Although I've worked with a diverse array of species and systems, a common theme is an interest in understanding how evolutionary forces and population dynamics shape genetic variation within natural populations, with a focus on conservation. Currently I am a NESP (National Environmental Science Program) Threatened Species Recovery Hub Research Fellow with the Mitchell lab in the School of Biological Sciences, and until 2019 I held a co-appointment with Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research Crown Research Institute in New Zealand (https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/home).

My work at UWA has focused on describing contemporary genetic diversity within threatened species and building this data into population viability models to enable informed decision making around species translocations. This allows estimates of not just the probability of survival of translocated populations, but also how much source population genetic variation is captured, and projects how well that genetic diversity is retained into future generations. I work closely with WA’s Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy NGO. Target species have included the banded hare wallaby (Lagostrophus fasciatus), the western barred bandicoot (Perameles bougainville), the dibbler (Parantechinus apicalis) and the Shark Bay mouse (Pseudomys fieldi) – all chosen for DBCA’s ‘Dirk Hartog Island: Return to 1616’ project. My current project is genomics-based and uses tens of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to understand the genetic diversity within the western ringtail possum (Pseudocheirus occidentalis) with the specific aims of understanding how variation is partitioned across the remnant range, assessing impacts of recent population crashes and associating environmental variables with existing genetic variation.

My role within the Biodiversity and Conservation Team at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in New Zealand, as a population geneticist and bioinformatician, saw me involved with the molecular component of a 4 year MBIE funded Research Programme on kiwi rescue which includes developing a non-invasive genetic approach for population monitoring of kiwi (Apteryx spp.) from microsatellite data. Other projects included quantifying population bottlenecks and estimating allele retention in translocated populations of Cook Strait giant weta, and the genetic delimitation of taxa within New Zealand land snails. My genomics based work helped reveal population connectivity in the Galaxias maculatus fish species complex using SNPs data generated from genome complexity reduction techniques (i.e. genotype-by-sequencing), and I have worked extensively on the discovery of viral aetiological agents of wildlife disease using de novo metagenomcis, mostly in endangered New Zealand birds, e.g., kākāpō and rowi kiwi. I’ve also assembled and annotated the NZ common brushtail possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) transcriptome as part of the ‘Achilles Heel’ project – which aims to find good candidate genes for gene silencing for control of this invasive species. Such work often relies on bash scripting to link perl and python programs.