PhD Candidate in Educational Psychology, UNSW Sydney Andrew Kingsford-Smith is a current Scientia PhD candidate and Casual Academic in the School of Education, UNSW. He has teaching experience at several universities and high schools, and is passionate about bringing evidence-based practices into schools. His research interests focus on student and teacher motivation, engagement, and wellbeing using quantitative analyses. Andrew’s research has been published in both academic journals and professional media outlets. Andrew has worked on several research projects at UNSW, including the “Optimal Music Performance”, “Rural & Regional Education” and “Graduate Ready Schools” projects.
Senior Lecturer in Landscape Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences I mostly teach landscape ecology and field botany for undergraduate students. At the post-graduate level, I develop and lead courses in using the R environment to handle data and perform GIS analyses. I'm interested in the role of humans in determining changes in biodiversity and distributions over time. In particular, I want to know changes in landscape and climate during the past century have shaped patterns of biodiversity today. Using historical and present-day maps and species inventories, I look at the changes in biodiversity that have already happened in response to environmental change, with the hope that that knowledge can be used to conserve biodiversity now and in the future. I am also very interested in the dispersal of plant species in time and space, and how this is driven directly and indirectly by humans through management and landscape structure. Seeds can move in any number of ways related to human activity, while dormancy in the seed bank can act to buffer biodiversity during times of unsuitable conditions. I think that understanding how species move in time and space will help us to understand their responses to environmental pressures and conservation actions.
Research Associate, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney Ava Kalinauskas is a Research Associate at the United States Studies Centre. Ava sits on the Youth Advisory Council to US Consul General Christine Elder. She was previously a Program Assistant at Women In International Security Global (WIIS), a Washington DC-based organisation dedicated to advancing the UN “Women, Peace and Security” agenda. Ava holds a Bachelor of Arts Dual Degree from Sciences Po Paris and the University of Sydney. She graduated from Sciences Po with Cum Laude Honours, majoring in Political Humanities. At the University of Sydney, she was a Dalyell Scholar and a recipient of the IPAA NSW GC Remington award.
Assistant Professor, University of Arizona I am an Assistant Professor of Rangeland Ecology and Adaptive Management in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona. My work is focused on solving emerging challenges in coupled natural human systems. I am an environmental social scientist with training in theories of human behavior and decision making and frameworks for analyzing governance institutions. I also have interdisciplinary training in climate science and rangeland ecology and management. I use this unique combination of skills to engage in transdisciplinary work with ecologists, climate scientists, and political scientists that addresses pressing management and governance challenges including biological invasions, climate change induced forest die-off, migratory species conservation, and adaptive management of rangelands. I teach in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona in our Ecology, Management, and Restoration of Rangelands program. Prior to joining the University of Arizona as a faculty member, I worked for environmental NGOs in Washington, DC and as a research professional at the University of Arizona
Senior Lecturer in Global Health, University of Aberdeen Research Areas: Health Inequalities (with a special focus on protected characteristics), Nutritional Transition & Noncommunicable Diseases, Non-monetary Indicators of Poverty & Health in Later Life, Quantitative Research Methods and Historical Perspective
Postdoctoral fellow, University of Pretoria I have completed undergraduate, honours, masters and PhD degrees in genetics from the University of Pretoria. My research focus has been on sexual reproduction in fungal pathogens of forestry trees, with an emphasis on the underlying genetic features. I have published a variety of peer-reviewed articles in this field.
