Kerime Danis, a Turkish Australian, is a trained architect and heritage consultant with over 40 years’ experience in heritage conservation and architecture in both Australia and Türkiye. She leads the heritage team at City Plan, a Sydney-based company, working with a range of public and private sector clients. She is also actively involved in developing sound conservation philosophy and practice, as well as guidelines, both nationally and internationally. She provides extensively peer reviews and acts as an expert witness in the Land & Environment Court of NSW.
An active and influential member of ICOMOS since early 2000s, Kerime contributes to increasing knowledge and sharing the principles of heritage best practice. She also shares her expertise in heritage conservation, mentorship, climate change, sustainability, heritage resilience in the face of disaster and conflict, carbon reduction, heritage charters, and Caring for Country with like-minded professionals and indigenous communities.
In 2024, Kerime was elected President of the ICOMOS Advisory Committee (AdCom) for a three-year mandate, following her election as an AdCom Officer in 2023 and her voluntary work with the AdCom since 2015. She has been involved in the development of various toolkits and the monitoring of ICOMOS Committee compliance, as well as mentoring Emerging Professionals, including the ICOMOS Responsible Practice Guide and Toolkit, ICOMOS Carbon Reduction Strategy, and the Triennial Scientific Plan 2024–2027 – Disaster and Conflict Resilient Heritage: Preparedness, Response, Recovery.
Kerime is a past President of Australia ICOMOS and was one of the overseers and signatories of the 2013 revision of the Burra Charter. She is also the current President of ICOMOS ICIP (the International Scientific Committee for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites) and member of the Coordinating Group of the National Scientific Committee for Intangible Cultural Heritage. She is also an expert member of several other ICOMOS Scientific Committees, including those for Shared Built Heritage, Energy & Sustainability, and Cultural Landscapes.
Kerime has been actively involved with ICOMOS Pasifika and organised a number of capacity building events as convenor in Fiji including the 2015 capacity building workshop, the 2018 joint conference “Conserving It Together”, and she is member of the drafting group for the ICOMOS Pasifika Heritage Charter. As a result, Kerime was a vital person in the registration of ICOMOS Pasifika as a non-government organisation in Fiji.
Her two key passions are climate change/carbon reduction and mentorship of Emerging Professionals. She was co-convenor of the Caring for Country webinar series in the lead up to the 2023 ICOMOS General Assembly Workshop in Sydney titled Caring for Country in a changing climate: Indigenous voices and call for action on culture, heritage and the climate crisis. Kerime has been coordinating the NSW Mentoring Program of Australia ICOMOS since 2015 as well as advising the international ICOMOS Emerging Professional Working Group (EPWG) in developing the ICOMOS Mentorship Toolkit.
