About me

Hi,
I’m Brett Parris – welcome to Epektasis. I have spent the last 30 years working on the interactions between economic development, environmental sustainability, climate change, social justice and spirituality and I’m excited now to be integrating these areas in a new venture.
My academic training is in science, theology, development studies, economics, Indian religion, and spiritual direction, with a PhD in economics from Monash University and an MPhil in Classical Indian Religion from Oxford University. I worked for the aid agency World Vision for 15 years from 1995-2010, including four years coordinating World Vision International’s economic policy work and two years coordinating its climate change policy work. From 2010 to 2012 I lectured in complex systems approaches to economics at Monash University and was a lecturer in Deakin University’s Master of International and Community Development programme. At Deakin I taught economic development, microfinance, aid and trade. I worked as Senior Economist with the Australian Conservation Foundation from 2012 to 2013 before founding Epektasis in 2014. In 2016 I worked as an Interdisciplinary Research Coordinator at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute and trained as a yoga teacher before coming to Oxford University where I completed an MPhil in Classical Indian Religion in July 2018. In 2019 I began a DPhil in Theology & Religion at Oxford, focused on religious ethics, specifically the metaethics of some of the traditions that contributed to the evolution of yoga. Why go back to study after all this time? For two reasons: First, to help me better understand the diversity of Hindu and Buddhist worldviews and their approaches to important problems like poverty, human rights, women’s rights and sustainability. And second, out of a personal interest in yoga and spirituality. In 2019 I also worked as a Research Fellow with the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership – a partnership between Deakin University and Save the Children, and have previously also been a board member of The Interfaith Centre of Melbourne.