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Emeritus Professor in Sustainable Urbanism, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

Peter Newton is an Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Urban Transitions at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. From 2007-2021 he held the position as Research Professor in Sustainable Urbanism at CUT, following fifteen years as Chief Research Scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). In 2022 he was Interim Director of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN) at the University of Melbourne.
He has had a distinguished career in built environment research and was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2014. His principal fields of research have focused on the technology of planning, sustainability science and urban settlement transitions.
He has published over 25 books, including: Future Cities Making: Mission-oriented Research for Urban Sustainability Transitions in Australia (2024); Greening the Greyfields. New Models for Regenerating the Middle Suburbs of Low-Density Cities (2022); Migration and Urban Transitions in Australia (2022); and Decarbonising the Built Environment (2019).

Experience

  • 2022–2022
    Interim Director, AURIN, University of Melbourne
  • 2007–2021
    Research Professor, Swinburne University
  • 1994–2006
    Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO

Education

  • 1977 
    University of Canterbury, PhD
  • 1973 
    University of Newcastle, MA

Honours

Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia