Executive Editor of the Global Water Forum.
Sophia Pearce
Sophia Pearce is a Barkandji woman, a mother, and a weaver living in Gol Gol, on the Milli (Murray River) in south-west New South Wales. She is interested in preserving and growing culture and heritage by engaging in partnerships built on mutual trust, respect and integrity towards achieving common goals, as focused through current PhD research and co-leadership of RMIT University’s Yulendj Weelam Lab. Through her consulting business Kulpa Mardita, Sophia undertakes partnered community engagement and consultancy services with Aboriginal organisations, government departments, universities and design practitioners to deliver culturally appropriate projects and outcomes.

Melinda Hinkson
Melinda Hinkson is an independent writer and social researcher with wide ranging interests in people-place relationships. As an anthropologist she has worked extensively with Warlpiri people of the Central Desert and since 2022 with farmers and fruit growers of the Millewa-Mallee region. For more than two decades Melinda taught and researched at major Australian universities. She was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2015-19) and is currently an adjunct associate professor with the Climate Change Adaptation Lab, La Trobe University. In 2025 Melinda co-produced the documentary Flip the Food Bowl: Reimagining the Food System in Sunraysia. She is inaugural chair of Creative Sunraysia and a director of the Mallee-based Institute for Future Cooperation. She lives and works on a dryland farm in the Millewa.   
Lesley Head
Lesley Head is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Melbourne. She has been part of two multidisciplinary research teams relevant to the Mildura region; one examining migrant environmentalisms in the Riverina, and the other documenting settler water cultures along the Murray. Lesley chairs the Board of Climate for Change, which empowers Australians to have meaningful conversations about climate change. With members of her extended family, she farms berries and alpacas in western Victoria. Lesley’s most recent books are Beyond Green. The social life of Australian Nature (MUP, 2025) and Plants: Past, Present and Future, with Zena Cumpston and Michael-Shawn Fletcher (Thames and Hudson First Knowledges series, 2022).
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Peta Thornton 
Peta Thornton was raised in the small river town of Nyah and co-manages a family stone fruit farm in Woorinen. After studying Science and Humanities at The University of Melbourne and Burnley College in the 1990s, Peta returned home to work in her dream jobs in Landcare, land rehabilitation and nature conservation. Peta’s love of the Murray runs deep, and protecting its ecosystems is a lifelong passion. Over the years she has run a native plant nursery, a seed bank, and numerous local revegetation projects. Two decades as an irrigator has only intensified Peta’s respect for the river. As a community volunteer and leader, she has used her voice and experience to build local community participation, advocating respect for rivers and integrity in water management. In 2024 she was elected Councillor at Swan Hill Rural City Council.