President & Advocacy Coordinator

Teresa leads Education for Sustainability in the Health Nature and Sustainability Research Group, Deakin University. She has been a key researcher focused on the links between nature, climate change, health, and wellbeing. She also researches and publishes in sustainability pedagogy. She is the immediate past Course Director, Master of Health Promotion, Deakin University, and has taught in the tertiary education sector for over 25 years, recognised with multiple teaching awards, including the Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability Teaching Award and the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence. In 2022 she was successful in obtaining course accreditation for the Master of Health Promotion with the International Union of Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE).

Teresa has a health practice background in women and migrant women’s health where she worked for over a decade. She was Chair, Board of Governance, Women’s Health in the North, until 2021. Teresa is also the founding member of Ascolta Women, a collective of Italian affiliated women across Australia and London focused on creative works, academic research, community engagement and activism related to diasporic Italian communities. She is completing her PhD on Storying Distance: Lived Experiences of post-World War II Italian Australian Middle-Aged Women.