Lara Brown

John Tadigiri

Lara Brown is a writer turned urbanist, who is interested in how the built environment affects and influences human behaviour. Having completed a master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Melbourne, where she wrote a thesis on how carers of disabled people experience the built environment, she now works as the outreach and communications manager at the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN). She serves on the City of Melbourne’s newly formed Design Excellence Advisory Committee as a community member, where she advocates for an inclusive, accessible, and equitable built environment, especially as this relates to disabled people and their carers. Lara hails from the United States and spent ten years in Chicago before making Melbourne her home.

Wominjeka (Welcome). We acknowledge the Yaluk-ut Weelam as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet. Yaluk-ut Weelam means ‘people of the river camp’ and is connected with the coastal land at the head of Port Phillip Bay, extending from the Werribee River to Mordialloc. The Yaluk-ut Weelam are part of the Boon Wurrung, one of the five major language groups of the greater Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to the land, their ancestors and their elders—past, present and to the future.