Bruce Pascoe and Ray Norris: Big Sky

Bruce Pascoe has published widely in both adult and young adult literature. He has won numerous awards, including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Eve Pownall Award for Young Dark Emu (Magabala Books 2019), New South Wales Premier’s Book of the Year Award in 2016 for Dark Emu (Magabala Books 2014) and the Prime Minister’s Literature Award for Young Adult fiction for Fog a Dox (Magabala Books 2012) in 2013. In 2018 Bruce was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. He has worked as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor. Bruce is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man, and currently lives on his farm in Gippsland, Victoria

Ray Norris is an astrophysicist who has spent his life trying to figure out how the Universe evolved from the Big Bang to the present day, including mysteries such as the Black Holes at the centres of galaxies. For the past 20 years he has studied the astronomy of Indigenous Australians and is fascinated by their many intellectual achievements as they sought to understand their Universe, and the way that astronomy is deeply intertwined with culture. The more he learns about Aboriginal astronomy, the more he realises that it will take another lifetime totruly appreciate it.

Dr Tanya Hill is the senior curator of astronomy at Melbourne Planetarium,Scienceworks and was part of the team that opened the planetarium in 1999. She has a PhD in extragalactic astronomy and her research involved hunting for distant supermassive black holes. Tanya has created award-winning planetarium shows, that are shown around the world. She also authored the children’s book “When the Stars Come Out” that shares her own story of being scared of the dark as a young child. Since conquering her fear, she loves exploring the far reaches of space and the Universe never fails to amaze her.

Natasha Mitchell is a multi-award-winning journalist, radio presenter, podcaster, and audio storyteller specialising in science & society. She is host of the ABC Radio National's flagship Big Ideas program and podcast, was founding host and producer of the internationally renowned radio show and one of the ABC’s first podcasts, All in the Mind, which won the Grand Prize and four Gold World Medals at the New York Radio Festivals, amongst other awards. Natasha hosted the ABC's daily social affairs program Life Matters, and was founding host and producer of Science Friction, awarded Best Science and Medicine podcast at the Australian Podcast Awards. Natasha served as a board member and vice president of the World Federation of Science Journalists and was recipient of the prestigious MIT Knight Fellowship. She has facilitated many public forums around Australia, including four science dialogues with the Dalai Lama and guests. She has an engineering degree with first class honours, and a postgraduate diploma in science communication.