I was born in England but emigrated with my family to Australia in 1976. I went to school in Perth and then did my undergraduate and postgradute degrees at UWA, graduating with a BSc(Hons). in Botany and Zoology in 1992 and a PhD in 2001. My thesis was titled "The short-term impacts of logging on the jarrah forest avifauna". I then worked as a Rainforest Ecology faculty at the Centre for Rainforest Studies in the Wet Tropics of Queensland for 2.5 years. After that I returned to Perth and worked as an environmental consultant for 3 years before returning to research at Murdoch University in April 2005, where I was employed as a Research Fellow until January 2016. I became an adjunct at UWA in January 2009 when my current project moved to become based at UWA and, since February 2015, I have been employed as a Research Fellow at UWA in the ERIE group headed by Professor Richard Hobbs.

As a Research Fellow, I am responsible for managing all aspects of the ARC Linkage project LP160100177 "Changing water availability and the conservation of wide-ranging species" funded by the Australian Research Council, Department of Parks and Wildlife, Alcoa of Australia and Western Australian Museum. My responsibilities include experimental design, data collection, manuscript preparation and publication and student supervision. As of June 2016, I supervise 1 PhD student, enrolled at UWA, plus 1 honours students enrolled at Murdoch.

I have expertise in knowledge of faunal succession in restored areas and techniques to accelerate faunal return to restored areas. I also have expertise in animal sampling techniques using cage, Elliot, funnel and pit trapping and various techniques for censusing bush and waterbirds, including holding an A-class bird-banding licence. I have expertise in identification of Australian vertebrates and birds in most parts of the world.

ARC Linkage Grant LP160100177 "Changing water availability and the conservation of wide-ranging species", May 2016, $392 000 for 3 years from ARC, Alcoa of Australia, Department of Parks and Wildlife and Western Australian Museum.

Variation to ARC Linkage Grant LP120200581 "Understanding the underlying causes and practical solutions to marri (Corymbia calophylla) decline in the south-west of Western Australia, September 2013, $340 000 over 5 years from Alcoa of Australia and Department of Parks and Wildlife.

ARC Linkage Grant LP0882677 "Understanding successional processes to maintain vertebrate populations in production landscapes", June 2008, $783 723 over 5 years from ARC and Alcoa of Australia.

ARC Linkage Grant LP0455309 "Management of rehabilitated bauxite mines to accelerate the return of vertebrate fauna", April 2005, $268 536 over 3 years from ARC and Alcoa of Australia.

March 2004 – April 2005
Biota Environmental Sciences
Position: Senior Zoologist

September 2002 – March 2004
Michael Craig Consulting Ecologist
Position: Freelance Environmental Consultant

March 2000 – September 2002
School for Field Studies: Centre for Rainforest Studies
Position: Rainforest Ecology faculty

ARC Linkage Grant LP160100177 "Changing water availability and the conservation of wide-ranging species" funded by the ARC, Alcoa of Australia and Department of Parks and Wildlife.

Our primary industry partner is Alcoa of Australia and our research feeds directly into Alcoa's adaptive management system to improve their ability to ameliorate biodiversity effects of their mining activities. Our early research focused on developing methods that improved the ability of post-mining restoration to better conserve biodiversity. More recently, our research has started to identify factors that influence how Red-tailed Black-Cockatoos so that predictive models of landscape use can be developed that will minimise the conflict between both logging and mining and cockatoo conservation. The project is also funded by the Department of Parks and Wildlife who are particularly interested in how water can be used to help conserve Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo populations.

Guest Lecturer in BIOL3303 Conservation Biology and Restoration Ecology at UWA
Guest Lecturer in BIO317 Wildlife Biology and ENV368 Restoration Ecology at Murdoch

I am primarily interested in understanding human impacts on ecosystems and how we might ameliorate or reverse those impacts. I have a particular interest in understanding the role that restoration might play in reducing human impacts on faunal communities and developing techniques to increase and accelerate faunal return to restored sites. I am also, more broadly, interested in investigating methods of integrating conservation with resource extraction. My current project examines ways of integrating the conservation of black-cockatoos with mining logging and water catchment in the northern jarrah forest. This project focuses on how the provision of water can ameliorate some of the negative effects of resource extraction.

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