“With the move from an agrarian to an industrial economy, the small rural schoolhouse was supplanted by the big brick schoolhouse. Four decades ago we began to move to another economy but we have yet to develop a new educational paradigm, let alone create the ‘schoolhouse’ of the future, which may be neither school nor […]
Author Archives: Tom Kompas
Tom Kompas is the Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at the Australian National University (ANU). He is also the Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Biosecurity and Environmental Economics (AC BEE), and has dedicated much of his recent time to public policy in Australia. Until recently, he was a part-time Senior Economist at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), a Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) project leader on biosecurity and Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics. In 2010, Tom was appointed to the Eminent Scientists Group (ESG) in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The ESG provides independent advice to the Minister on matters of biosecurity and risk analysis. In 2012, Tom took on the roles of Editor-in-Chief of Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies (APPS) and the President of the newly-formed Asia and Pacific Policy Society.
Tom's research specialises in economic dynamics, cost-benefit analysis and natural resource and environmental economics. His bioeconomic modelling and biosecurity research has been published in the world's leading international journals (including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Conservation Biology), and his current work focuses on ocean fisheries management and major biosecurity issues in Australia and internationally. In 2009, Tom received the 'CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement', in 2004, the 'Crawford Award for Research Excellence' from ABARE, and in 2011 the 'Eureka Prize for Water Research and Innovation'.
Tom is the recipient of the University's highest award for teaching, the 2009 'Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching'. In 2008, Tom also received the 'Award for Teaching Excellence' from the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU, and in 2010 he received a national teaching award, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council 'Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning'. He teaches Masters Microeconomics, Applied Economic Dynamics, and a component of the School's flagship course, Government, Markets and Global Change.
Tom is currently a Board Member of the Cairns Institute, Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce and the CEDA Council on Economic Policy. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Toronto.
