I have participated in politics since High School, when I travelled on the train from outer suburban Belgrave into the city of Melbourne to attend Victorian Secondary Student Union (VSSU) meetings, and I joined with girls in my class in starting an Upwey branch of Young Labor. As a university student at Latrobe I continued with my involvement in student politics and environmental activism.

My political theorising has always informed my political activism, which in turn informs my theorising.

As an undergraduate at Latrobe University I studied with Agnes Heller – a philosopher & sociologist from the Budapest school and a close colleague of Jurgen Habermas, and Andrew Giles-Peters – an expert on the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists.

In 1985 I departed for the University of Maryland, USA, to work with Lindley Darden and Dudley Shapere (who had unfortunately departed for a position elsewhere), who both were working on metaphor and models in the philosophy of science. Professor Darden introduced me to George Lakoff's work on metaphor and linguistics. The work of Lakoff and other cognitive linguists proved to be of central importance in organising the various discussions of rationality I was pursuing in my doctoral thesis.

In my thesis I drew on research from the history and philosophy of science, artificial intelligence(AI), cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, Habermas's theory of communicative action, and feminist theory in order to elaborate on and ground a conception of rationality as embodied and informed by passion and desire. I used the idea of models and metaphor as the foundation of reasoning to critique objectivist models of language, theories of rational choice, causal reasoning, and cognition.

While the exploration of 'embodied cognition' was somewhat in vogue in feminist philosophy at the time, Professor Genevieve Lloyd, an examiner of my thesis, comments on the 'richness of content' I achieve in my my examination of these issues by thoroughly engaging with the detailed concerns of mainstream philosophical writing, in contrast with the 'relatively empty polemic' around these ideas in the work of other feminist theorists.

In 1990 I returned to Australia and received my doctorate in Philosophy from Latrobe University in 1992.

In my doctoral thesis I explored issues associated with reason and argumentation; the philosophy and history of language and communication; rationality and collective (political) decisionmaking; and developed a critique of rational choice theory (a foundation theory in neo-classical economics).

I began my current position in Communication Studies at University of Southern Queensland in 1992.

That year I organised a session on gender and communication at the Australian Communication Association National Conference at Bond University, and presented a paper on ‘Gender & normative biases in Habermas’s Ideal Speech situation’.

Soon after starting at USQ I joined the Queensland and Australian Greens, and ran as a candidate in the next state election. Standing as a Greens candidate in a conservative electorate I gained a deeper insight into the relationship between our political system, political campaigning and the media. My experience with practical political communication, both within political parties and with the public, informs both my teaching and research into political communication.

In my teaching at USQ I teach political communication in a course on environmental discourses and a course on communication, power and control.

CMS3010 Environmental Discourses:http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/CMS3010/index_frames.htm

CMS3012 Discourses & Theories of Power:http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/CMS3012/

2009 'Economics & the Limits to Growth', ACSC public forum, USQ, 4 June, 2009

2009 'Stamp scrip has worked before', Australian Financial Review, 9 February 2009
http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/CMS3010/stamp_scrip_AFR9feb09KH.pdf

2007 'The ethics of emissions', Letters, Australian Financial Review, 7 December 2007
http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/CMS3010/EmissionEthicsAFR7dec07KH.pdf

2006>ongoing Al Gore Climate Change Presenter.

I am one of 85 Australian presenters selected from 1700 applicants, trained by Al Gore in Sydney, November 2006.

I have given 42 presentations to date, including Keynote Addresses to AQNL and to ONEgroup; a $25/head breakfast forum sponsored by Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce, Australian Institute of Management, & Commerce Queensland; many presentations to community groups such as Rotary, Church, Landcare, and to government bodies such as elected Local Government Councillors, Disaster Management Groups, Department of Primary Industry Workshops, and Community Service organisations.

I adapt the content of my climate presentations to the concerns of each audience.

2006 ‘Climate Change and sustainable local transport infrastructure’ TREC (Toowoomba Region Environment Council), Australia.

2004 ‘Oil depletion & the Iraq War’, Public Meeting, Toowoomba, Australia.

2003 'Sunpower not Powerlink', Toowoomba Chronicle, 16 April 2003
http://www.usq.edu.au/course/material/CMS3010/sunpower_KH_chronicle_16apr03.pdf

2003 ‘Globalisation Forum’, Grasshouse, Woodford Folk Festival, Australia.

2002 'Design for a Changing Climate' RAIA (Royal Australian Institute of Architects), Brisbane, Australia.

1998 Guest speaker on ‘Women, ethics and abortion’ to Women on USQ Campus public forum, Toowoomba, Australia.

1998 ‘Case studies in midwifery ethics: discourses in knowledge & power’, USQ.

1998 Facilitator, ‘Women’s Health Outcome Plan: Maternity Care Workshop’, USQ, Tooowoomba, Australia.

1997 Guest speaker on ‘Gender, talk, and power’ to USQ Women on Campus public forum, Toowoomba, Australia.

1994 'Environmental ethics', panelist on public forum at USQ, Toowoomba, Australia.

1990 ‘Interactional properties and rational choice’, University of Queensland.

1988 ‘Feasibility constraints on models of minds and brains’, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Texas.

1987 Commentator on ‘The moral situation in modernity’, presented by Agnes Heller, at Rice Center for Cultural Studies Seminar Series.