Hello, I am Dr Annes Elsa Francis.

I am a trained engineer and a researcher.

I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from India. My first construction site was a hospital building built by removing a part of a rainforest. The thoughtless destruction I saw shaped my interest in sustainability and environmentally conscious development. So, in my next job, I spent months with the community raising awareness on environmental protection.

Saddened by the 2015 Chennai floods, I came to Australia to pursue my Master's degree in Environmental Engineering and Pollution Control at Griffith University. As my thesis, I investigated the challenge of marine plastic pollution, exploring drivers, impacts, and system-wide interventions.

In 2018, while I was doing my post-graduation, my home back in Kerala faced the worst flood in nearly a century, killing 483 people and evacuating about a million. At the same time, my second home, Australia, experienced one of its highest temperatures, followed by devastating bushfires. Both incidents showed me the power and perseverance of local communities in survival.

So, today, I dream of a world where we need fewer engineers, but communities with collective resilience.

I dream of a world where we build less, but with more purpose and thoughtfulness. Less, but more adapting, regenerating and enduring.

Therefore, I did a PhD to combine my love for buildings, people and the environment.

Emerging from my love for football (soccer), I consider stadiums as unique buildings with huge potential to influence thousands of people and the wider built environment industry with their scale, visibility and investment.

I used my research "Transforming stadiums into environmentally sustainable community infrastructure” to understand the simple but important things that shape environmental and social sustainability outcomes in stadium design, construction and operation. Now I am building on these foundations to influence and inform future stadium and other social infrastructure developments to bring long-term benefits to communities and the planet. As a resident of Brisbane, my focus now is on the Brisbane 2032 Olympics and the communities of Brisbane.