President
Nicholas Coppel CSI, Adjunct Associate Professor, Monash University
Nicholas Coppel is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University and is currently completing a book about the world’s response to Myanmar’s 2021 coup. He was Australia’s Ambassador to Myanmar (2015-2018) and previous diplomatic postings include Deputy High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea and Deputy Ambassador to the Philippines. The Solomon Islands Government awarded him the Cross of Solomon Islands for his “outstanding and exceptional service” as Special Coordinator (2011-2014) of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). His first posting was to the Australian Embassy in Washington DC.
In addition to academic articles and book chapters, Nicholas co-curated and co-authored the exhibition catalogue for Pictures of Transition – Contemporary Paintings from Myanmar, held at the ANU School of Art and Design Gallery (March 2019). His opinion editorials have been published in The Australian, AsiaLink Insights, the ASPI Strategist, Monash Lens and Nikkei Asia, and he is frequently interviewed for his insights including by Voice of America, BBC World Service, ABC 4 Corners, ABC Radio National, ABC TV’s The World, The Age and The Australian.
Vice-President
Dr. Raymond Tint Way, FRANZCP, Burmese Medical Association Australia
Raymond Tint Way, a graduate of the Rangoon Institute of Medicine (I), is a senior consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice in Sydney, Australia. He is a VMO psychiatrist in the Mood Disorders Unit at Northside Clinic, a private psychiatric inpatient facility, affiliated with the University of Sydney. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and holds the degree of MM (Psychotherapy) from the University of Sydney. He is the immediate past president of the Sydney-based Burmese Medical Association Australia, which has received AusAID sponsored Australian Award Fellowships for Myanmar medical professionals in three consecutive years (2012-2014) in collaboration with the University of Sydney, Macquarie, and Monash Universities. He is an Honorary Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical University (I), Yangon, Myanmar.
He has published in the areas of psychopharmacology, cross-cultural psychiatry, and psychotherapy in the Australian medical, psychiatry, and psychotherapy journals. In the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, he trained several general practitioners in Sydney, who carried out “psychological first aid” and a pilot psychosocial project in Myanmar, in collaboration with Myanmar psychiatrists.
Secretary
Prof Joseph Lo Bianco, AM, FAHA, is a Professor Emeritus in Language and Literacy Education at the Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. He is an inaugural member and Secretary of the Australia Myanmar Institute and a Past President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He recently received the 30th Ramon Llull International Prize for his effort in Australia and SE Asia on language rights and language policy. For many years he has worked with UNESCO and UNICEF in South and Southeast Asia on multilingual education, indigenous rights and access to education, literacy, girls education, and multiculturalism. He designed and managed the UNICEF Language, Education and Social Cohesion Initiative in Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, and Thailand which resulted in several advances for ethnic rights in the countries and extended to the preparation of a Peace Building National Language Policy in Myanmar. A climax of this was the first Myanmar conference on multilingual policy, held at the University of Mandalay in 2016 with 350 delegates and a national summit at Naypyidaw hosted by the First Lady (Daw Su Su Lwin), Minister for Education, and Minister for Ethnic Affairs. Under UNESCO he has conducted Asia-wide policy workshops for senior policy officers and ministers of education across the Asia Pacific. He was author of the National Policy on Languages in Australia in 1987, widely regarded as the first multilingual comprehensive rights-based language policy.
He has more than 140 publications on language, policy, and planning, language education, literacy, culture, and identity.
Treasurer
Philip J Watts, Private Sector
Philip Watts has an extensive business and marketing background and is presently a business consultant. He has conducted business in a number of industries in a wide range of Asian countries over the past 35 years. He resides in Melbourne and has a deep interest in Myanmar and the country’s future. He attended the Australian Myanmar Institute Conference in Yangon in 2015 and is in close touch with businesses, education institutions, NGOs, local government agencies, and the Myanmar diaspora in Australia.
He is involved in a number of not-for-profit organisations including The Melbourne Sinfonia (Committee member), Carlton Residents Association (Treasurer), and Bicycle Training Australia (Chairman).
Other Board Members
Prof Mark Considine, The University of Melbourne
Mark Considine is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. His research areas include governance studies, comparative social policy, employment services, public sector reform, local development, and organisational sociology. Mark is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (Victoria) and the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. In 2015 he was awarded a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professorship.
Mark has been associated with governments and the community sector in the implementation of a number of recent projects and organisational reviews. These include:
• OECD LEED Program review of local partnerships
• Community Strengthening strategies at state and local level
• Premier’s Working Party of Strategic Partnerships with the Community Sector
• Minister’s reference group for the Review of the Local Government Act
• Communication and Marketing Review for Job Network
• Advisor on research strategies and organisational capacity at the Brotherhood of St Laurence
• Industry Reference Group, Employment Services Australia
• Active support for University programs relevant to Myanmar, including sponsorship of the Irrawaddy Literature Festival and programs concerning governance, heritage, education, health, and other issues of priority to the government, education institutions, and people of Myanmar.
Prof Susan Costello, Social Work at the Australian College of Applied Psychology (ACAP)
Susie Costello is a Professor of Social Work at the Australian College of Applied Psychology in Melbourne.
Susie conducted her Ph.D. research whilst living on the Thai Burma border where, in consultation with refugees from Burma, she developed and taught the current social work curriculum for health and community workers at the Mae Tao Clinic. She then worked as a consultant with UNICEF Child Protection Yangon, the Department of Social Welfare, and the University of Yangon to develop a Graduate Diploma in Social Work in Myanmar and the beginning of a Child Protection system.
In her previous role as Associate Professor at RMIT University, Susie led student study tours to the Thai Burma border, and to Myanmar in partnership with Action Aid Myanmar. The visit combined her research exploring the development of social work in Myanmar.
Prof Paul Komesaroff, Monash University
Paul Komesaroff is a physician, researcher, and philosopher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where he is a Professor of Medicine. He is also Executive Director of Global Reconciliation, an international collaboration that promotes communication and dialogue across cultural, racial, religious, political, and other kinds of difference, and President-elect of Adult Medicine in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He is also an Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney and a board member of the Australia Myanmar Institute.
He is a practising clinician, specialising in the field of endocrinology (the study of hormones), at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. He is also Director of the Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society, which undertakes educational and research work in relation to all aspects of ethics in relation to medicine, health care, and the sciences. He occupies or has occupied many roles in the fields of ethics and society, including Chair of the Ethics Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (1995-2013, 2016-2017) and Deputy Chair of the Asia-Pacific Ethics Consortium.
He is involved in a wide range of teaching, research, and action projects in medicine and ethics. These spans a broad field, including the impact of new technologies on health and society, consent in research, the experience of illness, palliative care and end of life issues, complementary medicines, obesity, and cross-cultural teaching and learning. His international work covers the development of international teaching programs, reconciliation and healing after conflict and social crisis, the nature and impact of foreign aid, capacity building in global health, and evaluation of development and aid programs.
He is the Chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and Ethics Editor of the Internal Medicine Journal. He is the author of more than 400 articles in science, ethics, and philosophy, and author or editor of fourteen books, including Riding a crocodile: A physician’s tale (2014), Experiments in love and death: Medicine, postmodernism, micro ethics and the body (2008), Pathways to reconciliation: Theory and practice (2008), Objectivity, science and society (2nd ed.2009), Troubled bodies (1996), Reinterpreting menopause: Cultural and philosophical issues (1998), Drugs in the health marketplace (1994), Expanding the horizons of bioethics (1998) and Sexuality and medicine: bodies, practices, knowledges (2004).
John Molony, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International), Deakin University
John Molony is a higher education professional with two decades of experience. He joined Deakin University in 2013 and leads on strategy and operations at the central office, Deakin International. Prior to Deakin, John was Vice President, Strategy with QS Quacquarelli Symonds, the London-based international higher education intelligence and marketing company.
John has expertise in international relations and programs and maintains an extensive network of senior contacts across the sector in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East.
Throughout his career, John has made a contribution to the intellectual discourse on the internationalisation of higher education through research, publications, and presentations at the major forums. John completed his BA at RMIT and has undertaken further studies with INSEAD, the University of Melbourne, the University of London, and Coursera.
Dr Khin Mar Mar Kyi Nyunt, The University of Oxford
Khin Mar Mar Kyi is the inaugural Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Gender Research Fellow and award-winning social anthropologist, based at the University of Oxford. She is also the producer of an acclaimed documentary, Dreams of Dutiful Daughters (2013). She taught for many years at the Australian National University. She has been working closely with various universities in Myanmar for education reform, curricular development, and capacities building. Apart from academic work, Mar has also served as country advisor, technical adviser and senior consultant in UK, EU, Australia, and Southeast Asia for many international bilateral aid organisations, non-governmental and government organisations. She is considered one of the key interlocutors between Myanmar, the international community and universities. Her focus relates to issues of gender, peace studies, child protection, labour, governance, humanitarian issues, migration studies and education reform. Mar has received many awards. She has won one of Australia’s most prestigious academic accolades, the ‘Excellence in Gender Research’ award and following commendations in 2008 for her wide-ranging achievements, she received Australia’s ‘Unsung Heroes’ Award for her commitment to her country and people, gender equality and one of the ‘UN 100 women 100 years’ awards.
Dr Anthony Ware, Deakin University
Anthony Ware was AMI’s first Acting Director. He is a Senior Lecturer in International & Community Development at Deakin University.
An Early Career Researcher, he has already authored or edited over two dozen peer-reviewed papers/book chapters, and three books: Context-Sensitive Development: How International NGOs Operate in Myanmar (Kumarian 2012),Development in Difficult Sociopolitical Contexts: Fragile, Failed and Pariah States (Palgrave 2014) and Development Across Faith Boundaries (Routledge 2016). He has been given awards for teaching excellence and won several early career fellowships/scholarships.
Anthony’s current research focusses on post-conflict development prior to negotiated political settlements, as well as related interests in faith-based organisations and inter-religious partnerships in development, asset-based community development (ABCD), and using development assistance to support democratic. Much of his fieldwork is in Myanmar. Anthony is a regular reviewer of journal articles and is or has supervised or co-supervise 9 doctoral students in fields ranging from the impact of political transition on minority rights, to monitoring of NGO development program quality, to microfinance, child sponsorship, and cultural heritage.
Prof Khin Zaw, University of Tasmania
Khin Zaw is Professor of Economic Geology at CODES ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits, University of Tasmania, Australia. He received BSc from Yangon University in 1968, FGA Diploma (Fellowships of Gemmological Association of Great Britain) in 1969, MSc from Queen’s University, CANADA in 1976 and PhD from University of Tasmania in 1990. He is Fellows of AusIMM and Society of Economic Geologists. He has well over 40 year experience working on genetic aspects and exploration potential of mineral deposits in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and SE Asian countries. He is currently working as Leader of “Ore Deposits of SE Asia” Project at CODES, University of Tasmania focusing on metallogenic relations and exploration implications. He is also an Associate Editor of Ore Geology Review journal and published more than 100 referred papers relating to ore genesis and mineral exploration in Australasian region.
Dr Thein-Thein Aye, MBBS, DMedSc
Thein-Thein received her medical education in Myanmar, where she engaged in day-to-day patient care and various clinical research projects at the Yangon General Hospital for eight years. She also worked as a research medical officer for the Department of Medical Research, Ministry of Health.
She obtained a Doctor of Medical Science degree from Nihon University School of Medicine in Japan before moving to Australia in 1994 as a post-doctoral fellow at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory (VIDRL), Fairfield Hospital where she undertook hepatitis research. She then joined the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) in 1997 as a medical scientist. Over her 23 years of service at NRL, Thein-Thein was the coordinator of several external quality assessment schemes and quality control programmes, promoting the quality of tests and testing for infectious diseases for laboratories across Australia and globally. She also acted as the International Liaison Officer and Sample Bank Coordinator during her later years at NRL.
Since her emigration in 1989, Thein-Thein has maintained close working relationships in Myanmar, allowing her to contribute to the health care, including providing technical support for major Myanmar health laboratories. She also served for three years in a voluntary capacity as the secretary for the Australia Myanmar Medical Association.
Htet-Yamone Aung (Mary)
Htet-Yamone Aung (Mary) is studying for her bachelor’s degree in Arts, majoring in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and minoring in Environmental Studies at the University of Melbourne. She is originally from Mandalay, Myanmar and moved to Melbourne, Australia in 2018. Mary partook in youth capacity building programs in the USA, Japan and ASEAN countries before moving to Australia. She joined ‘University of Melbourne Myanmar Student Association (UMSA)’ as the secretary in 2019 and was elected as the President for 2020. She then became a board member at the Australia Myanmar Institute (AMI) as a voice of the youth later that same year. Since the military coup in February 2021, she has been actively participating in protests and campaigns condemning the coup because she would like to be the voice for her family and friends back home. She is currently taking the role as a Public Relation officer for Victorian Myanmar Youth (VMY). She will be commencing her master’s degree soon in the University of Melbourne.