Dr Blake Alexander Simmons

Blake is broadly interested in landscape ecology, with a particular interest in the overarching effects of anthropogenic actions on ecological interactions and ecosystem function. Natural habitats are under increasing pressure from urbanization and the expansion and intensification of agricultural lands. As a consequence, numerous species are displaced… Read more

Oakes Holland

Oakes is a Brisbane local. She completed both her undergraduate and Masters degrees at UQ and is excited to be undertaking her PhD here under the supervision of Professor Kerrie Wilson and Dr Justine Shaw. Oakes completed a short semester-long project with Kerrie as part of her Masters degree which evaluated the impact… Read more

Dr Angela Dean

Dr Angela Dean is a quantitative social scientist. Her research focuses on how to promote environmental citizenship within communities. Angela draws on diverse experience as both a researcher and practitioner in the areas of health, science communication, citizen science, and sustainable urban water management. Her research explores: community… Read more

Dr Konrad Uebel

Konrad’s research interest is in understanding the potential of nature-based solutions to meet multiple challenges pertaining to sustainable urban development, climate change and conservation of biodiversity. Increasingly it is recognized that goals for human development are intertwined with goals in conservation and Konrad interested in how the integration of different sectors and engagement of multiple stakeholders can achieve positive outcomes … Read more

Isabella Todd

Bella Todd was an undergraduate student completing her Honours Thesis in Conservation Biology at the University of Wollongong. Bella’s area of research was investigating how Species Distribution Models and Expert Knowledge can be used to model key Antarctic species across the Australian Antarctic Territory for better conservation outcomes. This project was part of the Securing Antarctic’s Environmental Future (SAEF) Initiative, which is an Australian Research Council special research initiative… Read more

Dr Courtney Morgans

Courtney was a PhD candidate with the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions at the University of Queensland. After completing a Bachelor of Science at the University of New South Wales she began studying a Masters of Philosophy at the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre under the supervision of Dr Terry Ord, Dr Georgina Cooke and Professor… Read more

Dr Erik Simmons

Erik was Senior Behavioral Scientist at Behaviour Innovation and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Queensland University of Technology. His research background is in the behavioural sciences, primarily psychology. Though his current interest is more diverse— he seeks mechanisms of best practice for conservation and changing human behaviour in an ecological space… Read more

Dr Rachel Friedman

Rachel’s research interests broadly centre on the connections between biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being within production (agricultural and forestry) landscapes, and the process and outcomes of land management decisions. Cultural, socio-economic, and political factors (and not solely ecological and physical conditions) are critical… Read more

Dr Julia van Velden

Julia is generally interested in socio-ecological systems and sustainable resource extraction. She started her PhD project in 2017 with the Environmental Futures Research Institute at Griffith University. She investigated the spatial and social dynamics of the bushmeat trade in savanna systems of Africa.  She is particularly interested in the use of social science theory to inform conservation problems, as well as the use of spatial analyses to investigate extraction levels. She is particularly… Read more

Dr Truly Santika (Rintanen)

Truly’s research program is in the area of conservation, natural resource management and sustainable landscape. She is interested in both theory and application of landscape analysis. Truly has a background in Mathematics (BSc from Bandung Institute of Technology), Statistics and Operations Research (MSc from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University), and Natural Resource Management (PhD from The Australian National University)… Read more

Dr Angela Guerrero Gonzalez

Angela’s overall research interest is the link between social and ecological systems, and how this link affects nature conservation outcomes. Her projects explored some of the challenges posed by the complex linkages between social and ecological systems, and develop approaches to improve the way social aspects and social-ecological linkages are taken… Read more

Dr Micheli Duarte de Paula Costa

Micheli is a marine biologist with research interests encompassing spatial ecology, quantitative marine ecology, climate change, and conservation.  Her research is characterised by novel integration of multiple disciplines to tackle fundamental questions in marine conservation science. Her current research is in collaboration with the Brazilian… Read more

Dr Magdalena Lenda

Magdalena Lenda (Magda) is from the Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences. She obtained her PhD in 2015 at the Jagiellonian University in Poland with her thesis on invasion process of alien plants due to environmental changes and internet trade… Read more

Phoebe Stewart-Sinclair

Phoebe Stewart-Sinclair is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. She is interested in applied quantitative ecology with reference to the broad themes of climate change, conservation, and marine restoration. After completing a BSc in Zoology and Ecology, she then went on to complete an Honours and a Masters of Science by research at Massey University in New Zealand. Read more

Dr Luke Shoo

Luke Shoo works on the ecology and conservation of forest ecosystems.  Luke has a strong interest in tropical conservation issues and actions to reduce deforestation and restore degraded environments. Luke was a Research Fellow on a collaborative Australian Research Council Linkage project with City of Gold Coast that aims to… Read more

Cristina Romero

Cristina is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. She is particularly interested in people-biodiversity interactions and applied conservation topics. Her research focuses on how to promote wildlife stewardship and conflict sensitive conservation…. Read more

Lachlan Francis

Lachlan was an Honours student working under the supervision of Professor Kerrie Wilson, Dr Justine Shaw (UQ) and Dr Sue Robinson (DPIPWE, Tasmania). He completed his final year of a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Honours) degree majoring in Ecology and Conservation at UQ, and was particularly interested in invasive species on islands. … Read more

Mallory Wilson

Mallory was an Honours student working under the supervision of Professor Kerrie Wilson and Dr Hawthorne Beyer. She completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in Zoology and Ecology at UQ in 2015 and has since become a qualified veterinary nurse. Mallory also volunteered in a wildlife rescue centre in Indonesia, which reignited her passion to work in conservation at a level where she can create change before wildlife end up in these dire situations. … Read more

Dr Kwek Yan Chong

Kwek Yan Chong (“Kwek”) is from the Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore (NUS), where he obtained his PhD in 2013 with his thesis on the effects of greenery on urban biodiversity. He obtained NUS Overseas Postdoctoral Fellowship to be based at CEED/CBCS, University of Queensland, for two years… Read more

Dr Katrina Davis

Dr Katrina Davis commenced at the University of Queensland (UQ) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in July 2015. Her research investigates optimal use of natural resources to maximise the productivity of human and ecological systems. She is interested in how management costs can be incorporated into spatial planning, and how these costs will affect… Read more

Dr Elizabeth Law

My research interests centre on biodiversity conservation and environmental management. Conservation and economic paradigms are shifting in recognition of the interdependencies among environmental, economic, and social systems. This shift is changing philosophies on why, where, and how we conserve nature. My research evaluates… Read more

Amelia Holmes

Amelia completed a dual undergraduate degree in Arts/Science with majors in Economics, Philosophy and Geographical Sciences and has a strong interest in interdisciplinary studies. She is passionate about helping to reconcile contentions between economic growth and preservation of the environment, and her joint honours project within… Read more

Ariana Magini

Ariana is a Bachelor of Science graduate, with majors in zoology and ecology, and am now undertaking an honours project within conservation science. After being exposed to many areas of ecology during my undergraduate, she realised that her interests lie with conservation science and improving existing methods of management for successful… Read more

Ben Newman

Ben Newman was a Masters of Conservation Science student. He is interested in the intersection of development and conservation and the problems that arise in this area. In his research project he quantified ecosystem services within the Yawuru Indigenous Protected Area (WA) under the supervision of Gwen Iacona and Kerrie Wilson. Read more

Stephanie Anne Samson

Stephanie has completed Masters of Conservation Science undertaking the research component with Valerie Hagger and Kerrie Wilson. In her undergraduate studies she majored in conservation and zoology, these studies stemmed her interest in landscape ecology and management.. Read more

Matthew Roetteler

Matthew was an Honours student working under the supervision of both Professor Kerrie Wilson and PhD Candidate Blake Simmons. He was in his final (4^th) year of a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Honours) degree majoring in Ecology and Conservation at UQ. Having returned from a semester exchange at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver … Read more

Dr Maria Jose Martinez Harms

Maria is a spatial ecologist interested in the science-policy interface for ecosystem services and biodiversity to inform landscape planning. By applying decision support tools like scenario analysis and conservation planning, she explores trade-offs and prioritize management alternatives that balance conservation, development, and social objectives… Read more

Dr Brooke Williams

Brooke focused on conservation in the context of fire management. In her honours project she was looking at the trade-off between the conflicting management goals of prescribed burns for asset protection and burns for conservation of fire dependent ecosystems. Her goal was to develop and apply new spatial optimisation methods to assist environmental managers… Read more

Dr Tal Polak

Tal is interested in applied conservation management, broad spectrum decision making and optimization of resource allocation. She is mainly interested in finding ways to mitigate the conflict in the areas of human-nature interactions with a focus on ecosystem conservation. Her thesis examined changes in the cost-effectiveness of the conservation outcomes… Read more

Dr Jessie Wells

Jessie was a post-doctoral researcher working on ecosystem services and landscape planning in Borneo, as part of the Borneo Futures Project in collaboration with other scientists and NGOs. Concurrently, she was working on watershed ecosystem services in Tanzania and Laos, with James Watson and Joseph Maina from ARC-CEED and the Wildlife Conservation Society… Read more

Dr Sugeng Budiharta

In his PhD project Sugeng developed novel frameworks on how decision science could be utilised to guide the restoration of degraded landscapes to enhance the delivery of ecosystem services.  The project was jointly supervised by Assoc. Prof. Kerrie Wilson, Professor Hugh Possingham, Dr. Peter Erskine and Dr. Erik Meijaard… Read more

Dr Karen Mustin

Karen was working on the science team of the Gondwana Link project to help to inform conservation decisions in relation to major threats to biodiversity in south-western Western Australia, including climate change, fire, invasive species and habitat fragmentation. Karen has particular interests in conservation and spatial population ecology… Read more

Dr Keren Raiter

Keren is a conservation ecologist keen on integrating on-ground ecology with practical conservation and well-founded policy. Keren’s interests include conserving ecological processes that sustain biodiversity in relatively intact systems, finding solutions to complex problems regarding environmental conservation and development… Read more

Alexander Johnson

Alexander undertook an Honours project that aimed to identify potential correlations between land use change and regional precipitation patterns in Kalimantan, Borneo.  His work was incorporated into ongoing work with the Borneo’s Future Project.  His supervisors were Kerrie Wilson and Clive McAlpine… Read more

Dr Nancy Auerbach

Nancy is interested in research that informs threatened species management and decision-making.  Her research included evaluating the spatial distribution of threats to endangered flora and fauna, based upon species distribution models.  At a regional scale, the research explored whether investing in additional modelling for the purpose of assessing threats to species is warranted, given the urgent need for action to stem biodiversity loss…. Read more

Dr Luis Verde Arregoitia

Luis’ research interests include ecology, evolution and conservation of mammals, with a specific focus on terrestrial species. In his PhD project Luis was examining the relationship between the evolutionary history of mammalian species and their present day risk of extinction in the context of anthropogenic threats. … Read more

Dr Ayesha Tulloch

Ayesha’s research examined cost-effective resource allocation and decision-making processes for monitoring and management of threats to biodiversity. Her PhD focused on integrating disciplinary perspectives (economic, social, and environmental) to evaluate approaches for prioritising conservation investments in multiple stakeholder landscapes… Read more

Ya-Ling Chang

In her honours project, Ya-Ling reviewed the literature on quantified values of forest focusing on village income studies in Borneo, Indonesia. This work aimed to set foundation for further discussion of hydrology values in Borneo. Her research project was supervised by Dr. Kerrie Wilson and Dr. Erik Meijaard… Read more

Dr Takuya Iwamura

Tak’s PhD focused on conservation planning at a range of scales, from global analyses of climate change and ecosystems to regional scale conservation of migratory species and site selection among networks. After graduation Tak became Postdoctoral Scholar at Department of Biology & Department of Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, U.S.A… Read more

Dr Oscar Venter

Oscar is interested in conservation decision making, trading-off multiple conservation objectives, the conservation potential of ecosystem services, threats to endangered species and conservation effectiveness. He was working at the local and global scales to determine how initiatives to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation can be used to protect forest biodiversity… Read more

Dr Lochran Traill

Lochran is a conservation biologist with specific interest in the drivers of extinction events, spatial population models and conservation planning. During his time as a postdoctoral fellow with Kerrie Wilson and Jonathan Rhodes, he developed a prioritisation framework for threatened species under global change in South East Queensland, Australia…. Read more

Howard Taylor

As part of his Masters degree, Howard undertook research project to predict management costs for conservation activities across the Gold Coast region of Queensland,  Australia to inform future acquisitions and improve investment decisions…. Read more

Megan Evans

Megan is a conservation ecologist with broad interests in ecological sustainability, climate change and economics. From 2009-2012 she worked as a Research Assistant undertaking research into applied conservation problems through the use and development of conservation planning tools… Read more

Dr Hedley Grantham

Hedley’s research interests include adaptive and dynamic decision-making frameworks for spatial conservation prioritization and ecosystem-based management and decision support tools for spatial planning in marine, terrestrial and freshwater areas… Read more

Paula Deegan

Paula was the Senior Research Associate at the Ecology Centre’s Gondwana Link Climate Change Project. … Read more

Jamie Wadey

Jamie was conducting an undergraduate research project with Kerrie Wilson as part of the final semester of BSc degree,  in preparation for an Honours program. The research project consisted of developing a PVA (Population Viability Analysis) for the Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae)… Read more

Rebecca Runting

Rebecca has a diverse range of interests including: food security, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), peak oil, spatialising ecosystem services, and climate change adaptation. As an undergraduate she studied a Bachelors program in Environmental Management (Sustainable Development) at the University of Queensland… Read more

Estelle Weber

During her honours project, Estelle developed an initial set of key metrics and explored how they influence conservation at the project level. Estelle used local scale studies (Berau in East Kalimantan) to identify the type of information to account for in project development in order to address a range of safeguards and to identify indicators at a global scale that might best represent these … Read more

Laura Canevari Luzardo

Laura is a graduated coastal manager with a variety of interests including climate adaptation, resilience building and coastal dynamics. Her Honours project consisted of looking at the impacts of land use change in mangrove communities of Moreton Bay (SEQ) using systems analysis, GIS, soil analysis and spatial statistics… Read more

Rebecca Richardson

Rebecca’s project was reviewing the progress made towards implementing island conservation commitments made by island nations and nations with islands in the context of the Global Island Partnership (GLISPA). The project examined the weaknesses and strengths effecting implementation, with consideration to both national and regional scale delivery models. … Read more

Natalie Hoskins

Natalie is an ecologist. Her research interests lie in the use of conservation planning as a tool for conserving biodiversity. She undertook postgraduate research with Dr. Kerrie Wilson at the University of Queensland.  Natalie was researching the impacts of urban development on an endangered blackbutt forest community in Southeast Queensland, by quantifying a range of specific threats. Read more

Josie Carwardine

Josie is interested in decision making for the assessment, protection and management of biodiversity and natural systems, and on how these decisions relate to human wellbeing. Her PhD focused on cost-effective systematic conservation planning, and was jointly supervised by Hugh Possingham and Kerrie Wilson at the University of Queensland, and Stefan Hajkowicz at CSIRO… Read more

Andrea Fullagar

Andrea has completed her Honours project within the Spatial Ecology Lab, where she investigated how to prioritise ecological restoration for a 250,000 hectare area in south-west Western Australia. Gondwana Link is one of the most ambitious restoration projects of its kind in Australia and aims to revegetate 1000 square kilometres of land across the south-west coast of Western Australia… Read more

Moreno di Marco

Moreno’s research interests involves mammal conservation and management. He studied the Ecology and Population dynamics of Appennine’ s brown bear (Central Italy, Ursus arctos marsicanus) and Appennines’ s small rodents  (wood mouse and yellow-necked mouse). Moreno was a PhD student in the Prof L. Boitani and Dr. C. Rondinini’ s lab in Rome… Read more

Jessica Walsh

Jessica is interested in conservation planning and ecology and in particular, the prioritisation of resource allocation. The objective of her research was to specifiy how, where and when we should spend funds to achieve the greatest conservation outcome in a cost effective manner. She used decision support tools to determine which conservation actions provide … Read more

Lucinda Douglass

Lucinda is interested in maximising conservation effectiveness through planning for multiple objectives, emerging markets and socio-political factors. Also, how to successfully implement research findings and influence policy. Her research identified cost-effective, spatially-explicit priorities for improved fire and grazing … Read more

Ana Prohaska

Ana is conservation ecologist interested in understanding how to adequately incorporate the principles of landscape ecology and ecosystem functioning into the science and practice of conservation decision-making. She worked as a research intern within the Wilson Lab for 6 months, on two conservation planning projects … Read more

Matt Skrotch

Matt’s research focused on spatial assessments of ecosystem services and biodiversity at the urban fringe. While his graduate research was based out of the University of Arizona,  Matt took the opportunity to study at the University of Queensland  for a portion of the 2009 summer and collaborate with Dr. K. Wilson. … Read more

Simon Drummond

Simon completed a Master of Science at University of Queensland in 2007 exploring the implications of threatened species policies on conservation planning. Using East Kalimantan province in Borneo as a case study, he found that cost effective reserve designs could be achieved for most mammals when efforts were focused towards threatened species… Read more

Marissa McBride

Marissa completed her undergraduate degree in mathematics and genetics at the University of Queensland, and did her honours year with Prof Hugh Possingham and Dr Kerrie Wilson looking at incorporating socioeconomic factors into global conservation priorities… Read more