Julie Rudner

Julie Rudner was a strategic planner in regional NSW, responsible for urban, rural and natural assets strategies, contaminated lands and technical advice on environment related legislation. She takes an interdisciplinary approach to her academic work. Julie has a background in cultural geography and applies risk theory and ecological psychology to understand policy and people’s relationships with space and place. Her PhD thesis explored conceptions of risk in relation to children’s independent mobility. Julie is interested in the construction of knowledge, research methods and the interface between policy and lived experience which influences her approach in the Community Development stream of the Community Planning and Development Program. She encourages students to critically appraise community planning and development theory and its application in practice in both richer and poorer countries. In addition, students are encouraged grapple with issues of power, professional ethics, and the role of community development practitioners as ‘knowledge producers and users’ in relation to data production, analyses, and interpretation.