Dr Dan Tyson has been appoint­ed as the new chief exec­u­tive of Desert Knowl­edge Aus­tralia. Dr Tyson replaces out­go­ing CEO Lau­ren Gan­ley, who served in the role for two years.

Based at the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct in Alice Springs, DKA is a nation­al not-for-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that encour­ages learn­ing, research and sus­tain­able socioe­co­nom­ic devel­op­ment in desert and remote Australia. 

Dr Tyson has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in pub­lic health research, Abo­rig­i­nal health and Abo­rig­i­nal eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and has worked at the exec­u­tive lev­el in not-for-prof­it, gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tors. Most recent­ly he has been based in Kather­ine, where he was the CEO of Sun­rise Health Ser­vice Abo­rig­i­nal Cor­po­ra­tion. Sun­rise is an Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty-con­trolled health ser­vice that pro­vides com­pre­hen­sive pri­ma­ry health care to nine remote com­mu­ni­ties in south­ern Arn­hem land. 

Dr Tyson is descend­ed from the Yiran­dali peo­ple of the Hugh­en­den region of Queens­land, and his qual­i­fi­ca­tions include a PhD in med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy. Describ­ing him­self as hav­ing an affin­i­ty for the dry inland, Dr. Tyson looks for­ward to liv­ing in Alice Springs and lead­ing DKA as it con­tin­ues its work on desert lead­er­ship, dig­i­tal inno­va­tion, desert research and renew­able energy.

“I am par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in how desert Abo­rig­i­nal and non-Abo­rig­i­nal knowl­edges can com­bine to cre­ate an intel­lec­tu­al cap­i­tal resource to pro­vide sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and social ben­e­fits to our society.”

“Cen­tral Aus­tralia is a place of vast geo­graph­ic, topo­graph­ic and bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty – after all, inland Aus­tralia has sup­port­ed Indige­nous peo­ple and econ­o­my for thou­sands of years,” he said.

DKA Chair Chris Fry enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly wel­comed Dr Tyson to the role on behalf of DKA’s staff and board.

“Dan’s con­sid­er­able skills will strength­en DKA’s work to advo­cate for the desert and its peo­ple. Giv­en his expe­ri­ence in the not-for-prof­it, gov­ern­ment, and pri­vate sec­tors, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, Dan has a lot to bring to the organisation.”

Dr Tyson com­mences at DKA on Mon­day 15 July.