Professor Barbara Norman is Emeritus Professor of Urban & Regional Planning at the University of Canberra and an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, Australia.

She is Chair of the Urban Policy Forum advising the Australian Government and National Chair of the Australian Coastal Society.

Barbara is also Director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network Oceania Hub (Columbia University, USA) and co-chair of Planners for Climate Action (UN Habitat).

Professor Norman is a global expert in sustainable cities and regions, smart infrastructure, coastal planning, climate change adaptation and urban governance.

Professor Norman has a combined professional and academic background as a former national president of the Planning Institute of Australia, and an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (UK).

Recent international research includes Sustainable Pathways for our Cities and Regions: planning within planetary boundaries (Routledge, 2018); Are autonomous cities our urban future? Comment in Nature Communications (Nature Communications, 2018) and Apocalypse Now: Australian Bushfires and the future of Urban Settlements (Nature Urban Sustainability). Professor Norman’s recent book is Urban Planning for Climate Change (Routledge, October 2022).