Dr Sheridan Coakes
Australia

Dr Sheridan Coakes is the founder and Director of Coakes Consulting, a specialised social impact consultancy operating in Australia. Sheridan has 20 years research and applied experience in the areas of SIA and community involvement within a resource management and development planning context.

Building on her work in developing and implementing the SIA program for the Australian Regional Forest Agreement process for the Commonwealth Government in the late 1990s, Sheridan has developed a participatory approach to SIA and stakeholder engagement practice that has been applied in numerous large scale and controversial public and private sector projects, in the areas of forestry, quarrying and sand mining, on-shore and off-shore oil and gas, open cut and underground mining and waste management.

With a PhD in the area of Community Psychology from Curtin University in Western Australia, Sheridan has developed and implemented a number of innovative SIA methodologies to describe, analyse and address social, economic and community health impacts.