The Living Languages Team

Program Director - Nina Brown

For fifteen years Nina has lived and worked with Aboriginal communities and organisations across Australia. Most recently, as CEO of Warmun Community in the East Kimberley, Nina worked with the Gija council to strengthen governance and deliver programs to the local community such as aged care, early learning, youth, and municipal services.

Nina has extensive experience working with communities to develop their own strategies to achieve social and economic outcomes. Projects include a renewable energy program for remote homelands, land management work in the West Arnhem Stone Country and fixing houses with Yolngu in East Arnhem Land. Nina also collaborated with Antakirinya/Yankunytjatjara Senior Women in their five-year campaign opposing a proposed nuclear waste dump for SA.

Nina joined Living Languages as Program Director in mid-2020.

Trainer - Ebony Joachim

Ebony Joachim is a Living Languages regionally-based trainer and delivers training to support language revitalisation across Australia.

Ebony is a Yorta Yorta woman from Shepparton and is very passionate about language revitalisation. Before starting at Living Languages in 2015, Ebony team-taught her language at a local primary school in Shepparton from 2013. She also participated in RNLD/Living Languages training workshops in Shepparton, and in RNLD’s Professional Development workshops before becoming a trainer at Living Languages. In recent years, as well as her work with Living Languages, Ebony helps with language-related projects, teaching & training on country in her community.

Trainer - Amy Parncutt

Amy Parncutt is a Living Languages trainer and delivers training to support language revitalisation across Australia. Amy started out as a volunteer with Living Languages in Brisbane 2015, but moved to the cooler climes of Melbourne in early 2016 to be part of the Living Languages team.

Amy studied linguistics at the University of New England and the University of Queensland. She has worked as a linguistics tutor and research assistant at the University of Queensland, and also as a research assistant at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she helped on a project to repatriate Australian language materials to community in an accessible format.

Trainer - Andrew Tanner

Andrew Tanner is a Living Languages trainer and delivers training to support language revitalisation across Australia, and has been with the organisation since late 2016.

After many years teaching English as a second language in Australia and Russia, Andrew went back to university to linguistics at the University of Melbourne, where he researched immigrant language maintenance in Australia and worked as a Research Assistant at the School of Languages and Linguistics and PARADISEC.

Administrative Officer - Penelope Schmidt

Penelope Schmidt began working at the organisation as a volunteer back in 2015 before moving into the role of Administrative Assistant in 2016.

Penelope has a background in Linguistics, and on top of her administrative role, she compiles the quarterly newsletter and also assists with some Melbourne-based training.

Administrative Officer - Freya Scott

Freya joined Living Languages in 2016 as a volunteer, and moved into the Administrative Officer role later that year. More recently, she became our Volunteer Coordinator.

Freya has a background in Linguistics and History, and is undertaking study focusing on language revitalisation attitudes, Indigenous language rights, and language policy.