Ken Doust

Ken is a Course Coordinator for Engineering Management at Southern Cross University and has been leading the overall engineering management postgrad program since 2016, including its initial expansion into the Gold Coast campus.

Ken is passionate about sustainability, and how to achieve it through holistic approaches such as systems thinking and knowledge sharing. Some specific research interests include the re-engineering of existing infrastructure in both urban and regional areas, the aim being to leverage their value by applying leading technologies to suit emerging industries and rejuvenate communities & their local economies.

A key part of Ken's interest is to contribute to the wider education of up and coming graduates and graduates already in the workforce. In particular, to help empower them with emerging methodologies and tools to face the challenges to shift our communities toward more sustainable futures.

During 2017, Ken was invited to Denmark to collaborate with Aalborg University in the development of opportunities on future courses in planning and engineering future communities. Ken has affiliations with the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and following the mobility to Denmark, Netherlands and Paris, facilitated the formation and launch of the Australian Oceania Hub of the UCCRN climate change research network in September 2017.

The Hub was established through a two day symposium, hosted at SCU Gold Coast and Lismore Campuses, bringing together a wide variety of practitioners, academics, community members, industry and local government representatives, from local, wider east coast institutions and UCCRN hubs in the US and South Africa.

A feature was the integration of indigenous knowledge into the two days. Impact was the building of relationships between participants to build collaborative efforts towards sustainable approaches to climate change. Ken as one of three co-directors for the Hub will be continuing the role of SCU in this emerging research field.

Upon return to Australia, Ken was privileged to have been able to lead the very first stages of the development and facilitation of the National Centre for Flood Research, before handing the role over to Professor Caroline Sullivan to be the Establishment Director in April of 2018. Ken also has a broad knowledge of the transport industry and the NSW framework in which rail transport operates.

He has a long-term corporate knowledge of the NSW portfolio of railway infrastructure, spanning 40 years within engineering, maintenance, asset management and regional infrastructure planning in the legacy railway agencies, including strategic planning roles within City Rail and in the private sector.

He is also a senior visiting fellow at the UNSW Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI). Ken is currently leading an SCU research team in a study to identify Freight and Supply Chain constraints and improvements for the Northern Rivers of NSW.