John Byron has worked in higher education, science and research policy for well over twenty-five years. He was senior ministerial adviser on science and research in the previous Labor Government, and has also been Dean of Research and Graduate Studies for Humanities at Curtin University, Executive Director of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Secretary of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations. He worked on the recent review of the Australian Research Council, seeing reform through to legislation, notably the removal of the Ministerial veto. He’s written countless submissions, articles and speeches on higher education and research policy, and served on numerous government and sector boards, panels and committees. John is a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences and an independent board member of ACCESS-NRI. He won the Sir Kerr Grant prize in Astronomy on his way to first-class honours in Arts from the University of Adelaide, and earned his PhD at the University of Sydney for a thesis on Blade Runner and The Matrix. His debut novel, The Tribute, was published by Affirm Press in 2021.