Dr Karen Malone is Professor of Childhood in the School of Education at University of Western Sydney. She is also Asia-Pacific Director of the global UNESCO-MOST Growing Up In Cities (GUIC) project that focuses on children and youth researching their quality of life. Dr Malone is also Chair of the Child Friendly Asia-Pacific network and is a member of the UNICEF Child freidnly research advisory group. In the past ten year Dr Malone has attracted over 1.4 million dollars in research grants, awards and consultancies and has published 5 books, 14 book chapters and over 40 refereed publications focusing on child friendly cities, children’s participation, children and youth environments, environmental education and sustainable development, urbanisation and globalisation, and participatory research methodologies. Her most current publication is the book Childspace. Her most recent research grants include Dapto Dreaming a project funded by urban developers Stockland and the Smith Family project: How child friendly is my community? She is currently coordinating seven international research teams in Africa and Asia in collaboration with the UK Policy Institute to replicate Hillman’s seminal project Children’s Independent Mobility.