John is Associate Dean Learning and Teaching, School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, at Murdoch University He has been at Murdoch since the late 1980s teaching and researching at the boundary between environmental science and environmental policy and law. One of the strengths of the Environmental Science group at Murdoch is that is been able to bring together scientists and policy experts to teach new generations of environmental professionals and to undertake key research that has supported the conservation and management of WA’s environments.

Whilst at Murdoch John served for eight years on the Board of the Environmental Protection Authority and, more recently, as the Chair of the Conservation Commission of Western Australia.

Don is an ecophysiologist who held the Foundation Chair of Zoology at UWA from 1976 until his retirement in 2005. His major research interest has been the study of field populations of vertebrate animals that live in environments where extreme heat, drought, dehydration and electrolyte loading are common. This has led him to work in some of the major desert regions of the world, including the Sahara, comparing the ways in which Australian animals cope with aridity. He has supervised over 30 postgraduate students working on a wide range of native animals, including fish, frogs, reptiles, birds and many marsupials. A deep knowledge of the many adaptations of the native fauna serves to underpin his efforts over the last decade to translate this basic research into management options needed to preserve the unique plant and animal species that have evolved in Australia’s only threatened biodiversity hotspot in the southwest of WA. He was elected Membre Correspondant du Muséum D’Histoire Naturelle in Paris in 1975, a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London in 1985 and awarded the Kelvin Medal of the Royal Society of WA in 2010. His third book, Vertebrate Ecophysiology (CUP), was voted an Outstanding Academic Title by The New York Review of Books in 2004, translated into Portuguese and released in Brazil by Santos Editore in 2007. In 2015 he was awarded a Special Commendation by the Royal Zoological Society of NSW in Sydney for “the promotion of knowledge and conservation of Australasian fauna through many outstanding publications over an extended time period.”

Kingsley is a former Science Director at Kings Park and Botanic garden in Perth and a highly published scientist who developed one of Australia’s leading conservation science and restoration ecology research groups. He is known for the development of the first integrated conservation facility in Australia and a leader in the science and practice of conservation with a focus on rare and threatened species and restoration of disturbed landscapes including post-mining sites. Kingsley is responsible for the discovery of smoke germination for Australian species including characterising the chemical species responsible for post-fire germination: science that led to widespread global applications and advances in the conservation, restoration and horticultural sciences. He currently holds the position of Professor in the Department of Environment and Agriculture at Curtin University and is a Visiting Professor at both the School of Plant Biology, UWA and Kings Park and Botanic Garden.

John graduated with a BSc with First Class Honours and an MSc from Monash and then a PhD from ANU. He has held academic positions at University of Canterbury (NZ), University of NSW (Sydney, including a period as Head of School), University of Western Australia (Professor of Geography) and Brunel University (London, Inaugural Head of Institute for Environment). From 2007 to 2015 he became Head of the Institute for Environmental Research at ANSTO in Sydney. He is now a Professor at Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xi'an and holds honorary professorial positions at University of NSW and University of Wollongong. His has published over 150 papers and books on environmental change, vegetation dynamics and human impact on environmental systems in Australia, Pacific Islands, Ireland and China. He has also served on several national and international scientific bodies and has supervised over 30 PhD and MSc students

Steve Hopper is a conservation biologist, widely travelled, with extensive publications in evolution, phylogenetics, ecology and taxonomy. He has named some 300 plants new to science. He has specialist expertise in botanic gardens, eucalypts, the plant family Haemodoraceae (containing kangaroo paws), orchids, plants of granite outcrops, threatened plants, ethnobotany and pollination of plants by birds and mammals.

Steve currently holds the position of Professor of Biodiversity at UWA and has worked sequentially in the Western Australian Government, at UWA, and been Director of two world class botanic gardens (Kings Park and Kew), while maintaining an active field research program right up to the present day. He has received several awards and honours, culminating in 2012 with a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) and induction into the Western Australian Science Hall of Fame. Currently, he is building a research and teaching program on sustainable living with biodiversity at UWA’s Albany campus, focussing on the evolution, ecology, conservation and indigenous knowledge systems of temperate global biodiversity hotspots, especially those with the world’s oldest, climatically-buffered, infertile landscapes

Hans is Professor of Plant Biology at UWA and is a plant ecophysiologist, with an extensive network of collaborators in Europe, Asia, and North, South and Central America, and more than 350 refereed publications in plant physiology, plant ecology, conservation biology, and rhizosphere biology. He has edited 12 books, including Plant Life on the Sandplains in Southwest Australia, a Global Biodiversity Hotspot. He, is the lead author of a textbook, Plant Physiological Ecology, and Editor in Chief of Plant and Soil since 1992. He has specialist expertise in plant functioning on severely phosphorus-impoverished soils in biodiversity hotspots, especially Proteaceae, Cyperaceae and Fabaceae.

A graduate with undergraduate degrees and PhD from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), since 1985 he has held Chairs at Utrecht University (the Netherlands) and UWA (since 1998). He has been Inaugural Head of School of Plant Biology at UWA, while maintaining an active research program right up to the present day. He has received several awards and honours, including being listed, since the beginning, on the ISI list of highly-cited authors in the field of animal and plant sciences, comprising less than one half of one percent of all publishing researchers in that field: http://isihighlycited.com/, and an Honorary Professorship from China Agricultural University. Currently, he is leading a research and teaching program on plants and phosphorus, with a strong emphasis on biodiversity, in UWA’s School of Plant Biology, focussing on the physiology, ecology, conservation and possible applications of native global biodiversity hotspots, especially those in the world’s oldest, climatically-buffered, infertile landscapes.

Malcolm is an ARC Laureate Fellow undertaking research on the theme ‘Coral Reef Futures: a new paradigm for quantifying the resilience of marine calcifiers to ocean acidification and global change'. He is a member of ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and leader of the UWA node - Program 3: Responding to a changing world. In mid-2009 he was appointed to UWA as a Western Australian Premier’s Fellow. Professor McCulloch received his PhD from the Californian Institute of Technology (Caltech) and previously held an appointment at the Australian National University. He is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher and has published over 270 scientific papers in leading international journals, including 26 in Science and Nature

Graeme joined CSIRO, in 1971 where he was Chief of Atmospheric Research, 1992–2002. He contributed over 200 scientific journal papers primarily on aspects of the global carbon budget. He now runs a consultancy company contracting to both private and public sector organizations and is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Monash University. In the last decade he gave 500 briefings on climate-change science and sustainability to governments, peak industry bodies, public groups, and companies as part of their climate-change risk assessments. He has worked as Australian science advisor to the Hon. Al Gore on three occasions when Mr. Gore visited Australia.

He was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science (1988), the Royal Society of Victoria (1997) and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (2005). He was awarded the CSIRO Medal (1988), a United Nation’s Environment Program Global 500 Award (1989), Australian Medal of the Order of Australia (1999) and a Federation Medal (2003).

Graeme is a member of the Board of the Climate Institute (Sydney) and past board member of START International (Washington) and Greenfleet Australia (Melbourne). He is a Science Advisory Panel member of the Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (Canberra) and until recently the Singapore National Research Foundation (Singapore) and the German Council of Science and Humanities (Berlin).

Current interests include describing holistic strategies that build resilient energy futures and emissions reductions appropriate for specific nations or communities; transport technologies and limitations and risks associated with bio-fuels; dimensions of human behaviour in the climate-change issue; and the role of science in modern societies.

Fiona is the Founding Director and Patron of the Telethon Kids Institute (formerly Telethon Institute for Child Health Research), Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Western Australia and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbournewhere she was Director, 2013 Festival of Ideas

Trained in maternal and child health, epidemiology and public health, Fiona has spent her career researching the causes of major childhood illnesses such as birth defects. Her research includes the gathering and analysis of population data for epidemiological and public health research; the causes and prevention of birth defects and major neurological disorders, particularly the cerebral palsies; patterns of maternal and child health in Aboriginal and Caucasian populations; various ways of determining the developmental origins of health and disease; collaborations to link research, policy and practice; and strategies to enhance health and well-being in populations. She pioneered the development, linkage and analysis of population level data and record linkage in Western Australia as a research and evaluation capacity.

Her major contribution has been to establish the Telethon Kids Institute, a unique multidisciplinary independent research institute focussing on the causes and prevention of major problems affecting children and youth and to establish the Australian ResearchAlliance for Children and Youth. She has over 300 publications, books and book chapters and is a board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Gurrumul Yunupingu Foundation. She is also a Governor of The Ian Potter Foundation and a former member of the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, and has served on major international, national and local committees. For her research on behalf of Australia's children and Aboriginal social justice, she was named Australian of the Year in 2003 and in 2006 she was made a UNICEF Australia Ambassador for Early Childhood Development.

More recently she has become a spokesperson for the Climate Council, Doctors for the Environment Australia (member of their Scientific Advisory Committee) and 350.org, on the health effects of climate change.

Joanna Young’s expertise and interests include forest pathology, forest management and conservation. She has worked in the past with the US Forest Service, CALM and South Coast NRM. Her research career was focused on understanding the epidemiology of Phytophthora dieback and other forest tree diseases. She published papers papers on host-pathogen interactions and causes of defects in timber. She helped initiate and then managed Project Dieback which delivered on the identification of priority areas, with high biodiversity values, for protection from Phytophthora dieback. She is a past member of the State Conservation Commission and has advised the EPA and the Conservation Commission on dieback and ecologically sustainable forest management. In recent years she has been active in community conservation projects along the South Coast.

Professor Robyn Owens is currently a part-time Professorial Fellow with the University of Western Australian, having retired from the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) in December 2019. Prior to this she was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and Research Training) (2004-2009), co-Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) for 2003 and Head of the School of Computer Science & Software Engineering at UWA (1998-2002). She has supervised over 20 PhD and Masters’ research theses to completion, and in 2001 was awarded an Excellence in Teaching Award for Postgraduate Supervision. Her awards include the UK Rank Prize for Nutrition in 2009, the Kenneth Clarke Prize for the best paper published in the Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine Journal, 1994, the Asia Pacific IT Award for Best Research Project 1999, and for The Auslan Tuition System, Commendation in the Innovation Category of the Western Australian Information Technology and Telecommunications Award (WAITTA) 2004. She has over 7000 citations for her published work and an H-Index of 37 (Google Scholar). She is an elected Fellow of the Australian Computer Society, an elected Fellow of the Australian Academic of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

Phil is a fire behaviour scientist and forest ecologist working in an adjunct role with Curtin University. Coming from a background in fire management and specialist remote area firefighting, his focus is on research that guides actions leading to concrete improvements. Phil has developed the Fire Research and Modelling Environment FRaME, which is the first fire behaviour model of its kind to predict fire behaviour from plant traits and vegetation structure, mechanistically calculating its effects on flora, fauna and soils. FRaME is now being coupled with detailed analyses of fire histories and structural/compositional changes to develop Ecological Control Theory. Ecological Control Theory provides a radical new understanding of the ways that growth and succession in vegetation communities modify the flammability of those communities to limit the spread and impact of fire and enable the existence of fire sensitive species over geological time periods.

Chris has long been fascinated by patterns in biological diversity and the factors that influence it. After four years as a lecturer at UWA, he moved to the University of Sydney in 1989 and retired as an Emeritus Professor in 2024. Chris has supervised over 160 Honours, Masters and PhD students during his career and has written ~600 peer-reviewed scientific articles as well as several books. Among his contributions, he has chaired the NSW Scientific Committee and the IUCN specialist group for Marsupials and Monotremes, and for several years was President of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales (RZS) and the Australian Mammal Society. He currently serves as a councillor or committee member on four state, national or international conservation and research organizations. Chris was elected as a Fellow of the RZS in 2001, the Zoological Society of India in 2012, the Australian Academy of Science in 2018, and an honorary international fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023. He received the New South Wales Scientist of the Year Award for Plant and Animal Sciences in 2010, and was a recipient of a Gold Medal from the Ecological Society of Australia in 2018. He continues to run a long term ecological research program (begun in 1990) in central Australia that is quantifying the dynamics of desert animals and plants, their interactions with each other, and with environmental drivers.

Leigh is an evolutionary biologist whose research has focused on reproductive biology. He received his PhD from Nottingham University in 1986 and held a series of postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Liverpool UK until 1995 when he moved to the University of Western Australia. Leigh is the recipient of the Zoological Society of London‘s Silver Medal (1998), The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Medal (2020), The Certificate of Distinction from the International Congresses of Entomology (2008), an ARC Federation Fellowship (2004) and was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2009 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025.
Leigh is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at UWA and a Research Adjunct at the Western Australian Museum. Leigh’s work has provided insight into the mechanisms of evolution that generate biodiversity and is currently exploring the contribution of anthropogenic factors to broadscale global declines in invertebrate abundance and biodiversity. He is the author of over 400 scientific articles, and 2 authored and 3 edited books on behaviour, ecology and evolution. Leigh has served on the editorial boards of some of the world’s leading international journals including Proceeding of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, and was Editor-in-Chief of the journals Animal Behaviour and Behavioural Ecology. Leigh is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Invertebrates Australia whose mission is “to influence conservation action, investigate solutions and inspire engagement as the expert voice for invertebrates to benefit Australian nature and people”.

Tristan is a self-motivated researcher with strong skills in spatial and data science and a passion for ecology and conservation. Since completing his doctorate in 2020, Tristan has published a wide range of papers from data integrity assessment to global orchid threats to multi-decadal measurement of ecological change. This has included several significant data-led reviews quantifying critical impacts to the biodiversity of Southwest Australia, which have subsequently influenced government policy. With several decades of commercial experience in addition to his academic credentials, he has a proven track record of science-led innovation with a strong project management and leadership skills

Brad has a long-standing interest in the intersection between phylogeny, ecology and hydrological variability in aquatic systems. His research has been focussed on south-western Australia and northern Australia (Kimberley, Northern Territory, Gulf region, Cape York Peninsula and the Wet Tropics region). His model organisms are typically freshwater and estuarine fishes and freshwater aquatic crustaceans but includes the whole-of-community also (primary producers, invertebrates, fish and reptiles) in studies of food web variation across axes of spatial and temporal environmental variation. He has also published in the fields of hydrology, environmental management (particularly environmental water management) and indigenous engagement in natural resource management. He was an inaugural member of the Technical Advisory Panel of the Federal Cultural Flows Program, provided advice to State (WA, NT and Qld) and Federal agencies with respect to environmental water plans and contributed a chapter on aquatic resources in the Parliamentary report used to guide the Federal Government White paper on Development of Northern Australia. He has written 122 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 13 papers in conference proceedings, 16 book chapters, 40 reports (or chapters within reports) to business, and State and Federal Government. He has published two books, one of which was awarded the 2005 Gilbert Whitley Medal for Excellence in zoological publishing by the Zoological Society of New South Wales. He has been cited 11,342 times and has an H index of 55. Brad has successfully supervised 11 MSc or PhD candidates. He holds Adjunct Professor positions at both The University of Western Australia and Griffith University.

Thomas’ research focuses on understanding how humans modify the patterns of animal ecology and diversity that we witness today and providing solutions for improving ecological outcomes through species reintroductions, habitat restoration, invasive species control and by reducing human-wildlife conflict. After completing a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship at Oregon State University and University of Washington, and then an Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Fellowship at Deakin University, Thomas started at The University of Sydney as a Lecturer in 2018 and is now Associate Professor. He continues to hold a courtesy Faculty position within the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University, and an Affiliate Assistant Professorship within the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at The University of Washington. Thomas established the Global Ecology Lab at The University of Sydney, and he has supervised 14 PhD, 5 Masters, and 22 honours students and published >140 peer reviewed publications and a book. Among his contributions, Thomas is the current President of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW and he served for several years as President of the Australasian Wildlife Management Society. He is a member of the NSW Commercial Kangaroo Management Advisory Panel and has served on multiple Pest Management Committees in NSW. Awards include Collaborative Research Winner (NT NRM Awards), a Eureka Prize finalist, a Whitley Award, Supervisor of the Year (USyd), multiple early career awards (Australian Mammal Society, Deakin University), NSW Young Tall Poppy Science Award Winner, and NT Young Achiever finalist (Awards Australia). His work is conducted with many government, industry and indigenous partners across Australia, and he has established collaborative field projects in North America and South Africa.

Denis joined CSIRO Division of Wildlife Research in Western Australia as an Experimental Officer in January 1968. He remained with them in WA, until he was moved to the Division’s Headquarters in Canberra in June 1997 as a Chief Research Scientist. During his nearly 30 years in WA he worked on: the taxonomy, ecology, and biology of cockatoos, particularly Carnaby’s Cockatoo; the ecology of island bird communities; the conservation of bird communities in production landscapes; landscape design and integration of conservation with production in agricultural landscapes; community involvement in research and management; and Federal state of the environment reporting. He was an editor of Biological Conservation, Conservation Biology, Landscape and Urban Planning, Nature Conservation, and Pacific Conservation Biology. Since resigning from CSIRO in 2002, he was an inaugural of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, has served as President of WWF-Australia, and been a member of the boards of Earthwatch and the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union. He was the recipient of the International Society for Conservation Biology’s 1998 Individual in Government award for making “significant, meaningful and lasting contributions to conservation biology.”; the recipient of the International Association for Landscape Ecology’s 1999 IALE Distinguished Scholarship Award for “exceptional contributions to the development of landscape ecology as a science and a practice.”. was highly commended in Prime Minister’s Australia 2000 Environment Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for ‘highly significant contribution to the research and practice of biodiversity conservation.’; made a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2005 for “service to nature conservation, particularly through the study of Australian birds and the development of landscape ecology in Australia”; awarded the D. L. Serventy Medal in 2006 by the RAOU (Birds Australia) for “outstanding contributions to publication in the science of ornithology in the Australasian region”; awarded the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales’ Certificate of Commendation for service to conservation in 2014; and inducted into the WA Landcare Network WA Landcarers’ Hall of Fame in 2024 in “appreciation and recognition of outstanding and sustained contribution to community landcare in Western Australia”. Since 1969, he has conducted a long-term study on a breeding population of Carnaby’s Cockatoos. This study is in its 57th year. While not the longest running study of its type, it is probably one of the only ones in which the scientist who set up the study is still actively engaged in it.

Martha is a Senior Honorary Fellow in the School of Molecular Sciences with a research program that investigates the molecular evolution of C4 photosynthetic syndromes. She concentrates on eudicot and monocot groups that contain closely related species which use either the ancestral C3 photosynthetic pathway or C4 biochemistry or various C3-C4 intermediate pathways. Currently, two endemic Australian genera are the focus of her lab: Neurachne, the only known grass group in the world with distinct, closely related C3, C4 and C3-C4 intermediate species and Tecticornia, a eudicot genus of halophytic, stem-photosynthesising succulents with C3 and C4 species. Martha uses comparative leaf anatomy and biochemistry and ‘omics technologies to resolve the molecular steps along the C3 to C3-C4 to C4 evolutionary continuum. Martha graduated with a BA in Biological Sciences from Smith College, Northampton, MA and a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from McGill University, Montréal, Canada. After postdoctoral positions at Melbourne University, QUT as an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow, and ANU, she held teaching and research positions at ANU and Macquarie University before joining UWA. At UWA, Martha has been part of Plant Biology, CMCA, and Biochemistry. She was Associate Dean International and School Education Representative for the Faculty of Science, then Head of School, Molecular Sciences. She was elected Secretary and President of the Australian Society of Plant Scientists and Co-Chair of the Gordon Research Conference, CO2 Assimilation in Plants: Genome to Biome.

Kit has had an enduring love for nature, and her passion for protecting wildlife, is evident through her activities and publications. She had an excellent undergraduate record at UWA and published her first article before she graduated. Her PhD was funded by a Forrest Research Foundation Scholarship and supervised by Prof Kingsley Dixon. Following her PhD, she was awarded a Federal Government Bushfire Recover grant to carry out research using bee hotels as bushfire recovery tools in post-burn areas. This research won the Falling Walls Lab WA award 2025. She has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles, with Top-downloaded and Top-cited notations in journals. Her publication “The evidence for and against competition between the European honeybee and Australian native bees” won the Ivor Beatty Award, and “The relative performance of sampling methods for native bees: an empirical test and review of the literature” won the Graeme Robertson Prize. Kit has won numerous awards including Curtin Alumni Young Achiever Award 2024, and WA Young Achiever Award