Brian's research centres on public policy and governance (particularly as they relate to sustainability) and science-policy relations. He is particularly interested in exploring how issues are conceptualised in policy processes, and the implications this has for how they are addressed.
Brian's research during his Vice-Chancellor's fellowship will focus on enhancing social scientific understandings of state-level policy and public management frameworks and their potential for transforming governance in ways that are more ecologically sustainable and socially just.
Brian has taught a range of undergraduate and graduate courses focusing on public policy, environmental politics and policy, and environmental economics.
Brian completed his PhD in Policy Studies at the University of Queensland in 2010. In this he drew on the theory and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how the discourses of neoliberalism and ecological modernisation influenced sustainability policy making, using Victoria, Australia as a case study.