Our passion is to help people think more clearly and critically, and we are happy to work with anyone. While we are based in Canberra, we work flexibly and can come to you. Please get in touch if you want to know more, or just have a chat.
Principals
Dr Ryan Young
Ryan combines a passion for philosophy, logic and rigour in decision making with deep experience in the public service and consulting roles. He is committed to new and creative approaches to learning, problem solving and policy design that work for us as humans in our current work environments.
He brings a highly diverse background to his work. He has taught philosophy, logic and analytic methods at three different universities. He worked in a diverse range of roles in the public service, from grant management and program delivery through to strategic policy and constitutional advice.
Most recently, he built the NSC Futures Hub at ANU into a national centre of excellence in foresighting and long term thinking. In this role, he has lead professional development courses for hundreds of people across many agencies, facilitated and structured policy projects or workshops for dozens of clients across many different jurisdictions and sectors.
Ryan writes Humble Knowledge on Substack and can be contacted at ryan@queritas.com.au
Dr John Shellard
John is a political philosopher by background with a deep interest in ethics and moral theory, particularly how identities and fundamental beliefs frame the way we engage with the world and each other.
He completed his doctoral studies exploring the nature of the arguments that have shaped religious toleration in Australian. This work analysed and developed approaches to manage the deep conflicts and tensions that arise from difference in belief and identity and the impacts of the resulting social and political systems on different groups.
He has worked professionally for many years at the interface between academia, government and industry, in a range project management, business development and delivery roles. He is an experienced presenter and facilitator and has taught into history, entrepreneurship, ethics, political theory and philosophy. He can be contacted at john@queritas.com.au
Associate
Sean Innis
Sean is a public policy expert and writer. He is an Honorary Fellow at ANU, an Adjunct Fellow at UNSW and Chair of Public Policy at the think tank, ADC Forum. He writes a regular column for the online journal, The Mandarin.
Sean’s passion is to help people and organisations bring a deeper layer of thinking and practical strategy
into how they approach tricky policy, delivery and organisational issues. He feels excited and privileged to be associated with Queritas.
Sean was inaugural Director of the ANU Public Policy and Societal Impact Hub and was Special Adviser to Australia’s Productivity Commission. Before escaping to the (ahem) real world Sean had a 15-year senior executive career in the Australian Public Service which covered almost all aspects of public policy. As a sole-trading consultant, Sean provided bespoke services to a range of government departments and agencies.
In his early working life, Sean was an average university tutor and very average bank teller. Both experiences taught him a lot about the world.
Sean plays guitar to the ongoing annoyance and occasional delight of his family.
Associate
Dr Deane-Peter Baker
Deane is a philosopher and ethicist who has taught at universities on three different continents. He specialises in ethics, with a focus on military ethics and has also published work on public policy, epistemology, and philosophy of religion.
In response to the Brereton report, Deane was selected by Australia’s Special Operations Command to design and develop the command’s ethics education and training response. He also served as a panellist on the International Panel on the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons (IPRAW) and and convened ‘The Canberra Group’, an independent and international group of scholars and practitioners who together developed the international ‘Guiding Principles for the Development and Use of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems’. In the second half of 2024 he will be a joint visiting scholar with the UK Special Forces Training Command and the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.