Community Empowerment, Sustainable Cities, and Transformative Economies

Dr Taha Chaiechi is Australia Director, Centre for International Trade and Business in Asia (CITBA), at JCU where she is also an Associate Professor of Economics. Currently, Taha is serving JCU as Expert Member on the Academic Board. Previously Taha has contributed to the governance and the Teaching & Learning profile of the College in different capacities. She is also Associate Editor-in-Chief, Bulletin of Applied Economics (ABDC tanked).Taha served JCU as the Head, Economics and Marketing Academic Group from October 2014- March 2019, she is also the Program Convenor for Master of Economics. Furthermore, she served the University in the acting position of Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching from July-2018- Jan 2019. Taha is an expert in systematic modelling of dynamic relationships between economic, environmental, and social variables. Taha's research attitude is holistic and inspired by issues in climate change and natural disasters, and their impact on different economic sectors such as public health, tourism, environmental, energy, and urban economics, which makes it especially suitable for sustainability analysis.Associate Professor Jacob Wood is currently the Associate Dean of Research for the College of Business, Law and Governance in JCU Australia and the Associate Dean of Research for Business, IT, and Science in JCU Singapore. In addition to this, he is also the Director of the Centre for International Trade and Business in Asia (CITBA) and an Associate Professor of Trade and Economics at JCU. Associate Professor Wood was also awarded the Academic and Researcher of year in 2019 for JCU Singapore for his excellence and overall achievements in the field. With a PhD in International Studies majoring in International Trade, Associate Professor Wood has more than 10 years experience working in South Korea where he has held roles as an Assistant Professor at Korea University of Technology and Education and then more recently as an Assistant Professor of Asia Business at Chungnam National University.