Who we are
ICAN AUSTRALIA
We are leading the movement for Australia to end its disarmament doublespeak by signing and ratifying the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We are proudly independent, non-partisan and funded by donations from our community of supporters.
While our organisation is made up of a voluntary board, ambassadors and a small staff team, the success of the campaign rests on a broad-based movement for change involving a diversity of people and groups. Everyone has something to contribute.
AMBASSADORS
BOARD
Dr Margaret Beavis (Co-Chair)
Margie Beavis is a former general practitioner with a strong interest in public health. She teaches at Melbourne University and is the immediate past president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. She is a Co-Director of Quit Nukes, a joint campaign of ICAN Australia and MAPW, working with Australian superannuation funds to be nuclear weapons-free.
Associate Professor Marianne Hanson (Co-Chair)
Associate Professor Marianne Hanson gained her Masters and Doctoral degrees in International Relations at Oxford University, where she focused on international security issues, especially the East-West conflict, strategic studies, and arms control. She has lectured at the University of Queensland for the past 24 years; prior to this appointment, she was a Stipendiary Lecturer at Magdalen College, Oxford University. Between 2000 and 2005, she served on the Australian government’s advisory panel on international security.
Dr Hanson joined the ICAN Australia board in 2019.
Victoria May (Secretary)
Victoria is a digital fundraising specialist who joined the ICAN Australia board in 2022, after acting as a board observer as a participant in The Observership Program throughout 2021. Victoria has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, a Master of Arts from RMIT and a Master of Business from the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies at QUT.
Dr Marcus Yip (Treasurer)
Marcus is currently an advanced trainee registrar with the Australian College of Emergency Medicine. He also has a Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honours and has previously served as Student Representative for the Medical Association for Prevention of War.
Dimity Hawkins AM
Dimity has over three decades of experience in the civil society sector working as an advocate on issues of nuclear disarmament and broader social, environmental and human rights activism. She was a co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN). Dimity is completing her PhD through Swinburne University in Melbourne focussed on nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. She is also a co-coordinator of the Nuclear Truth Project. Dimity was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Queens Birthday Honours for “significant service to the global community as an advocate for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.”
Dr Daryl Le Cornu
Daryl teaches history curriculum education at Western Sydney University and lectures in the UN Diploma course for the UNAA. He has had many years’ experience as a high school teacher and is currently a curriculum consultant and textbook writer for history and legal studies courses secondary schools. He is Director of Education at the World Citizens Association of Australia (WCAA).
Dr Tilman Ruff AO
Tilman Ruff is a public health and infectious diseases physician, Hon Principal Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985) since 2012, a co-founder and founding international and Australian chair of ICAN.
Dave Sweeney
Dave Sweeney has been active in the uranium mining and nuclear debate for over three decades through his work with the media, trade unions and environment groups on mining, resource and Indigenous issues. Dave is a founding member of ICAN and also leads the Australian Conservation Foundation’s national nuclear free campaign.
Talei Luscia Mangioni
Talei Luscia Mangioni is a PhD candidate and Pacific Studies teacher at the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University.
Talei joined the board in 2021.
Dr Ruth Mitchell
Ruth Mitchell is a neurosurgeon at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick. She is currently Chair of the Board of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Recently awarded the 2022 Convocation Medal by her alma mater, Flinders University, for her work with ICAN, she was also the 2019 winner of the John Corboy Medal from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons for her advocacy for diversity and inclusion in surgery, and was the inaugural Australian Medical Association Doctor in Training of the Year in 2016. She has previously served as Co-Chair of the ICAN Australia Board, and Vice President of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War. Twitter/Instagram @drruthmitchell.
Previous board members
ICAN Australia wishes to acknowledge the advice and assistance of previous Board members, from the first meeting in May 2006 to the present day, in alphabetical order:
Richard Broinowski
Joseph Camilleri
Daisy Gardener
Jenny Grounds
John Langmore
Jessica Lawson
Nic Maclellan
Fred Mendelsohn
Marie McInerney
Kazuyo Preston
Catriona Standfield
Richard Tanter
Sue Wareham OAM
Bill Williams
Tim Wright
Mark Zirnsak
STAFF
Gem Romuld, Director
Gem Romuld is the Director for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia, advocating for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its role in achieving the treaty. In 2021 Gem was awarded a Peace Woman award by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Australia.
Gem has worked with Australians for War Powers Reform and produced radio programs for 3CR Radio and the Community Radio Network. She has degrees in Communications and Law from the University of Technology, Sydney. Gem has been a multi-disciplinary campaigner for over a decade, and is dedicated to growing our collective power to build a better world. She is based on Dharawal land in Wollongong.
Email: gem@icanw.org
Jemila Rushton, Campaigner
Jemila has been working with ICAN Australia since 2019. With a background as an organiser, networker and community builder, Jemila has been working to address the interlinkages of militarism, extractivism, and colonialism for over a decade. Jemila Represented ICAN Australia at the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW in Vienna in June 2023.
Jemila holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Community Development from Victoria University, Naarm/Melbourne, and is based on the lands of the Peek Whurrong speaking people on the shores of Gunditjmara Southern Ocean sea country in Victoria.
Email: jemila@icanw.org
Tim Wright, Treaty Coordinator
Tim Wright is ICAN’s Treaty Coordinator. He is a member of the ICAN international staff team, overseeing work to promote universal adherence to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He has been involved in the campaign since it began in 2006. He has degrees in law and arts from the University of Melbourne.
Email: tim@icanw.org
Jesse Boylan, Media and Communications Adviser
Jesse Boylan joined ICAN Australia as their Media and Communications Adviser in 2023. Jesse works across photography, filmmaking, art, radio and journalism to engage with anti-nuclear, climate and mining issues in Australia and internationally.
Jesse is a member of Lumina, an Australian photography collective, and the Atomic Photographers Guild, an international group dedicated to making visible all aspects of the nuclear age. Jesse was a key artist with Nuclear Futures, a project that linked artists with atomic survivor communities all around the world to bear witness to the legacies of the atomic age through creative arts. Jesse is a PhD candidate at RMIT University in the School of Art and teaches within the BA Photography program at RMIT. Jesse is based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria.
Email: jesse@icanw.org
Leila Mutapcic, Bookkeeper/Administration
War survivor. Passionate about eliminating the use of nuclear weapons and bringing peace and stability to the world. Leila has worked with ICAN Australia since 2019.
Email: accounts@icanw.org
Previous staff
ICAN Australia wishes to acknowledge the contributions of our staff and special project workers since the campaign began, in alphabetical order:
Cat Beaton
Kirsten Blair
Teri Calder
Adam Dempsey
Chrys Gardener
Lachlan Good
Dimity Hawkins
Sarojini Krishnapillai
Jessica Morrison
James Norman
Lavanya Pant
Pauline Renkin
Felicity Ruby
Colin Stephens
Dianne Street
Glenn Todd
Mihiri Weerasinghe