Sir John Crawford Memorial Address
and Networking Dinner

Monday 12 August 2024, QT Hotel Ballroom, 6.00-9.00pm

Sir John Crawford contributed at the highest levels to the development of Australia and other countries, and passionately supported international agricultural research for development. The Crawford Fund was established in his name, and since 1985, in his honour, we host the annual  Sir John Crawford Memorial Address.

This year, the Sir John Crawford Memorial Address will be presented by Dr Line Gordon, Director, Stockholm Resilience Centre and Professor in sustainable food systems at Stockholm University. 

The 2024 Sir John Crawford Memorial Address is titled “Building Resilience in an Interdependent Patchwork Earth.”

Line Gordon has over 20 years of experience leading interdisciplinary teams in sustainability science. Her leadership focuses on investing in a collaborative, trust-based and creative working culture that enables us to achieve impact, while ensuring that scientific integrity underpins all our work.

Line Gordon’s research focuses on water and food systems as key entry points to build Biosphere resilience and improve governance of social-ecological systems, livelihoods, and public health. Her research is problem-oriented, interdisciplinary, and highly collaborative. She often leads and contributes to collaborations that bridge disciplines and technical skills to advance scientific frontiers. Gordon’s current research focuses primarily on the role of food system transformation for public and planetary health. This work includes leading the Just transformation working group of the EAT-Lancet 2.0 Commission, developing national Swedish food systems scenarios in the Mistra Food Futures programme, and working on gastronomic landscapes.

She has previously done research on livelihood resilience and ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa (Burkina Faso, Tanzania, South Africa, Senegal, and Ghana), and on the critical roles of “invisible water flows” across local to global scales, in particular highlighting how global land use change, and evaporation and precipitation interact.

Line Gordon has an undergraduate in biology. She got her PhD in 2003 in Natural Resources Management, Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has also been a visiting researcher at University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, CIRAD in France, McGill University in Canada, and STIAS – the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in Stellenbosch, South Africa. She was appointed the Curt Bergfors Professor in Sustainability Science with a focus on food systems in 2021. Line Gordon serves on many different boards and advisory boards.

The Sir John Crawford Memorial Address is held at our specially styled networking dinner, which attracts attendees from a broad range of sectors – it will be a tremendous networking opportunity.