Speakers

As an informative and entertaining forum dedicated to the advancement of diving knowledge, presenters at OZTeK2013 will again include many of the world's foremost authorities in their respective fields of diving expertise.

Featuring one of the largest gatherings of diving celebrities ever seen in this region of the world, information on speakers will be regularly added to this section.

Organisations and individuals who are interested in giving presentations at the Conference are invited to contact the organisor at: admin@diveoztek.com.au

        Speakers listed alphabetically by surname

Samir Alhafith

Founder and team leader of the, The Sydney Project - an association of technical divers involved in researching and discovering important historical wrecks in depths between 75 and 135 metres more...

Liam Allen

Liam Allen learned to dive in the fresh water lakes of the Irish Midlands and grew up exploring the dive sites of the rugged west coast of Ireland. Moving to Sydney in 1997 he decided to make a full time career out of diving where he actively worked teaching recreational diving for many years. more...

Assoc Professor Terri Allen

Terri is still a keen Melbourne diver after learning to dive while at Melbourne University, in the early 80's while she studied for a Zoology degree. Most weekends - when she is not busy teaching diving - Terri is happy mixing it with the boys diving on trimix to the deep wrecks in Melbourne's more...

Leigh Bishop

Due to circumstances beyond his control, Leigh Bishop will not be in a position to attend OZTeK2013 as a speaker. An enormously popular, informative and entertaining presenter at several previous OZTeK’s, Leigh is also the co-founder – together with the late Carl Spencer - of the successful EuroTeK Conferences. more...

Matt Carter

Matt dived his first shipwreck at the age of 16 and was instantly hooked. This passion saw him complete a Graduate Diploma in Maritime archaeology in 2007, followed by a Master of Arts in archaeology at the University of Otago, New Zealand the following year. more...

Craig Challen

A Perth Veterinary Surgeon by profession, Craig Challen is an avid cave diver and explorer and member of the Wet Mules dive team. more...

Steve Cox

Steve began technical diving the late 1990's after a work assignment brought him to the Philippines. The opportunity to dive the many WWII wrecks in the country pushed him to learn the skills required to fully explore the underwater history in his backyard. more...

John Dalla-Zuanna

John Dalla-Zuanna completed a diving course in 1973 and began Cavediving in that same year after a club trip to Mt. Gambier. more...

Kevin Deacon

Kevin Deacon is considered one of Australia's most experienced, accomplished and highly published underwater photographers. His images have received international acclaim and have graced the pages of prestigious books and magazines throughout the World during the past 30 years. more...

Dr. Andrew Fock

Andrew began diving in 1988, during his intern year, as a member of a University based club. This spurred an interest in Diving Medicine (and a love of diving ship wrecks) more...

John Garvin

John has been diving since 1990 and is recognized as one of the world's leading technical diving instructors. He specializes in teaching closed circuit rebreathers and in 2005 was invited to write the Inspiration/Evolution training manual for Technical Diving International. more...

Max Gleeson

Max Gleeson's interest in diving began with spear fishing in 1965. Completing a dive course in 1974 he continued both interests, diving in one form or another most weekends. more...

Kevin Gurr

Kevin Gurr was the first Technical Diving Instructor outside of the USA and is an IT at all levels. He was the first engineer to develop an EANx dive computer in the late 1980, is the co-author of Proplanner Decompression software more...

Dr Richard Harris

Richard Harris (or Dr Harry as he is better known), is an Adelaide based tech diver and underwater photographer. To pay for this expensive addiction he works as an anaesthetist and hyperbaric physician! more...

Paul Haynes

Paul first learned to dive in a professional capacity during 1990 whilst serving in the UK Royal Marine Commandos and quickly developed a passion for the sports side of diving. Following a move into other branches of the armed forces in the early 1990s more...

Jill Heinerth

A pioneering underwater explorer and film maker, Jill Heinerth has dived deeper into caves than any woman in history. With a collection of magnificent images, from inside Antarctic icebergs to crystal underwater cathedrals more...

Lamar Hires

Lamar Hires is a modern day explorer and dive pioneer. He has spent over twenty five years exploring and surveying the extensive underwater cave systems near his home in north central Florida. A legend among Florida cave divers, Lamar is known for his expertise in sidemount diving. more...

Paul Hosie

Paul is a Perth based caving and cave diving explorer. He has had a passion for caves since he was a young fellow. In 1997, this passion for caving collided with his love of scuba diving and spawned his rebirth as a qualified cave diver. more...

Dr Tom Iliffe

Dr. Tom Iliffe is a Professor of Marine Biology and Director of the Marine Biospeleology Lab at Texas A&M University at Galveston. Prior to coming to Texas in 1989, Tom was a Research Scientist at the Bermuda Biological Station more...

Brian Kakuk

Brian Kakuk is the Founder/Director of the Bahamas Caves Research Foundation and co-owner/operator of Bahamas Underground Technical Diving Facility more...

Richard Lundgren

Richard Lundgren has worked as a diver professionally around the world for more than 20 years. He's been fortunate to have participated in many sensational exploration projects such as HMHS Britannic, sister ship of the RMS Titanic more...

Rod Macdonald

Rod is a well known Scottish technical diver and diving author specialising in shipwreck - with 5 books to his name to date and two more on the way. He lives in Stonehaven, a small historic Scottish fishing town nestling in a sheltered bay just to the south of Aberdeen, a coastline littered with wartime wrecks. more...

Warrick McDonald

Introduced to SCUBA diving in 1961 on a Dutch Navy twin-set, Warrick McDonald retains his undiminished enthusiasm for an activity that has dominated his life. more...

Casey McKinlay

As an avid and passionate underwater explorer since 1989, Casey McKinlay has been part of numerous expeditions to explore and document some of the planets most remote and challenging landscapes including flooded cave systems, virgin ocean reefs and historic shipwrecks. more...

Michael Menduno

Michael is a reporter, writer and technologist who was responsible for coining the term "technical diving." His work has appeared in Asian Diver, Business 2.0, Bloomberg Finance, DIVER, NACD Journal, Newsweek, Outside, Scientific American, Scuba Times, Undercurrent, Undersea Journal, Wired and X-Ray magazines. more...

Pete Mesley

Pete's passion for diving started in the cold English waters over 21 years ago. This is where his "Lust for Rust" was created and from then onwards he has dedicated himself to researching, finding, diving and photographing wrecks. more...

Associate Professor Simon Mitchell

Simon is an anaesthesiologist and diving physician. His diving career has spanned many disciplines including sport, scientific, commercial, and military diving. He remains an avid diver, and uses rebreathers to pursue his interest in deep wrecks and photography. more...

Martin Parker

Managing Director of Ambient Pressure Diving, (manufacturers of the Inspiration and Evolution rebreathers) and A P Valves, (manufacturers of the Buddy range of buoyancy compensators). Martin developed the Buddy range of jackets as well as some of the associated valving more...

Simon Pridmore

Simon Pridmore is a former Hong Kong Police Officer and Assistant Political Adviser to the Governor of Hong Kong. Over the last 15 years, he has been at the sharp end of the scuba diving scene in Asia, Europe and the USA. more...

Paul Raymaekers

Hailing from Belgium, Paul Raymaekers has an engineering degree in electro-mechanics as well as a degree in industrial Management. more...

Ben Reymenants

Ben Reymenants was born in 1973 in Belgium. At an early age he was already interested in extreme outdoor sports. He is a survival expert, rock climbing, skiing, sailing and most obvious a technical diving and recreational diving Instructor.more...

Lance Robb

Lance Robb started diving in the early 1970's and has remained an avid diver throughout the years. Like many others, Lance's passion started as a snorkeler and his first SCUBA dive was on a homemade set made of WWII bomber oxygen tanks back when SCUBA systems were not readily available and very expensive. more...

Martin Robson

Martin, a former Royal Marine Commando, began diving with the military in his late teens. He is now one of the best qualified Tec Diving Instructor Trainers in the world, teaching courses with PADI, IANTD both both of the major Cave Diver training agencies, NACD and NSS-CDS. more...

Liz Rogers

Liz Rogers is a second generation cave diver and underwater cave photographer, with an interest in expedition and exploration photography. Since learning to dive at 14 and becoming an Advanced Cave diver at 21, Liz has taken underwater photographs in caves across Australia. more...

Dave Ross

Dave's professional diving began in 1991 as a Divemaster, then Instructor with Asia Divers in the Philippines. Technical diving crept into the country in 1995 courtesy of Alex Santos, the founder of IANTD Philippines more...

Dr Mark Spencer

Mark's professional background is dentistry. He was in private dental practice in Sydney's Macquarie Street for some 20 years before moving up to Coffs Harbour with his wife Becca Saunders in 2005. Mark now practises general dentistry part-time in Coffs Harbour. more...

Peter Szyszka

Peter Szyszka is among the elite of diving professionals worldwide having achieved Instructor Trainer status with 6 training agencies - PADI Course Director, TDI Instructor Trainer for all courses including Trimix, DSAT Trimix Instructor Trainer more...