2019 Oceania Participant Bios

Roster of Participants  (see below for full bios)

Laura Alfrey (Balnarring, Aus) Health and Physical Ed, Monash Peninsula
Cath Ashton (Chelsea, Aus) Mental Health Professional
Mel Attard (Frankson, Aus) Artist
Hannah Bennett (Suva, Fiji) Pro Surfer
Aimee Blacker (Port Macquarie, Aus) C0-Founder, Surfing the Spectrum
Fiona Capp (Melbourne, Aus)  Writer
Krista Comer (Houston, USA)  Director IWS, Professor
Heidi Duell (Rye, Aus) Consultant, Wetland Regeneration, Event & Grant Management
Corinna Eccles (Victoria, Aus)
Bel Edmondson (Mornington, Aus) Student, Artist, Surf Mums
elke emerald (Bittern, Aus), Artist & Academic
Barb Humberstone (Raglan, Aeotearoa/New Zealand)  Researcher
Bianca Julicher (Mt. Eliza, Aus) Student VCE, Founder Salty RoseTM
Fiona Julicher (Mt. Eliza, Aus) Nurse, Ally, Mum 
Risu Kalotiti (Port Lima, Vanuatu)  Soltwata Sista, Conservationist
Ashika Kanhai (Preston, Aus) Lawyer, Policy Specialist, Victoria Health & Human Svcs
lisahunter (Bittern, AUS) Health Education, Monash University, Co-Founder IWSO
Stef Mahuk (Port Vila, Vanuatu)  Lawyer, President of Vanuatu Surf Association
Ula Majewski (Jan Juc, Aus) Activist, Writer
Jess Moulynox (Cape Woolamai, Aus) Surf Mums
Rebecca Olive (Brisbane, Aus)  Sports Studies, University of Australia Queensland
Rachel Parker (Torquay, Aus) Founder, Ocean Mind; Youth Worker
Cath Sansome (Sorrento, Aus), Girls Who Surf, Digital Marketing, Education
Elizabeth Pepin Silva (Ojai, Calif US)  Media Creator, On The Water Front
Lyndsey Stoodley (Cardiff, Wales)  PhD Candidate, University of Cardiff, Co-Founder IWS Europe (Wales)
Sam Suendermann (Anglesea, Aus)
Kate Sullivan (Anglesea, Aus)
Paula Tura (Sunshine Coast, QLD, Aus) Artist & Educator
Fiona Tse (Parkdale. Aus) Chiropractor
Arlene Ward (Port Lima, Vanuatu) Photographer
Kirsten Yonan (San Juan Capistrano, Calif US)  Activist, Researcher, Prospective Graduate Student)

Participant Bios 

Laura Alfrey (Balnarring, Aus) Health and Physical Education, Monash University.

I’ve surfed intermittently for over a decade but over the last year I have surfed more than ever thanks to a combination of maternity leave and the Mornington Peninsula Surf Mums. The surf mums have been a life/sanity line, and whilst I’m still no Steph Gilmore I just really enjoy getting out there! It calms my mind, and energizes me in ways I can’t articulate. I think I have been lucky in that I haven’t had many negative experiences whilst surfing. The break I always go to is pretty chilled and I can only think of one incident when I felt uncomfortable due to the actions/words of someone else.

Since joining surf mums I am keen to start to research in this space, and to capture the diverse stories related to why people join and remain in such groups, and also the dynamics of such groups.

Cath Ashton (Chelsea, Aus) Mental Health Professional

I’m Cath Ashton- born in Liverpool UK (Scouse!), I’m a proud mum of a son and daughter (23&22), mental health professional specialising in early psychosis, adolescent and youth, suicide prevention along with women’s health wisdom.

I went to university at 33 ( but age is just a number !) and completed my BA Hons Health & Psychology (social model of health) as a ‘mature/wise’ student when my children were babies; it was my time to study and really appreciated what I could offer- yes, it was difficult at times but with the support of my tribes here I am 19 years later still above ground!

We emigrated to Perth Australia 2008 and I recently moved to Melbourne with my partner. I’ve had the huge privilege of being involved with the ‘Family’ of both Perth Western Australia Surf Mums for 4 years and recently Mornington Victoria (www.surfingmums.com). I continue to travel my path of discovery as a proud woman learning her journey each day whether solo or with loved ones in and out of the ocean and relish it all!

The incredible group of Surfing Mums welcomed me to the water with a non- judgemental, fun and wonderful spirited group atmosphere! Through the water, surfing , sailing, snorkeling and bodyboarding I’ve met so many beautiful souls and we’ve shared our journeys, friendships and life tapestries. My mental health professional life work continues through teaching, developing programmes and watching people flourish through their own space and support.

Mel Attard (Frankson, Aus) Artist

I am an artist, environmentalist, animal lover, vegan, surfer, activist, and gardener. I have a background in customer service, small business management, visual arts, conservation and land management, horticulture, and wildlife rescue.  I love to create and express visually. I work in just about any media that I feel like at the time, including painting, drawing, collage, surfboard art, sculpture, and ceramics.

I have worked in a variety of jobs, and volunteered in a number of roles both with wildlife rescue and environmental advocacy. I am a passionate animal lover and will drop everything to help an animal in need. I have worked in rescue for over 17 years and have begun some wildlife foster caring as well. I have 4 cats, 2 pigeons and 2 chickens living with me at home. I love gardening and growing my own vegetables. I also enjoy cooking yummy vego food to share.

I love surfing. The ocean brings me joy. I am spiritual, but earthy. Being in nature energises and refreshes me. One day I want to live in my campervan on the coast, surf lots and wander around in nature. I love to surf at my home breaks, but also travel around in my little campervan staying for a night or two here and there along the Victorian coast. I have recently had getaways to Inverloch, Kennet River (Great Ocean Road and Torquay) and Phillip Island. Decent ocean swell scares the hell outta me, but I love to challenge myself sometimes. I started surfing later in life and am always learning. I like it when the swell is nice and clean and the waves are not crowded, I can relax and have fun. It gets very cold down here in winter so it can be challenging! Water temps of around 11 degree Celsius = freezing surfer!

Hannah Bennett (Suva, Fiji)  Pro Surfer, Production Manager for Island Naturals

Hannah Bennett is a pro surfer and activist.

Aimee Blacker (Port Macquarie, Aus) C0-Founder, Surfing the Spectrum, Occupational Therapist

Through surfing, Aimee works with young people to fight disability injustices, create physical awareness, and celebrate life.

Fiona Capp (Melbourne, Aus)  Writer

Fiona Capp is the author of five novels, including Night Surfing, Gotland and To Know My Crime, and three works of non-fiction. Her books have been published internationally and have been shortlisted for many prizes, including the Victorian Premier’s Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for Literature, the Queensland Literary Award, The Age Book of the Year and the Dobbie Award. Her memoir That Oceanic Feeling about her love for the sea and surfing won the 2004 Kibble Award.

Krista Comer (Houston, USA)  Professor, Writer, Activist

Krista is the Institute’s Director, a Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas, USA. Krista was raised mainly in California, educated in the US northeast, and has been living with her family in Houston, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, for the last twenty years. Krista came in to the Institute project by working with all kinds of women surfers, some of whom read her book Surfer Girls in the New World Order. The process of doing these Institutes, and trying to explain what “Public Humanities” is, as a form of activist community-based research and action, has helped her to refocus what is important to her personally as a feminist researcher. Being with the Institute women has also given her a chance to be in the water more, not so much as a surfer, but as a kayaker, novice SUP who falls in a lot, and otherwise, a waterwoman who is finding her way back . . .

Institute Oceania, co-founded with lisahunter, is the first meeting of the Institute in the Global South.  In summer of 2018, the Institute met for the first time outside of California, in Wales, and launched the Institute Europe, co-organized with Lyndsey Stoodley and Dani Roberston of Surf Senioritas.  This is Krista’s fourth visit in recent years to Oceania — three visits to Australia, one to Aeotearoa/New Zealand.  Thank you for the chance to make new friends and learn!

For more about Krista’s work, teaching, and writing, see kristacomer.rice.edu.

Heidi Duell (Rye, Aus) Consultant, Wetland Regeneration, Event & Grant Management

I’m Heidi and I live on the Mornington Peninsula.

My career path has been many and varied. My first decade was spent working in the field of disabilities, followed by another decade in the surf industry. For the last 10 plus years I have worked for not for profit groups that effect change I believe in. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved direct action on issues that I care about deeply.

Corinna Eccles (Victoria, Aus)

Bel Edmondson (Mornington, Aus) 

Bel is pursuing Emergency Management Post graduate studies, she is also a member of Surfing Mums.

elke emerald (Bittern, Aus)  Artist, Academic

Barb Humberstone (Raglan, Aeotearoa/New Zealand)  Researcher  

Bianca Julicher (Mt. Eliza, Aus) Student VCE, Founder Salty RoseTM

Bianca Julicher is a self motivated and driven young woman. Bianca is a student in the midst of completing her final year of high school. She is the founder of two businesses, the first was under her own name where she created jewellery and other craft upcycled products.

Her current venture launched in November 2018 is called Salty RoseTM where her inaugural product is natural (beeswax) surf wax.  Bianca doesn’t see herself as a hardcore surfer but she gets her wetsuit on every camping trip and heads into the surf on whatever floats! The water has always provided her a place of connection. Bianca hopes her little wax business grows with people and the planet to create a community awareness of promoting how we treat each other and the way we source and use products in our lives.  Bianca wants to see her non-sexist product lead the way in industry branding.

Fiona Julicher (Mt. Eliza, Aus) Nurse, Ally, Mum 

Fi has been surfing on the Mornington Peninsula for most of her life. She has surfed competitively, created surf outreach programs for girls early on in the area, and one day may find the stencils of their t-shirts for our archive!

Risu Kalotiti (Port Lima, Vanuatu)  Soltwata Sista, Conservationist

Risu Kalotiti is a passionate conservationist and  actively promotes woman empowerment.  After seeing  the destruction caused by  Cyclone Pam in 2015, she set up a coral garden in her village and engages with local children to help restore the reef.  Risu is  a surf coach for the Solwota Sista of The Vanuatu Surfing  Association, an organization which encourages female surfers to get in the water and realise their full  potential.

Watch Soltwata Sista on Vimeo.

Ashika Kanhai (Preston, Aus) Lawyer, Policy Specialist, Victoria Department of Health and Human Services

Ashika is an ocean lover, a perpetual learner, and a mother of two. Born in Fiji and brought up here in Melbourne, Ashika has been surfing now only a couple of years but has always been connected to the ocean’s power and flow.

Professionally, Ashika manages the forensic disability program in Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services – this program provides services and supports for people with a disability involved in the criminal justice system. I have a background in law, justice, psychology and community development.

lisahunter (Bittern, AUS) Health Education, Monash University

I’ve been involved in/with physical culture as a school teacher, a university lecturer, a teacher educator and a researcher in Australia, Scotland, England and Aotearoa/New Zealand (ANZ). Having done a lot of outdoor activities/physical activity/sports myself, including with/under/on/above/in the sea (surf lifesaving and surf sports, surf rescue, scuba, surf and coastal education) I thought that surfing would be fun, cathartic and a new challenge so I ‘taught’ myself about twenty years ago. Surfing has been all those things…but negative experiences and late entry to an activity that was on my doorstep (Sunshine Coast, Australia) had me asking questions…about the culture, history, impacts, pedagogy and activism of surfing. I’ve been researching surfing since. I’ve looked at historical imagery, visibility and erasure of female surfing, sex/gender/sexuality representation in surfing-related media and events, personal experiences in surfing/with the sea, surfing pedagogies, developments in ANZ and Australian surfing for females, female pioneer surfing history in Australia and ANZ, precolonial female representation in surfing, gendered clothing in surfing, the whitening of surfing intersecting with erasure of indigenous female surfing, and the historical positioning of female surfers (e.g.Phyllis O’Donnell). I’ve recently turned to film/documentary as a pedagogical (teaching and learning) tool and activism in surfing.

I hatched the plan of a southern hemisphere IWS with Krista in 2016, was invited to participate at IWS2017, and presented at IWS 2018. With a bunch of others we wrote the recent book ‘Surfing, Sex/es, Genders and Sexualities’. I’m wrapped that finally something like IWSOceania has come to fruition for what I hope is a positive network for collaborative, ethical, respectful and supportive outcomes for environment and relationships through/for surfing locally, within Oceania and beyond.

Stef Mahuk (Port Vila, Vanuatu)  Lawyer & President, Vanuatu Surf Association

Stef has been President of the VSA for the last three years.  She uses surf to teach reading, think about legal policy, expand disability practice, among other topics and social needs.
See VSA Surfability

Ula Majewski (Jan Juc, Aus) Activist, Writer

Ula spends a lot of time supporting amazing social justice campaigns and advocacy work across Asia and the Pacific with Oxfam. She annually picks up thousands of pieces of rubbish from crazily remote Tasmanian beaches with an awesome grassroots volunteer expedition called Team Clean.  She also writes for White Horses magazine.

Jess Moulynox (Cape Woolamai, Aus)

Rebecca Olive (Brisbane, Aus)  University Lecturer, Feminist Blogger

Rebecca Olive is a Lecturer in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at The University of Queensland, Australia. She uses feminist cultural studies approaches to research and write about women’s experiences of recreational surfing, and uses ethnographic methods to explore a number of surfing spaces including surfbreaks, beach-spaces, media, and social media. She has published in a range of journals books and handbooks, and is the co-editor of Women in action sport cultures: Identity, politics and experience, is currently undertaking a Research Fellowship with AustLit about surfing in Australian fiction, and continues to publish in surf media and on her blog, Making Friends With the Neighbours.  Bec also participated in the 2018 Institute Europe (Wales).

Rachel Parker (Torquay, Aus) Founder Ocean Mind & Youth Worker

Rachael Parker is the founder of Ocean Mind, a therapeutic surfing program for young people with mental health issues, disabilities and social isolation. She is a Youth Worker with over 10 years’ experience working with children and young people. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Youth Work), Certificate IV in Alcohol and other Drugs, Mental Health First Aid and Surf Coaching. Rachael is experienced in programme implementation and management, project design, youth work, rolling out evidence based and innovative programs including staff training.

Rachael is passionate about using the outdoor environments to create positive experiences and opportunities for young people to grow and prosper. Since discovering surfing in 2015, she’s combined her passion for the ocean and working with young people to create Ocean Mind. She loves nothing more than sharing her love of the ocean with young people and teaching them to find the stoke in the surf and their lives.

Cath Sansome (Sorrento, Aus)

Elizabeth Pepin Silva (Ojai, Calif US)  Media Creator, On The Water Front www.otwfront.com

Elizabeth Pepin Silva is a filmmaker, photographer, researcher, writer, and surfer born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now living in Ventura County, CA. For nearly two decades she has been making films independently and for PBS and has won five Emmy Awards and several film festival awards for her television and documentary film work.

Elizabeth’s photographs have been shown in galleries and museums and featured in publications around the world. She has been the principal photographer for three women’s surf books and has written a book on the history of San Francisco’s Fillmore Jazz district, Harlem of the West, published by Chronicle Books in 2006. Elizabeth holds a Bachelors of Arts in Journalism from San Francisco State University.

Lyndsey Stoodley (Cardiff, Wales)  PhD Student, co-founder IWS Europe (Wales)

Sam Suendermann (Anglesea, Aus) 

Kate Sullivan (Anglesea, Aus)

Paula Tura (Sunshine Coast, QLD, Aus).  Artist & Educator

I am a Brazilian-born author, artist and educator based on the Sunshine Coast, QLD.  I hold a Bachelor of Education and Masters degree in Contemporary Arts. My research was an artistic proposal entitled: Body Poetics – the human body in the natural environment, a contemporary visual arts proposal.

Surf has been part of my life for the past seven years. In 2017 along my husband Wil Aguiar we developed a series of eight short documentaries entitled Gaia’s Daughters. One of the films is The Surfing Mum’s journey, about a group female surfers based on the Sunshine Coast sharing their surfing journey before and after having children.

To find out more about me: www.paulatura.com
To find out more about Wil Aguiar: www.koukahe.com

Fiona Tse (Parkdale. Aus) Chiropractor

Arlene Ward (Port Lima, Vanuatu) Photographer

Hi, I’m Arlene. I’m a photographer, artist and ocean lover. I just finished a Masters in Transformative Development. I live in Vanuatu with my husband and daughter and am super excited about spending more time this year in the water with my camera and the Solwota Sistas!

Kirsten Yonan (San Juan Capistrano, Calif USA)  Activist, Researcher, Prospective Graduate Student)