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Michael Hauptman, MBA, MEngSci, has conducted walking tours of the Sydney CBD for over 15 years.  He is a keen amateur historian with a passion for studying the late 1800s and early 1900s, when so much of our modern world took shape.

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Peter Headley, MA, BA has had a career mainly in the export sector globally covering over 40 years in fields such as food processing, renewable energy, environment management and Trade Commissioner Service. Since his retirement he has been giving lectures at WEA since 2012 and also to outside groups such as U3A, Probus and as a lecturer with Princess Cruises since 2008.  He has had a life long interest in history and cultures, and his talks reflect this interest and good fortune in visiting and researching many of his talks on site. He has an engaging presentational style and encourages audience participation/contribution. Notably his presentations contain a  higher pictorial/media content than what might be normally encountered. Peter aims to not only educate his audience and to bring alive the times and subject of his talk, but to inspire an ongoing interest by his audience.

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Marie Heinrich, PhD, MM, enjoys a lively career as a music researcher, educator, and performer. She earned her doctorate in music from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, where she specialised in intercultural music mediation and developed a system to help musicians learn music authentically from other cultures. Recent engagements include lectures and performances in Brisbane, Sydney, and London's Royal Academy of Music.

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Jo Henwood, BA (Libr Sc), Tourism III Cert, Grad Dip Mus St, Grad Cert (Gifted Ed), M Cult Her, has done most of her teaching outside schools - museum education, gifted education, tour guiding, workshops in creative writing and storytelling, conference presentations, and over fifteen years with WEA.  The core of all her work is storytelling and she is an Accredited Storyteller with Australian Storytellers, an Accredited Professional Guide with the Institute of Australian Tour Guides, and a Wikipedia Editor. Jo is the Australian Fairy Tale Society researcher and co founder, and winner of the 2022 Australian Fairy Tale Society Award.  She was chosen to deliver the WEA 2021 George Shipp Lecture, and to mentor international storytellers in heritage sites for FEAST, the Federation of Asian Storytellers.  Her workshops are story-rich and chatty, her PowerPoints are filled with images not words, and her tours are full of historical anecdotes. Jo relishes discovering fascinating new stories in history and literature and sharing these discoveries with her students.

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David Hirsch graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada with an honours arts degree (BA Phil), and honours degrees in common law (LLB) and civil law (BCL). He came to Australia in 1989 with a scholarship from Sydney University Law School and worked as a solicitor from 1992 before becoming a barrister in 2005. He specialised in medical law and has lectured to medical and legal audiences throughout Australia. David has a wide general knowledge of law and enjoys teaching. He taught a postgraduate course in law and coached a high school mock trial team for 10 years. David is recently retired and keen to share his knowledge and insights of 40+ years in law.

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Cavan Hogue’s academic qualifications come from the University of Sydney (BA), and Macquarie University (Master of Applied Linguistics). For two years, he was a Fellow at the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard (1975/6). After retiring from his diplomatic career, highlighted by several Ambassadorships, his career in academia has included the Directorship of the National Thai Studies Centre at ANU, Adjunct Professorship at UTS (International Studies Institute) and Adjunct Professor in International Communication, Faculty of Arts, Macquarie university, where he taught both graduate and undergraduate programs.

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Christopher Horder is an acclaimed painter with over 25 years of experience painting and exhibiting. He holds an Honours degree in Painting from the National Art School and has showcased his artwork in solo and group exhibitions worldwide. He has over 20 years teaching experience, making his classes enjoyable, informative, practical and unique. He has achieved recognition for his talent, including being a finalist in the Brett Whitley Travelling Arts Scholarship and The Dobell Drawing Prize, and winning the Mosman Emerging Artist Award, among other prizes. Currently, he is working on his fourth solo show at Nanda/Hobbs Gallery.

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Arafat Hosen is a visual artist and educator with over sixteen years of teaching experience in the field of visual arts, including the past year in community education in Sydney. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Master of Arts in Fine Arts, with a specialisation in Drawing and Painting. His areas of expertise include drawing, painting, portraiture, and sketching, with a current focus on watercolour as a primary medium of artistic expression. Arafat has held four solo painting exhibitions and has participated in numerous group exhibitions both nationally and internationally.Arafat views art as a universal language - transcending linguistic and national boundaries - and teaching as a meaningful socio-cultural exchange. Through his pedagogy, he emphasises the importance of shared values, mutual understanding, and the transformative power of creative education. His current practice in watercolour painting reflects a meditative approach to art making, embracing the unpredictability and fluidity of the medium. For him, watercolour becomes a metaphor for navigating uncertainty, where the process of letting go reveals the dynamic interplay of colour, emotion, and technique.

Website: https://www.arafathosen.com/

 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arafatgdm/

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Paul Howles, BA PhD, has taught at WEA for over five years. Majoring in ancient history, Near Eastern archaeology, and science, Paul is passionate about both the ancient world of the eastern Mediterranean and the field of modern molecular biology. He endeavours to educate students by not only his lecturing style, but by the provision of handout notes. Paul believes that enthusiasm for a subject is necessary to engage students.

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Anna, MA, BA, Dip Ed, is from Barcelona and she has a bachelor's degree in Classic Philology and two masters of education, one of them about Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language. She has taught Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish (among others) for over 18 years and, she has taught at the WEA since 2021.  Her main interest is the education and transmission of modern and ancient languages. She loves to transmit her passion for these fascinating languages and create an engagement with students to develop fun classes where everyone can learn and enjoy at the same time.