I grew up in Hobart, completing a BSc with Honours in Zoology at the University of Tasmania in 1996, and a PhD in Environmental Physiology at The University of Adelaide in 2001. For the next couple of years I was a research fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, funded by The Royal Society of London, and afterwards spent periods at Colorado State University, the Australian National University and La Trobe University before moving to UWA in 2005 on an ARC postdoctoral fellowship. I started working at UWA as a teaching and research academic in 2009.

My research is interdisciplinary and has a strong grounding in physiological ecology. My current focus - and that of my research group - is to understand the capacity of threatened vertebrates to adapt to rapid environmental change, and to develop mechanistic models and decision tools that can inform conservation initiatives such as assisted colonisation. I also have long-term research programs on the impact of climate change on sex determination and survival in reptiles (especially sea turtles), and on the biology and conservation of terrestrial-breeding frog species, and how such species will respond to drying climates. 

My graduate students and postdocs study freshwater turtles, sea turtles, skinks, geckos, small brown (but interesting) frogs, and a range of threatened marsupials. I bother turtle frogs in my spare time.

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Below are the research areas of current members of my lab

Postdoc

Sean Buckley: Mixing mammals in conservation translocations

Emily Hoffmann: Biodiversity of Western Australian peatlands

Sami Al Khatib: Dynamic thermal modelling of sea turtle nests

Project coordinator

Holly Winkle: Protecting peatland ecosystems and addressing threats in SW Australia

PhD

Bethany Nordstrom: Assisted colonisation of the Western Swamp Turtle: the role of energy requirements in translocation decisions

Kate Rick: Understanding patterns of phenotypic and genetic divergence in island mammals to improve conservation outcomes

Natasha Harrison: Quantifying the loss of antipredator traits in havened mammal populations and their relationship with population density and resource competition

Jarrod Sopniewski: Protecting the future of frogs: developing methods to safeguard Australian frog diversity

Anna Ortega: Exploration of management interventions to prevent the extirpation of the Eastern Pacific leatherback population

Master of Science

Lauren Heddle: Manipulation of metabolic heat in sea turtle nests

M Biol Sci

Hazel Miller: Measuring anti-predator traits in quenda and woylie with cage-trap accelerometers

Catie Cornish: Detection of a cryptic, freshwater reptile using eDNA technologies

Aiden Holmes: Ecology and conservation of Lerista species occupying coastal areas of the Pilbara region

Grace Marsh: Adaptation genomics of the Western Ringtail Possum

Nikita Bonetti: Understanding the risks of fire and predation on aestivating turtles

Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Unit coordinator

BIOL2261 Conservation Biology

ANIM2209 Field Studies in Zoology

Lecturer

ENVT2221 Global Climate Change and Biodiversity

BIOL5504 Sex in the Sea