Foundation

As founder and chair of the Flinders Ranges Ediacara Foundation, Mary Lou has had a strong interest in the Nilpena Ediacara fossil beds since 2004. She understands the global significance of the fossils for scientific research, education, and ecotourism. Mary Lou has gained a thorough understanding by working closely with palaeontologists in the field and personally leading Waterhouse Club (main support group, South Australian Museum) expeditions to the site.

Mary Lou has been a principal fundraiser for the purchase of the fossil beds, which are now owned by the State Government. The land on which they rest is soon to become a National Park. She takes great pride in being responsible for raising funds to refurbish the South Australian Museum’s Ediacara Gallery.

An Honour’s graduate of the University of Adelaide (History), Mary Lou was a secondary teacher, public examiner and curriculum writer. She is a volunteer teacher at the South Australian Museum where she was a contract employee in Anthropology. Mary Lou is committed to ensuring the Ediacara story reaches as many people as possible, and particularly school children.
For 19 years, Mary Lou was secretary of the Waterhouse Club. She has authored a book on South Australian history and has had a number of articles published. She lives in the Adelaide foothills with her husband and they share interests in bushwalking and sailing. Mary Lou’s other interests revolve around supporting young musicians and golf. (And she has six pet magpies all called Melba.)

Mary is Professor of Geology, Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Riverside. Having received her PhD from the University of Southern California, she has been working on Ediacaran and Cambrian rocks all over the world throughout her career, specifically at Nilpena in the Flinders Ranges for the past 18 years.

Mary is widely published and regularly contributes to scientific journals.

The University of California Riverside’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences focuses on research and education about Earth dynamics and history, planets inside and outside or our solar system, and life in the universe.
Students and faculty investigate geological processes operating at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales and research interests span many disciplines within the Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Mary is very involved in working to increase diversity in the Earth Sciences.

John Goldberg practises as a commercial lawyer in South Australia and has more than 40 years of experience.

John has acted as a board adviser and as a director on a large number of private companies and also has considerable experience in the not-for-profit sector.

John is a former President of the Law Society of South Australia and chaired the Ethics Committee of the Law Society for more than seven years. He also chaired the Law Society’s Audit and Risk Management Committee and Investment Committee.

Apart from his experience as a lawyer, John is an experienced nature and wildlife photographer.

Belinda is an experienced accountant who specialises in taxation and general business services. She has worked as an accountant with Nexia Edwards Marshall, a medium sized firm in Adelaide, for many years.

Belinda has provided taxation, accounting and general business services to clients ranging from individuals through to small and medium-sized businesses. During her time with Nexia Edwards Marshall she has also specialised in foreign tax issues and Research and Development Tax Incentive claims. On occasions, Belinda has also provided advice to not-for-profit organisations and assisted with their financial obligations.

Belinda currently works with Nexia Edwards Marshall on a consulting basis, where her focus has shifted to not-for-profit organisations.

Belinda holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences from the University of Adelaide. She is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

Kym is an Adelaide lawyer, practising primarily in commercial law and litigation and succession law. His clients include individuals, associations, small and medium businesses, and non-governmental organisations. Kym is currently a member of the Succession Law Committee of the Law Society of South Australia.

He has also worked in local government in managerial, commercial, and quasi-legal roles and brings a variety of legal, commercial, and governmental experience to the board.

Outside of work Kym enjoys spending time outdoors in South Australia. Whilst now based in Adelaide, Kym lived and worked in Port Augusta for 2 years and retains a deep interest in the Flinders Ranges and its natural and human history.

Paola Niscioli is a marketing, communications, fundraising and business developer.

Paola has had an extensive career specialising in the arts and cultural sector. This has included leading large teams at the Adelaide Festival Centre and at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and starting up the philanthropic and development function for the History Trust of South Australia.

Since 2021, Paola has been the General Manager, Operations at UKARIA Cultural Centre, a philanthropically funded Chamber Music Venue in the Adelaide Hills.

Ken has led front-line operations, strategy formulation, governance, communications, public policy and engagement activities across public, private and not-for-profit sectors.

Throughout 13 years’ service to the South Australian Museum, he led governance and engagement between the museum board, its foundation and a range of stakeholders. Ken spearheaded a range of programs including the operational restructuring of the Museum Foundation, as well as the establishment of the State Fossil Emblem, Spriggina Floundersi.

While Chief of Staff to the South Australian Minister for Environment and Water, Ken worked with members of State Cabinet, the Department for Environment and Water and FREF to purchase the land which later became the Nilpena Ediacara National Park. Essential to this work was to secure state funding for park infrastructure and oversight of the MOU between the state and FREF.

Ken is currently working as Head of Corporate Affairs & Marketing at a nation-leading resource recovery and recycling company.

Stuart is an experienced executive with a background in conservation, natural resource and protected area management.

On 1 July 2019, Stuart was engaged as the Director of Regional Operations with the National Parks and Wildlife Service Division of the Department for Environment and Water, SA. In this role, Stuart leads a team of National Parks and Wildlife Managers, Rangers and specialist staff that manage over 360 national parks and reserves across seven regions in South Australia.

Prior to his current role, Stuart was the Department’s Regional Director for the South Australian Arid Lands Region. Based in Port Augusta, he led a diverse team supporting the management of national parks, natural resources, pastoral lands and high profile conservation programs across the Flinders Ranges and outback rangelands of South Australia.

Prior to joining the South Australian Department for Environment and Water in 2013, Stuart worked with the Australian Governments - Parks Australia Division, in roles spanning workforce planning and development, operational management and conservation program delivery, most notably across the World Heritage listed and jointly managed Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Parks.

Hugh Possingham is a mathematician and conservation ecologist at The University of Queensland who loves nature of all kinds, especially birds. He completed his DPhil at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar before taking positions at Stanford University, Australian National University (ANU) and The University of Adelaide.

Currently he is Chief Councillor of the Biodiversity Council https://biodiversitycouncil.org.au and Chief Scientist of Accounting for Nature https://www.accountingfornature.org. Most recently he was the global Chief Scientist of The Nature Conservancy and Chief Scientist of Queensland.

Some of his contributions to public policy and conservation outcomes include: Marxan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxan, The Brigalow Declaration https://martinemaron.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/2003-brigalow-declaration.pdf, the Threatened Species Index https://tsx.org.au and the Australian Government's biodiversity offsets calculator. He wrote his first angry letter to the newspaper about land-clearing in 1980.

Hugh is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.

John Fargher manages Yundi Nature Conservancy and restores critically endangered Fleurieu Peninsula Swamp habitats. He is a performance management specialist, natural resource economist and agricultural scientist. John has more than 20 years senior management experience in public and private companies as part of 42 years international development experience in more than 80 countries. His career has focussed on the management and governance of natural resources for biodiversity conservation, agricultural production, and sustainable livelihoods. John worked with the FREF Board in 2021 to develop the initial business plan for the Foundation.

John was part of the small team that conducted the Second Overall Performance Study of the Global Environment Facility. He designed and implemented field evaluations of 45 projects in 6 countries as well as desk reviews of 110 project completion reports. The evaluation, presented to the GEF Council, led to USD3 billion being committed by member countries for the third replenishment of the GEF Trust Fund. He has also supported the development, implementation and evaluation of World Heritage assets in Australia, Romania and Vietnam.
John works extensively with the private sector, bilateral development agencies, the World Bank and Global Environment Facility. Since 2019 John has allocated more of his time to rewilding degraded land in Australia.

Professor Bob Hill is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, having completed his Ph.D. on Tertiary plant macrofossils in 1981, and his D.Sc. on the interaction between climate change and the evolution of the living Australian vegetation in 1997. He has held academic positions at James Cook University, the University of Tasmania and, since 1999, the University of Adelaide. At the University of Adelaide, he has been Head of the School of Earth and Environmental Science, Director of the Environment Institute, Chair of Academic Board and the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science. He was Head of Science at the South Australian Museum for more than 10 years and has had several Board memberships.

Professor Hill’s research has focused on explaining changes that have occurred to the Australian flora and vegetation through evolutionary time, including a strong focus on how our vegetation evolved to the increasing influence of fire over tens of millions of years. He has been awarded the Clarke Medal from the Royal Society of NSW and the Burbidge Medal from the Australian Systematic Botany Society for his research on the evolution of the Australian vegetation.

He has published more than 200 refereed journal papers, 35 book chapters, several symposium papers and has edited four books.

Ann Vanstone recently retired as the Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, South Australia. There she led investigations into corruption in public administration, as well as corruption prevention activities. In that role Ann acquired a clear understanding of the South Australian public sector and governance generally.

Prior to that, Ann spent 19 years as a judge, retiring from the South Australian Supreme Court in 2019. Appointment to the bench followed periods as a Queen‘s Counsel practising at the Independent Bar, a prosecutor, including years as Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions and Deputy Crown Prosecutor, and, at the outset of her career, a solicitor in private practice.