Keynote Speakers 2025

Nin Kirkham is the Deputy Head of School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia. Her research is on issues in applied ethics, especially environmental virtue ethics and the concepts of nature and naturalness as they are employed in debates in environmental ethics, bioethics and technology. More recently she has been working with a colleague Dr Chris Letheby on the role of psychedelic experiences in the development of environmental virtues. Their current collaboration focuses on the development of a virtue based integrative account of psychedelic moral enhancement. She currently teaches in the areas of critical thinking, continental philosophy, and ethics. Nin also has extensive experience teaching professional ethics and critical thinking into disciplines outside philosophy, including engineering, business and science. She is involved in the promotion and support of philosophy in schools, and philosophy in the community. 

https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/nin-kirkham

Fazal Rizvi is an Emeritus Professor of Global Studies in Education at the University of Melbourne, as well as at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written extensively on issues of identity and culture in transnational contexts, globalization and education policy, internationalization of higher education, and Australia-Asia relations. He is an editor-in-chief of the 4th edition of International Encyclopedia of Education (Elsevier 2022). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences, a past Editor of the journal, Discourse: Studies in Cultural Politics of Education, and a past President of the Australian Association of Research in Education. Fazal is currently researching educational reform in Bhutan and has begun to explore issues of comparative philosophy as they relate to thinking about educational purposes and governance.

Claudia W. Ruitenberg is a Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia (Canada). She was born and raised in the Netherlands but has lived in Canada since 2000. She completed her PhD at Simon Fraser University (Canada) in 2005. She is the President of the Philosophy of Education Society (2024-25) and past President of the Canadian Philosophy of Education Society (2016-19). She is the author of Unlocking the World: Education in an Ethic of Hospitality (Paradigm, 2015) and editor of (among other titles) Reconceptualizing Study in Educational Discourse and Practice (Routledge, 2017). Other research interests include political education, ethics, speech act theory, and translation. A growing interest is in environmental ethics and educational responses to the climate crisis and other transgressions of planetary boundaries. Two recent publications in this area are the chapters “Welcome to a Planet in Crisis: Intergenerational Justice and Educational Hospitality as Common Decency” (2025) and “Solidarity with Youth Climate Activists: Intergenerational Justice and Chains of Equivalence” (2024, co-authored with Tierney Wisniewski). Claudia lives and practices permaculture on Salt Spring Island.

Bruce Haynes (FPESA) was born at Southern Cross in 1942, and has lived and worked in Western Australia since then. Bruce holds degrees in history, philosophy, and education from the University of Western Australia and Ph.D. in philosophy of education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Bruce has been a high school teacher (history and geography), and was a teacher educator (social science, education, critical thinking) at Claremont Teachers College and its subsequent iteration as Edith Cowan University. Bruce has had teaching stints the University of Western Australia, Murdoch University, and Curtin University and held Visiting appointments at Queens University (Ontario), London Institute of Education, and Auckland University. While at Auckland, Bruce began participating in the Marshall/Haynes Fishing Competition and married Jim’s secretary. Bruce Haynes has been a member of the Editorial Board of the Australian Journal of Teacher Education from1980, and was its Editor 1990-2011. He is a regular reviewer for AJTE and Educational Philosophy and Theory. Bruce first joined PESA in 1971 and held numerous executive positions at various times. With Felicity Haynes, Bruce has been Conference Organiser each time a PESA conference was held in Perth (most recently in 2010). Since 1985, Bruce has been involved in the rehabilitation of Lake Claremont and, in recognition, was awarded the title of Freeman of the Town of Claremont. In retirement, he has focussed on investigating aspects of education, schooling, and teacher education that may change for the better if they were seen in the light of trust relations rather than true propositions.