Tony O'Donnell

Professor, BSc PhD DSc FRSB

Executive Dean, Faculty of Science

Phone+61 8 6488 8703
Emailtony.odonnell@uwa.edu.au

The University of Western Australia (000), 35 Stirling Highway, Ground floor, Agriculture Central Building, Perth campus
6009 Perth
Australia

10008 Citations
43 h-Index

Research output per year

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Personal profile

Biography

Tony O’Donnell was born and educated in the UK, graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1976 and completed his PhD at the University of Bristol in 1980. He holds visiting positions at Kasetsart and Naresuan Universities in Thailand and since 2012 has held a visiting professorship for Distinguished International Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture. In 2015 he received an honorary doctorate from Naresuan University, for his service to education and research in Thailand.

Before moving to Western Australia in August 2008, he worked at the University of Newcastle in the Northeast of England where he established and was the first Director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Research in Environment and Sustainability (IRES).

Previous positions

Professor O’Donnell has served on the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grants board for Plant and Microbial Sciences and Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Panel. He has also sat on the Natural Environment Research Council research advisory panel for the Centres for Ecology and Hydrology (Biodiversity panel).

Internationally, he has chaired the grants board of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and holds adjunct Professorships in Thailand and Brazil. He has strong research interests in SE Asia and has led training workshops and UK trade missions in Thailand, Malaysia and Korea.

Research

Soils are complex, multi-organism systems that are becoming amenable to analysis through the expansion of post-genomic technologies into environmental genomics. In the last ten years, the importance of microorganisms in maintaining a sustainable biosphere has been widely recognised. This has resulted in a surge of activity in environmental microbiology, and the development of novel technologies to better interrogate the role of microorganisms in soil.
Professor O’Donnell has used these techniques to investigate gene:environment interactions in a range of systems, including agricultural soils and contaminated land. More recently, together with Thailand and India, he has been developing a research programme in bioenergy based around Jatropha and the conversion of municipal waste to biogas. Central to Professor O'Donnell's research is the need to understand the functional consequences of the interactions between biological complexity (eg, bacteria, fungi, nematodes etc.) and between these components and management of the abiotic soil environment.

Research expertise keywords

Soil science
Soil microbiology
Environmental microbiology,
Biogeochemical cycling
Sustainable land manager
Molecular ecology

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Research Output

10008 Citations
43 h-Index
114 Article
2 Chapter
2 Conference paper
1 Letter

Reconditioning Degraded Mine Site Soils With Exogenous Soil Microbes: Plant Fitness and Soil Microbiome Outcomes

Moreira-Grez, B., Munoz-Rojas, M., Kariman, K., Storer, P., O'Donnell, A. G., Kumaresan, D. & Whiteley, A. S., 10 Jul 2019, In : Frontiers in Microbiology. 10, 13 p., 1617.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

Soil bacterial diversity is positively associated with air temperature in the maritime Antarctic

Dennis, P. G., Newsham, K. K., Rushton, S. P., O’Donnell, A. G. & Hopkins, D. W., 1 Dec 2019, In : Scientific Reports. 9, 1, 2686.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

6 Citations (Scopus)

Effect of P stoichiometry on the abundance of nitrogen-cycle genes in phosphorus-limited paddy soil

Wei, X., Hu, Y., Peng, P., Zhu, Z., Atere, C. T., O’Donnell, A. G., Wu, J. & Ge, T., 1 Oct 2017, In : Biology and Fertility of Soils. 53, 7, p. 767-776 10 p.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

40 Citations (Scopus)

Microbial Functional Capacity Is Preserved Within Engineered Soil Formulations Used in Mine Site Restoration

Kumaresan, D., Cross, A. T., Moreira-Grez, B., Kariman, K., Nevill, P., Stevens, J., Allcock, R. J. N., O'Donnell, A. G., DIxon, K. W. & Whiteley, A. S., 1 Dec 2017, In : Scientific Reports. 7, 1, 564.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access