The Keeble Lecture is held every year by PIA Queensland in honour of Lewis Bingham Keeble, the Foundation Professor of Regional and Town Planning, The University of Queensland. A generation of town planners throughout Australia will share memories of a truly remarkable man who founded a thriving town planning school in the less than hospitable environment of Queensland in the 1970s, and enriched the academic and professional scene for more than a decade.

The 2018 Keeble Lecture will be delivered by Ursula Kerr.

Ursula has been fortunate to be able to combine an exciting planning career with life-long travel opportunities. She emigrated from Germany in her early twenties following studies in geography and English at the University of Munich (LMU) and commenced a career as planning consultant in Far North Queensland whilst completing a Master in Planning at the University of Sydney. She became a member of RAPI (now PIA) in 1979, was awarded a Fellowship in 2001. There have been many highlights of Ursula’s consulting career including: preparation of the first statutory planning schemes for 11 FNQ councils; impact assessments for gold and coal mines, as well the Cairns’ airport extension; and as part of an international design team, the 4Mile Beach resort at Port Douglas. Other international projects in the 90’s and since have included a dual language development strategy for a township outside Berlin, close to the site of the new international Berlin airport, and a regional plan for an area in Sri Lanka, under the auspices of PIA and others. Significant periods in Ursula’s career were in public sector employment – Ashfield Council, in Sydney’s inner west, Hobart City Council as Strategic Planner for the City and Brisbane City Council, predominantly in the Environment and Water Cycle Management Area, with emphasis on protecting the City’s waterways and the River.

Topic: Increasingly, we have become aware of the population dynamics being influenced by international migration to and from cities and regional areas in Queensland. Ursula will discuss the level of understanding of this trend and how the planning profession can contribute to good outcomes in places experiencing such external population impacts. Ursula’s planning experiences, both in Australia and internationally, mean that she is well placed to challenge the planning profession to be the catalyst for change in this evolving area.

Details and registration: www.planning.org.au/events/event/The-Keeble-Lecture-2018

This public lecture is sponsored by The University of Queensland. It is delivered in conjunction with the Qld Women in Planning Network. This year, it will be chaired by Dr Dorina Pojani, Senior Lecturer in Planning, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland.