Adjunct Professor Tony Sorensen

Adjunct Professor - Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education; School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Tony Sorensen

Phone: +61 2 6773 2880

Email: asorense@une.edu.au

Biography

Like many a geographer, Tony is something of a disciplinary nomad floating in his case somewhere between Geography, Economics, Urban Planning and Public Policy.

Qualifications

BA(Hons), PhD (Newcastle(UK)), FIAG, FRAI, MPIA

Research Interests

His geographer side acknowledges that place is a crucial determinant of people's economic and social well-being. This has been one of Tony's major research themes over the years, especially in respect of rural and regional Australia. Other related foci of Tony's research concerns the macro-economic processes driving rural and regional development, along with business and community leadership, research and innovation on both farms and rural SMEs, and appropriate public policy responses.

As a futurist, he is also interested in strategies to facilitate regional adaptation to as yet unknown business opportunities in a fast moving and globalised world of commerce and technology. Another research strand focuses on urban planning theory and the economics of Australia's residential property markets. More whimsically, Tony has explored the contribution of quantum mechanics to our understanding of economic uncertainty which plague both urban and regional economic processes.

Memberships

Tony is a Fellow of both the Institute of Australian Geographers and the Regional Australia Institute. He is also on the Steering committee of the International Geographical Union's (IGU) Commission on Local and Regional Development and has long worked with the IGU's Commission on the Sustainability of Rural Systems. Tony is Past President of the Australian and New Zealand Regional Science Association which is the premier academic and practitioner organisation concerning regional conditions, processes and policy. He established and edited for 7 years one of the Association's journals: Regional Policy and Practice, but is now joint editor of the Association's Australasian Journal of Regional Studies. He is a member of both Planning Institute of Australia and Urban Development Institute of Australia.