Nyssa Millington is an accredited financial counsellor with experience providing crisis services and a great interest in the potential good of broader financial education services and consumer advocacy. Nyssa has an interesting vocational history from studying and working in computer programming followed by a range of business support services through to financial counselling and money coaching.

Fran Grant is a Yuin woman, educator, and advocate with vocational experiences as an early childhood educator and classroom teacher and frontline roles in the airline industry. During her time in the airline industry Fran was Chair of Daramu, QANTAS' Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employee network.

An introduction to the Irish sport hurling with Richard Bromhead aka Bromy who coaches a kids' team in Dublin.  This conversation covers some of the history and contemporary culture of hurling and a discussion of the skills that are required to do well at hurling from an early age and beyond.

Ariana Morgenstern is Executive Producer of Music at radio station KCRW in Los Angeles where she leads the station's music curation and works on live events and other special projects. Joining KCRW as a volunteer in 1983, Ariana went on to become producer of the signature music program Morning Becomes Eclectic from 1984–2015. With a commitment to public radio and the station's wider community, Ariana is motivated by helping to grow the culture of LA through her life's work at KCRW.

Andy Scerri from the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech is a Fulbright Scholar with research interests in environmental political theory and policy. Some of his research looks at the tensions that have emerged between labor movements and environmental movements, and what these tensions mean for democracy. This conversation also covers some of Andy's earlier experiences working in the building and construction industry and following music on his travels before going on to academic studies.

Danielle Ponter is winner of the NAIDOC Sportsperson Award. Danielle advocates for more opportunities for Aboriginal players in the AFLW and cares deeply about helping the next generation. As a guest on the Wide Open Air Exchange, Danielle made time to honour her Uncle Michael Long who was awarded the NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award. The conversation covers some of Danielle's story of playing club football in Darwin from age eleven against older girls, and going on to become a star player for the Adelaide Crows where she has won two premierships. Since joining the Crows in 2019, Danielle has played 72 games and kicked 82 goals and she holds the record as the leading goal kicker of the AFLW competition.

Professor Eddie Cubillo is winner of the 2025 NAIDOC Education Award, and he kindly spoke with the Wide Open Air Exchange program about his reaction to the award in the context of the ongoing problems he sees as an educator and academic, lawyer and advocate.

Blak Brews is winner of the 2025 National NAIDOC Innovation Award. Entrepreneur Troy Benjamin is co-founder of the premium tea business together with his wife Cerisa Benjamin.

Dr Liz Giuffre is an Associate Professor of Media and Journalism at UTS and shares some of her approach to higher education teaching. Liz is a music journalist and commentator who has been writing for street papers and the online versions for many years and is a regular contributor to ABC radio. As an academic, Liz researches popular music and popular cultures and has taught music and sound design, journalism, and communications. Liz is co-host of the podcast and radio program Music Mothers and Others with Shelley Brunt which you can hear on 2SER 107.3FM on Mondays at 730pm AEST.

Rhonda Davis shares her approach to art curation ahead of the exhibition Eric Smith: The metaphysics of paint which is on at the Macquarie University Art Gallery from June 18th to August 1st 2025. Rhonda is Senior Curator of the gallery and its collection with 25 years of experience.

Fran Grant is an educator, advocate and Yuin woman who is on a journey of learning about her family as the child of a Stolen Child, her father. Fran is planning PhD research informed by her own experience of using DNA to explore family connections. Fran is a lecturer at UTS and Director of Koori Education offering cultural consultancy services.

A conversation about Western Sydney Literature and Working Class Literature with creative writer Emma O’Neill-Sandham who is a PhD researcher at the University of Sydney. Emma's research and creative writing are in part informed by her own life experiences in Western Sydney. This episode features Emma reading parts of her creative nonfiction piece 'The Salon' set in her mother's home hair salon. Emma is interested in stories that are told from Western Sydney cultural perspectives, and her research is spotlighting the creative works of other writers from the western suburbs. Part of Emma's doctoral research is exploring working class and Western Sydney themes through a novel she is writing as a creative practice part of her PhD. Among other milestones Emma has been awarded a Varuna Fellowship, a Western Sydney Emerging Writers Fellowship, and a Master of Creative Writing qualification from Macquarie University.

Dr Benjamin Pope is an Associate Professor in Statistical Data Science at Macquarie University at the Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre. Since being awarded a DPhil in Astrophysics from the University of Oxford, Ben has been a NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow and an ARC Decra Fellow among other accomplishments. Ben is active in public science communication and other meaningful civil society engagement. This is a great introduction to concepts related to Astrostatistics and Astrophysics and data science, This is a great introduction to concepts related to Astrostatistics and Astrophysics and data science, and Ben's approach of combining flexible statistical models with rigorous physical models. There are discussions of astronomical imaging, philosophy of science debates in statistical inference reasoning, and some history of radio astronomy in Australia including the pioneering work of Ruby Payne-Scott.

Associate Professor Kathomi Gatwiri has led the development of a Racial Dignity Framework informed by her academic research and clinical practice as a psychotherapist. Dr Gatwiri is an Afro-diasporic scholar, an ARC DECRA Fellow at Southern Cross University, and founder and director of Healing Together Psychotherapy.

In a career spanning 25 years, Clint Drieberg has worked across radio and television in production, presenting and management roles, and as a showbiz reporter and entertainment interviewer. Clint shares family influences and the story of his entry into media along with insights into navigating life as a media specialist and his approach to leadership as a radio program director. We also go behind the scenes of The Graham Norton Show when Clint was invited on set to interview Graham.

An introduction to swing dancing with discussions of Lindy Hop and Balboa and other styles including Shag. Michael Jones has been involved in the Sydney swing scene for more than twenty years and participates in events around the world, particularly for Balboa these days.

Haydee Rojas-Judd is a senior lawyer with an impressive approach to being a lifelong learner. Haydee has a Diploma of Counselling and is part way through a Bachelor of Health Science (Acupuncture Therapies) motivated by her love of learning. She had also taken singing lessons for a few years as a way to challenge herself. This conversation will be of interest to you if you're starting out in your vocational life, if you're considering a mid-career change, or if you're looking for inspiration to learn for non-vocational reasons.

This week's episode features three vocational stories by Brigit Busicchia. These were originally produced for a radio segment called 'What Job is That?' on Brigit's Thursday Drive program on 2SER 107.3FM Sydney. This episode features the voices of Tugboat Master Andy Wilson, Activist Liz Millen, and Philosopher Simon Lumsden.

An insight into what is horology and the training and apprenticeships system in Australia. Oliver Broos Revitt trained in Australia and followed with qualifications from the American Watch and Clockmakers Institute and the British Horological Institute. He now runs his own watch repairs business, OBR Horology in Adelaide.

Dr Anne Casey is an internationally acclaimed poet from west Clare in Ireland. Throughout this conversation, Anne kindly reads and introduces several of her poems and shares insights from her academic research. Anne Casey's doctoral research was on 'The second-wave impact in Australia of the Great Irish Famine: reviving lost histories through poetics of resistance'. We hear about some of Anne's archival research and her own family history that evidence British colonial atrocities in Ireland. Anne's poetry also vividly takes us to her seaside hometown on the Atlantic coastline of west Clare, showing her strong connections to place and culture