ECIC Adjunct Fellows

Mr Peter Croser

CEO of the Defence Systems Innovation Centre (DSIC) since 19 April 2010, a Joint Venture between Adelaide University and UniSA.   DSIC focuses on core and relevant capabilities in Systems Engineering, Systems Integration, Communications and Network Engineering, and specific applications for complex projects.

Peter is an experienced CEO and leader in Industry, and is a Chartered Practicing Engineer. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at ECIC. Peter is also the Deputy Chairman at Foundation Daw Park, which supports world-class medical research and patient care for veterans.

During the period 2008 to 2009, Peter was the Head of Engineering for the AEW&C (Wedgetail) project at BAE Systems in Edinburgh, South Australia. Peter was the Electronic Warfare and Simulation Group Technical Authority, Design Engineer Authority for BAE Systems Australia.

Awarded “Professional Engineer of the Year in SA” for 2006. During that period, Peter was the Managing Director of Gibbs & Cox Australia Pty Ltd, developing one option for the RAN Air Warfare Destroyer design.

Peter was the Head of Industry Division within the Australian Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) from 2004 to February 2006, responsible for Defence Acquisition relationship between the Australian Defence Department and France, USA, UK, Italy, Sweden, Italy, New Zealand and Canada.

Managing Director of CEA Technologies Pty Ltd until 31 March 2004 having joined the company in 1988. Peter served as a marine engineer officer in the Royal Australian Navy.

Doctor Alex Gorod

Alex Gorod is the Founder and Managing Member at SystemicNet, LLC in New York. He is also a Partner at ITNET Management, LLC and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Adelaide. Previously, Alex served as a Research Analyst in Systems Engineering at Salomon Smith Barney. He has 10 years of experience in design, development and management of complex systems, and has contributed to over 20 peer-reviewed publications.

Alex is a recipient of the Fabrycky-Blanchard Award for Excellence in Systems Engineering Research and Robert Crooks Stanley Doctoral Fellowship in Engineering Management.

Alex received a BS in Information Systems and an MS in Telecommunications from Pace University, and a PhD in Engineering Management from Stevens Institute of Technology. He conducted his postdoctoral research in the Systomics Laboratory at Stevens.

Mr Karlson ‘Charlie’ Hargroves

Charlie is the Sustainable Development Fellow at ECIC. After graduating from the University of Adelaide in 2000, and spending two years as a practicing civil/structural design engineer, Charlie co-founded ‘The Natural Edge Project’ (TNEP), an internationally recognised Sustainability Think-Tank. In 2005 Charlie was seconded from TNEP as the founding CEO of Natural Capitalism Inc, supporting the founder Hunter Lovins and based in Boulder Colorado, working with clients such as the Chicago Climate Exchange. TNEP's mission is to ‘contribute to, and succinctly communicate, leading research, case studies, tools and strategies for achieving sustainable development across government, business and civil society’. The TNEP flagship collaborative book, ‘The Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovation and Governance in the 21st Century’ (Earthscan) was awarded the Australian Banksia Award for Environmental Leadership, Education and Training in 2005. TNEP’s two most recent collaborative books have been ranked among the ‘Top 40 Sustainability Books’ in the world in 2010 by the Cambridge Sustainability Leaders Program (with ‘Cents and Sustainability’ ranked 5th and ‘Factor 5’ ranked 12th).

Initially incubated by The Institution of Engineers Australia (2002-2006), and including a 12 month visiting scholar position to the University of Colorado, Boulder (Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering), the research program moved to be hosted by Griffith University and the Australian National University in 2007. As part of the collaborative partnership model the team moved to QUT, University of Adelaide, and Curtin University in 2011.

Since the founding of TNEP Charlie has led over 3 million dollars of research grants and has achieved an average of 3 HERDC publication points per year. Charlie has delivered numerous high level keynote presentations and guest lectures at events and forums around the world, and has co-facilitated with the TNEP team numerous seminars and workshops on sustainable development.

Professor Walter Van Niekerk

Short bio coming soon.

Mr Simon Williams

Simon is the former CEO of Uni SA's commercialisation company Itek and is currently the State Manager for the Australian Institute of Commercialisation. He has held positions as the director of 6 different companies and was the founder of 3 start-up companies. Currently he is the president of the ECIC Alumni Chapter of the University of Adelaide. His initial profession was in fact accountancy.