Guest scientists at Best Festival Ever

We are delighted to announce the lineup of guest scientists for the Street Theatre shows this August.Each performance of Best Festival Ever will include a brief Q&A style conversation with a guest scientist, who will discuss some of the ideas and concepts from the show in relation to their own work. We will be joined by top level futurists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists and complex systems scientists, sharing their expertise and answering your questions.This informal post-show chat will take place over a complimentary glass of wine. This is a pretty delightful opportunity to come face to face with some of Australia's leading scientists, and we are extremely excited about our guests.The lineup of guests is as follows:Wednesday 12 August - Will Steffen (Climate Council)Will Steffen is an American chemist. He was the executive director of the Australian National University (ANU) Climate Change Institute and a member of the Australian Climate Commission until its abolishment in September 2013. He currently represents The Climate Council.Thursday 13 August - Brian Walker (CSIRO)Brian H. Walker is a scientist specialising in ecological sustainability and resilience in socio-ecological systems. He is currently a Research Fellow with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and is also Program Director and Chair of the Board of the Resilience Alliance, an international research group working on sustainability of social-ecological systems.Friday 14 August - Nicky Grigg (CSIRO)Nicky Grigg works with the CSIRO in interdisciplinary teams on a diverse range of projects concerned with global change and social-ecological systems. She brings experience in mathematical modelling and analysis of social-ecological systems.Saturday 15 August - Joanne Daly (CSIRO)Joanne Daly has worked for the CSIRO for over 30 years and is currently a Strategic Advisor and a former Group Executive of Agribusiness and Chief of Division. Her activities focus on strategy for national research collections and in agricultural sciences, particularly transformational agriculture.Sunday 16 August - Eleanor Malbon (RegNet)Eleanor Malbon studied Human Ecology with a specialisation in system dynamics and collaborative conceptual modelling. At RegNet she works as a research assistant to Professor Sharon Friel to provide system dynamics expertise to a number of health equity related research projects.Thursday 20 August - Steve Cork (ANU)Steven Cork is an adjunct professor at the ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy.Friday 21 August - John Finnigan (CSIRO)John Finnigan is Director of the CSIRO Centre for Complex Systems Science.Saturday 22 August - Bob Costanza (ANU)Robert Costanza is a leading ecological economist and Professor of Public Policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. His specialties include: transdisciplinary integration, systems ecology, ecological economics, landscape ecology, ecological modeling, ecological design, energy analysis, environmental policy, social traps, incentive structures and institutions.The show runs 7.00 - 9.00pm (including the conversation) and tickets are $20. You can book on the Street Theatre website - get to yr spaceships.We are really looking forward to bringing this piece home to Canberra - hopefully we will see some of you there.