Jule Nara is tauiwi in Aotearoa, born in Germany and raised on the coast south of Ōtepoti Dunedin, which still always feels like home. As a geographer by training, this has nurtured her holistic, place-based, and justice-oriented lens.

A strategic systems thinker, Jule is passionate about facilitating connection; connecting people with themselves, each other, and the world around them. She specialises in weaving together (sometimes disparate, sometimes tangled, and always complex) threads of people, ideas, and experiences, to create shared visions, and pathways towards those visions.

Her experience spans across governance, facilitation, education, research, policy, and project management. Jule has worked in these capacities in community-led development, youth development, mental health and social work, climate change adaptation, civic participation, outdoor education, and science communication. She is particularly interested in citizen engagement and participation, with a focus on climate adaptation and planning.

In the final stages of completing her PhD, she is exploring the role of community development in shaping responses to climate change in places that have been named vulnerable.

Jule finds joy in learning; her garden, family and friends, and the mountains and oceans and forests, are her most treasured teachers. She has lived and worked in South Dunedin over the last 8 years, and is always planning her next adventures.