Committee
Natalie Stoianoff is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney and the Director of the Master of Intellectual Property Program. She is the Chair of the Faculty Research Network for Intellectual Property, Media and Communications and the Convenor of the China Law Research Group.
Natalie’s interdisciplinary research is concerned with the legal, ethical and commercial aspects of biotechnology. In particular, her research interests range from the Patenting of Living Organisms, Technology Transfer and Environmental Taxation. She is a co-author of the Federation Press publication, Intellectual Property Law: Text and Essential Cases. She has been the author of numerous Patent Law Bulletins and has edited the multidisciplinary book, Accessing Biological Resources, Complying with the Convention on Biological Diversity, published in 2004 by Kluwer’s International Environmental Law & Policy Series.
Associate Professor Evana Wright is a legal scholar in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research covers intellectual property, Indigenous traditional knowledge, privacy and the regulation of emerging technologies, including IoT and AI. She is the author of Protecting Traditional Knowledge: Lessons from Global Case Studies, published by Edward Elgar in 2020. Drawing on approaches used in India and Peru, the book considers how Australia might build stronger and more consistent protections for Indigenous knowledge. Her recent publications also examine Māori participation in patent decision-making and the treatment of traditional knowledge within patent systems. Before joining the faculty in 2018, Evana worked on the ARC-funded Garuwanga Project, which explored an Indigenous-led authority for protecting knowledge. She was admitted as a legal practitioner in New South Wales in 2006 and has worked for major technology companies in Australia and Silicon Valley.
Associate Professor Alexandra George is an intellectual property scholar at UNSW Law & Justice, where she has taught since 2007. Her research explores intellectual property law, cross-border enforcement and the ideas that shape what the law treats as ‘property’. More recently, she has examined how copyright and patent law respond to artificial intelligence, including the question of whether AI systems can be recognized as inventors or creators. Alexandra is the author of Constructing Intellectual Property, published by Cambridge University Press, and has written for journals including Nature, Nature Machine Intelligence and the Akron Law Review. Before joining UNSW, she held academic roles in Britain and worked at the European University Institute. She has also practiced as an intellectual property and media lawyer and provides pro bono advice through the Arts Law Centre of Australia.
Associate Professor George Yijun Tian is Director of Academic Programs in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. His research spans intellectual property, technology regulation, international commercial law and digital governance. He is currently examining how law can support low-carbon supply chains, focusing on artificial intelligence, carbon traceability, digital product passports and international regulatory cooperation. George is the author of Re-thinking Intellectual Property: The Political Economy of Copyright Protection in the Digital Era and co-author of Australian Commercial Law. Alongside his academic work, he has been an Australian trade marks attorney since 2009 and a WIPO-appointed domain-name arbitrator since 2010. He has also held visiting research appointments at Harvard Law School, the University of Oxford and the University of Sydney.
Dr Neva Collings is a Yuin Aboriginal descendant from the Hawkesbury River and Sydney, based in northern New South Wales. She holds degrees in economics and law, an LLM in environmental law and policy, and a 2022 UTS doctorate on Indigenous governance of traditional knowledge and access and benefit-sharing. Neva has published on Indigenous rights, water law, community protocols and cultural knowledge, and prepared reports for the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Intellectual Property Organization. She has worked with the Australian Human Rights Commission, NSW Aboriginal Land Council, Environmental Defenders Office, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation and Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action. She has served on boards of the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and Forest Stewardship Council Australia. Neva participated in UN negotiations for the Nagoya Protocol and maintains a private practice in Indigenous rights and water law.
Dr Michael Davis is an interdisciplinary historian and policy specialist whose work spans Indigenous studies, environmental history, cultural heritage and ethics. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Law at the University of Sydney and a Research Associate at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury. Michael has worked with universities and Aboriginal community organisations on questions of Indigenous rights, knowledge and place. His interests include Indigenous–European encounters, relationships between knowledge systems, ethical research practice, biography and more-than-human histories. He has held fellowships at the State Library of New South Wales, the State Library of Victoria and Manning Clark House. His publications include Writing Heritage: The Depiction of Indigenous Heritage by European-Australians and the co-edited Humanities for the Environment: Integrating Knowledge, Forging New Constellations of Practice.
Professor Alpana Roy is Head of the School of Law at the University of New England. Her work covers intellectual property, internet and domain name law, dispute resolution, and traditional and Indigenous knowledge. She was previously Dean of Law at the University of Waikato and has taught at the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, the University of Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University. Alpana has written extensively in her fields and is an author for publishers including Oxford University Press, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Federation Press. Her career has combined academic work with legal practice, including experience as a solicitor, barrister and nationally accredited mediator. She has served on a number of professional committees and boards and has advised public and private organizations, including the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Shuwen Xu is a PhD candidate, Quentin Bryce Law Doctoral Scholar and Research Assistant in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research focuses on international intellectual property law and public policy, with particular interests in genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. Her doctoral research examines the governance of digital sequence information under international intellectual property and access and benefit-sharing frameworks. Her work has been published in the Stanford Journal of International Law, the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, and the Asian Journal of WTO & International Health Law and Policy.