Prof Lyn Carson is a professorial Fellow with the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy at the University of Western Sydney. Prior to that, she was Academic Program Director in the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

For over a decade she taught in the Dept of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney on topics relating to public administration, citizen engagement and deliberative democracy.

Prof Carson is on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Deliberation and is its essay editor. She was involved in convening or facilitating Australia’s first Consensus Conference, Australia’s first two Deliberative Polls, Australia’s first Citizens’ Parliament, numerous Citizens’ Juries and Community Summits and a host of other public engagements related to public exploration and improvement at local, state and national levels.

Her introduction to formal politics and the challenges of active citizenship began in the early 1990 as a local councillor in Lismore, NSW.