Plenary Speakers

Every year the APSRC features a range of international and Australian Plenary Speakers. They will be added here as they are confirmed.

James Hazelton
Dr. James Hazelton is a Renewable Energy engineer and Future Energy Strategy Manager at Endeavour Energy, which supplies electricity to 2.8 million people and supports over 335,000 rooftop solar systems across Western Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and the South Coast of NSW. Since joining Endeavour in 2021, he has played a key role in developing initiatives that support the energy transition, including energy storage programs, the Bawley Point community microgrid, and a $65 million regulatory proposal to integrate customer energy resources. He leads a team delivering innovation and future network projects such as Flexible Exports for solar, the Electrify 2515 initiative, and the electrification of transport. Before Endeavour, James was a Senior Consultant and Program Manager at ITP Renewables, where he worked on a range of Australian and international projects. These included energy system modelling, strategy development, and managing a large EU and NZ-funded utility capability project in Kiribati. Earlier in his career, he helped establish and lead Infigen’s (now Iberdrola’s) Operations Control Centre. James holds undergraduate and PhD degrees from UNSW’s School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering, with a research focus on renewable energy mini-grids for rural electrification in Australia and Malaysia.

Prof. Karen Hussey
Trained as a political scientist and economist, Professor Hussey has more than 20 years’ experience as an academic and practitioner specialising in climate change policy, governance, economics, and adaptation. Professor Hussey previously served as Deputy Director-General of the Environmental Policy and Programs Division in the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science and prior to that she held senior academic positions at the University of Queensland (UQ) and The Australian National University (ANU). Professor Hussey was the ANU Vice Chancellor’s Representative in Europe (Brussels), Senior Staff Representative on the ANU Council, and Director and Deputy Director of the UQ Centre for Policy Futures, and the UQ Global Change Institute, respectively.  Professor Hussey commenced as full-time chair of the Australian Government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee on 9 October 2023, and she holds an Honorary Professorship at UQ

Geoff Stapleton AO
Geoff Stapleton AO began specialising in solar (PV) energy during his electrical engineering degree at UNSW in 1981 and joined BP Solar Australia in 1987. In 1989, he started his own company on the NSW south coast, focusing on designing and maintaining off-grid power systems. Between 1995 and 2000, his company also consulted for an electricity utility expanding into solar. In 1998, Geoff co-founded Global Sustainable Energy Solutions (GSES), which provides engineering and training services across the solar industry. He was managing director until 2022, leading projects throughout Australia, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. His work has focused on capacity building and developing training programs for solar technicians and utility staff. Geoff was a part-time senior lecturer at UNSW from 2003 to 2015, teaching PV system design and creating a course on solar in developing countries. He contributed to IEA PVPS Task 9 from 1999 to 2017 and remains active in standards development through Standards Australia and IEC. Since 2010, he has also played a leading role in the Sustainable Energy Industry Association of the Pacific Islands (SEIAPI), where he is now executive officer.

Kimberley Swords FTSE
Kimberley Swords FTSE is a Non-Executive Director of CS Energy, Chair of Southern Queensland Landscapes and Non-Executive Director of Natural Resource Management Regions Queensland. As a strategic advisor, leadership facilitator and executive coach she serves organisations including: ARENA; AEMO; AusNet Services, DEECA (Victoria), CSIRO, Indigenous Business Australia, the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand, the International Association for Impact Assessment, the International Advisory Panel for Biodiversity Credits and the University of Queensland on energy transition, nature, climate risk, community engagement and infrastructure topics. Since 2000 Kimberley has advised CEOs, Government Ministers, private sector leaders and people seeking to achieve system change across a range of sectors including transport, major projects, statutory planning, agriculture, energy, environment (approvals focused), procurement and ICT. In 2022-24 Kimberley had the privilege of working with Professors from Stanford, McKinsey colleagues and the Office of Projects Victoria to build the next iteration of Australia’s Major Projects Leadership Academy for public sector leaders.

Steve Albrecht
Steve Albrecht is Professor at Technical University (TU) Berlin, Faculty IV, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Head of the Department for Perovskite Tandem Solar Cells at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB). He received his PhD in physics from the University of Potsdam for his work on understanding the conversion of photon to collected charges organic solar cells. For his PhD he was awarded the Carl-Ramsauer-Prize of the Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin and the Young Researcher Prize of the Leibniz-Kolleg Potsdam. After PhD he started as Postdoc at HZB and in 2016 he established a young investigator research group and in 2017 the HySPRINT Innovation Lab. In 2018, he was granted with the apple of inspiration award by the Slovenian President followed by the Karl-Scheel-Preis of the Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin and the Berliner Wissenschaftspreis in the category young scientists for his work on perovskite-based tandem solar cells. Since June 2022, he is heading the department for perovskite tandem solar cells at HZB and since August 2022 he was promoted from Junior- to Full Professor at TU Berlin. He and his team developed various high efficiency hybrid tandem solar cells such as organic/amorphous Silicon and Perovskite/ crystalline Silicon tandem solar cells. In recent years, his group enabled various certified efficiency records for Perovskite-based tandem solar cells such as 29.15%, 29.8%, and 32.5% for Perovskite/Silicon in 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively, and 24.16% for Perovskite/CIGS in 2020.

Heping Shen
Dr. Heping Shen is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering at the Australian National University, where she leads a research team focused on developing next-generation, ultra-low-cost solar cell technologies, including perovskite and tandem solar cells. She was awarded the prestigious IEEE Stuart R. Wenham Young Professional Award in 2025. She received her Bachelor’s degree with a University Medal in Materials Science and Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and her PhD from Tsinghua University. With around 15 years of experience in photovoltaic research, Dr. Shen is driven by a deep commitment to making clean, reliable, and affordable electricity accessible to communities worldwide. She and her team has achieved multiple efficiency records for both single-junction perovskite and tandem solar cells. She has published more than 100 papers in top-tier journals such as Nature, Science, and Nature Reviews Materials. Dr. Shen has also played a leading role in securing and managing a few multi-million, multi-partner research projects, and collaborates extensively with major solar manufacturers including Jinko Solar and Risen Energy to advance the commercialization of next-generation photovoltaic technologies.

Liana Downey
Liana Downey (GAICD) is an expert in evidence-based policy development. Liana’s experience includes leading an independent energy and climate policy think tank, as well as senior roles in government and commercial advisory, with a focus on the energy transition. Downey led the sustainability and public sector practices at McKinsey & Company, where she developed Australia’s first Greenhouse Gas Abatement Cost Curve and was CEO of a boutique government advisory firm with offices in the US and Australia. Liana is the author of a numerous articles and the book “Mission Control: How Nonprofits and Governments can Focus, Achieve More and Change the World” (Taylor and Rutledge). Liana taught public policy at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Policy, is an experienced Board Director and Chair and holds an MBA from Stanford University (Arjay Miller Scholar).

Fengli Du
Mrs Fengli Du has been in the CSP field for about 20 years, she participated in China’s first megawatt-scale solar tower R&D project from 2006-2010, and did a lot of efforts in international and domestic cooperation on CSP. In 2015, she began to serve as the Secretary General of the China National Solar Thermal Alliance, which is a Class A alliance accredited by the Ministry of Science and Technology and has accumulated over 160 member, covering nearly the entire industrial chain of CSP. She provides supports to policy makers in the field of CSP, builds platforms for cooperation between players of the industrial chain, and writes the annual China’s CSP Industry Blue Book. She is also the regular guest of SolarPACES Exco meeting.