Dr Alan Ryan

Executive Director
Australian Civil-Military Centre (ACMC)

Dr Alan Ryan is the Executive Director of the Australian Civil-Military Centre. He was previously the Principal of the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies at the Australian Defence College. Prior to this appointment he was the Senior Adviser to the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Robert Hill. In that role, he was responsible for advising the Minister on intelligence, operations, strategic and international issues.

He has also worked as a consultant, providing consultancy services on strategy, security and crisis management to clients that included Australian government departments, the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in the United Nations.

From 1999 to 2003, he was the Senior Research Fellow in the Army’s principal conceptual research institution, the Land Warfare Studies Centre. Prior to that Dr Ryan was a senior lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Australia, where he was also Assistant Dean in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and the College of Law. He was director of the university’s Politics and Law programme. He previously worked as a contract manager in intellectual property commercialisation for the University of Melbourne and the University of New England.

Dr Ryan has a Ph.D from the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University and a BA (Hons.)/LL.B from the University of Melbourne. He served with the Australian Army Reserve between 1981 and 1994 and on attachment with the British Territorial Army from 1987 to 1991. He has an extensive record of publication on history, defence and strategic issues. He is an adjunct Professor in the Graduate School of Management at La Trobe University.

Mr Paul Durston

Superintendent, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services
Executive Manager Specialist Advisory Management

Prior to becoming the Executive Manager Specialist Advisory Management, Paul held a number of senior roles with QFES, including Area Commander and Zone Commander in Brisbane Region, Manager of the State Operations Centre and Executive Manager State Operational Coordination Branch. Paul's operational experience has seen him manage local, region and state coordination centres during major floods and fires in Queensland and also interstate in New South Wales and Victoria. Paul's current position is located at the School of Fire and Emergency Services Training and manages training across Auxiliary staff, Community Safety, Fire Communications, Officer Development and Virtual Reality.

Paul's career started as a firefighter in Brisbane Region in 1999 when he worked his way to Station Officer performing roles in Training, Community Safety and Frontline Management. This foundation has provided Paul with the operational experience and business acumen to deliver contemporary training across QFES.

Dr Justin Fidock

Project Leader Contested Urban Environment Strategic Challenge
Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG)

Dr Fidock has a Master of Psychology (Organisational) and a PhD in Business Information Systems.

Since mid-2017 Dr Fidock has served as the Project Leader for the multi-national Contested Urban Environment (CUE) Strategic Challenge (SC). His work in support of this challenge culminated in the conduct of a large Defence technology trial in Adelaide in late 2017. This trial used a combination of live and simulated activities to support approximately 100 Defence personnel and 80 researchers in exploring how the integration of a number of emerging technologies could enhance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities of tactical land forces in future CUE.

Prior to becoming the Project Leader for CUE SC, Dr Fidock has provided leadership and undertaken collaborative research in human-robotic interaction, exploitation of simulation to support concept exploration and applied cognitive science research, and evaluation of Enterprise level and tactical information systems and land vehicle systems. Justin is a strong advocate for and supporter of partnering with academia and industry and enjoys working on complex science and technology problems that require multi-disciplinary approaches.

Emre Deniz

Director - Opaque Space
Opaque Media Group

Emre Deniz is the CEO of Opaque Space and is one of the first developers of consumer VR in Australia. He is internationally recognized for his work in Virtual Reality, having been previously named by MCV Pacific 30 Under 30 award list as 'one of the most influential figures in VR in Australia'. Emre has since appeared as an industry expert alongside NASA, the US Navy, McLaren, Boeing, Epic among many others to help shape the industry as it is today.

In the past 5+ years, Emre has been involved in various VR/AR productions with clients and collaborators ranging from NASA, HTC, Epic, Google to domestic parties such as the Melbourne Fringe Festival and ACMI. Having previously worked as a key developer in the award winning Virtual Dementia Experience which put Australia's VR capabilities into a global stage at the Microsoft Imagine Cup, Emre has steered Opaque Space into forming one of the world's first and only dedicated VR/AR astronautics technology company, with partnerships with entities such as HTC, Epic, NASA, Noitom among others.

Major Kristy Hudson

Supply Chain Branch, Joint Logistic Command
Australian Army

Major Kristy Hudson is a logistics officer of the Australian Regular Army. Her military career includes deployment to Syria as a United Nations Military Observer, command of a Logistics Support Squadron, conducting Operational Test & Evaluation for land capability and a posting Senior Instructor at the Army School of Logistic Operations, teaching advanced logistic planning and decision making.

In addition to a Master of Capability Management completed through the University of New South Wales in 2016, she holds a Master of Business Law from the University of Sydney (2011), a Bachelor of Commerce from University of Queensland (1996) and is an accredited instructor and training developer.

Her technical paper entitled “A prototype simulation model for army logistics training” was presented to the 2017 International Symposium for the International Council on Systems Engineering. She is currently posted to Joint Logistics Command.