An EconoTimes perspective

Lori Lach

Associate Professor, James Cook University

Associate Professor, James Cook University My introduction to ecology and conservation came as a study abroad experience in Queensland's rainforests, after which I found that plans for medical school paled in comparison to an environmentally-oriented career. I earned a Masters in Public Health degree in Environmental Health at the University of California-Berkeley and consulted for a non-profit environmental organization for three years. I interned at a field study school in Kenya for a year, then traveled around the world before settling down to earn my Ph.D. at Cornell University. While there, I became interested in biological invasions as a conservation issue, particularly invasions by easily overlooked creatures. Upon completing my Ph.D., I went to Mauritius on an NSF fellowship to research ant invasions in a restoration context. An ARC-Discovery grant on biological invasions and conservation in an urban context brought me to Western Australia in 2005. I started at JCU in 2013, in the shadow of the rainforest where I got my ecological start.