PhD Candidates 
Chris Stone
In 2005 I completed a combined Arts/Law degree at the University of New England (UNE) in Armidale. The Arts component included a double major in Philosophy and Psychology as well as Honours in Psychology. Following my Honours I enrolled in a Psychology PhD part-time at UNE, but also began working at a legal research centre at the University, the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw).
My work at AgLaw has included research on improved regulatory design, enhancement of TBL reporting, and the institutional and policy aspects of systems harmonisation of irrigation. Increasingly I began to see opportunities for the application of Psychological theories to the design of environmental law.
At the same time my PhD research had become focused around a model from Experimental Existential Psychology: Terror Management Theory (TMT). This model concerns the relations that reminders of death have with a wide range of behaviours and attitudes through symbolic unconscious defence mechanisms. In studying the range of behaviours that TMT applied to, I realised the possibility that it might be relevant to compliance with environmental regulation.
At this point (late 2007) I moved to Sydney and transferred my PhD to the Centre for Environmental Law (CEL) at Macquarie University. The topic is now examining the possibilities for improving the behavioural effectiveness of environmental governance through the application of concepts from the social sciences. Although the focus is on TMT I am also reviewing a range of potential areas where social science concepts are relevant to environmental compliance decisions.
While pursuing my PhD part-time, I am still working part-time at AgLaw on irrigation system harmonisation and on regulatory behavioural effectiveness; and also providing project management for a research team examining the ramifications of a second generation biofuels industry in NSW. Additionally, I have taken up a part-time position at CEL, teaching units on Environmental Regulation and Local Government Law in 2008.
My supervisor is Professor Michael Jeffery, QC, Director of the Centre for Environmental Law, and my co-supervisor in Professor Paul Martin, Director of the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law.