Hanabeth Luke

Biography

Dr Hanabeth Luke is a passionate educator who has been teaching and conducting research in Southern Cross University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering since 2011. She is deeply motivated by helping regional communities and farmers to become more resilient in times of transition, bringing communities and science together. These understandings underpin her role as founding Coordinator of the world-first Southern Cross University courses in Regenerative Agriculture. Hanabeth's work has both translated complex scientific research to a general readership and used information arising from social research to inform decisions around strategic planning, for other scientists as well as industry, government, farmers and land managers.

Research & Community Engagement

Dr Hanabeth Luke’s research focuses where society, land, industry and community intersect. She is presently leading two Soil CRC projects to identify drivers of on-farm decision-making across Australian farming systems, including knowledge-sharing for investment in new innovations and changing approaches to land management. Hanabeth conducted several years of research with the Australian macadamia industry, exploring drivers of decsion-making and factors influencing its social license to operate. She is presently implementing social benchmarking landholder surveys in farming regions across Australia. Her PhD, titled The role of social license for industrial developments in rural areas, focused on the role of community input into government decision-making for land-use planning and natural resource management. She has so far published 26 academic articles and 13 reports arising from this research, leading projects to the total of $4M.

Teaching and Supervising

Hanabeth is a recipient of two prestigious Vice Chancellors' awards for Outstanding Teaching (2022) and Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (2016), having taught everything from global environmental challenges and philosophy of science, to protected area management and dynamic geologic, hydrological and climate Earth systems. She supervises a number of higher degrees and honours students conducting research into social dimensions of farming, land use change and regenerative agriculture, with three PhD students having been awarded their degree, and four more poised to do so.