Keynote speakers

Robyn Ober (Australia)

Lead Researcher and Educator, Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education

Robyn is a Mamu/Djirribal woman from Far North Queensland. She is a Lead Researcher and educator at Batchelor Institute and has extensive experience in the Northern Territory that spans three decades. She is well renowned for her expertise of both-ways pedagogy, working to combine Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing, being and learning in teaching practice and research. Robyn’s PhD thesis is titled: Aboriginal English as a Social and Cultural Identity Marker in an Indigenous Tertiary Educational Context. Her educational and research leadership is internationally and nationally recognised and reflected in her numerous consultancies and research on education delivery, both-ways education, social linguistics and Indigenous research methodologies in the Northern Territory, national and international Indigenous educational contexts.

Bagele Chilisa (Botswana)

Professor of the Post Graduate Research and Evaluation Programme, University of Botswana

Bagele [Med, MA EdD (Research Design, Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation)] is a globally recognised scholar and a leading African thought leader who has written extensively on decolonizing research and evaluation methodologies. She currently drives the thinking on a Fifth research and evaluation Paradigm centering relationality, connectedness and spirituality in research and evaluation practice. Over the last 30 years, she has taught Research design, Measurement, and Evaluation courses to graduate and undergraduate students. She has served as Director of several grant funded projects and a member of the UNDP evaluation advisory board, IFAD evaluation advisory board, and a member of the International Evaluation Council. With over 80 publications, she has received multiple grants to conduct research and design interventions to address gender inequalities, power asymmetries and epistemic violence in development projects in Botswana and beyond. Her book, Indigenous Research Methodologies, drives thinking on a fifth paradigm and the integration of knowledge systems used at many universities worldwide.  She has served as a guest lecturer, speaker, resource person, and keynote speaker at several international Universities and conferences. She also conducts professional development workshops on indigenous research methodologies and on contextually and culturally relevant evaluation worldwide.  She is the recipient of multiple national and international awards.

Lígia Teixeira (UK)

Founder and Chief Executive of the Centre for Homelessness Impact

Dr Lígia Teixeira is the Founder and Chief Executive of the Centre for Homelessness Impact, part of the UK Government’s What Works Network. She works with governments and cities to rethink how homelessness is understood and addressed – using data, evidence, and experimentation to drive better outcomes.Her work advances a new approach to “what works” in complex systems, combining rigorous evaluation with a systems lens. Without this, services can improve in isolation while outcomes at population level continue to worsen.Bridging academia, policy, and practice, Lígia has led the design of the UK’s first homelessness prevention framework and the government’s first systems-wide evaluation and test-and-learn programme in England. She supports leaders to embed evidence and systems thinking into decision-making, shifting the focus from managing crisis to preventing it.She works across all levels of government, alongside funders and system leaders, to ensure decisions are driven by impact rather than intention – to help shift effort upstream and turn ambition into measurable results.

Selwyn Button (Australia)

Commissioner, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Stream, Australian Productivity Commission

Selwyn Button was appointed for a 5-year term as a full time Commissioner in June 2024. Selwyn is Gungarri man from Southwest Queensland and an experienced leader of health, education and governance organisations across the public, private, not-for-profit and community-controlled sectors. Prior to joining the Commission, Selwyn was partner of PwC Indigenous Consulting; national Registrar of the Office of the Registrar for Indigenous Corporations, the Assistant Director-General for Indigenous Education in Queensland, Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council, and Chair of the Lowitja Institute. Selwyn has led major policy, service delivery, governance and legislative reforms in his various leadership roles and has significant contributions through his service as a board member of numerous sporting, arts, culture, health and early childhood education and care organisations. He was a former primary school teacher and Queensland police officer. Selwyn is currently working on the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement Review inquiry and co-leads the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stream of work at the PC

Emily Gates (USA)

Associate Professor of Evaluation, Boston College

Emily Gates is a tenured associate professor at Boston College whose research explores how evaluation can support meaningful, values‑driven change in complex systems. Her work bridges theory and practice, spanning more than 30 publications and two coauthored books: Evaluative Inquiry for Systemic Change (2025, with Pablo Vidueira) and Evaluating and Valuing in Social Research (2021, with Thomas Schwandt). In 2023, she received the American Evaluation Association’s Marcia Guttentag Promising New Evaluator Award, recognizing her research on systems thinking, values, and equity in evaluation practice. Since 2012, she has worked primarily in the public sector, focusing on mixed methods and democratic evaluations in STEM education and public health. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and is a former evaluation fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She lives in Boston with her family and will spend a sabbatical year in Australia and New Zealand in 2026–2027.