ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

Alumni

	*Dr Tracy Ainsworth* Contact : tracy.ainsworth@jcu.edu.au Tracy grew up in Kingscliff and Port Macquaire, on the north coast of New South Wales, before moving to Townsville to attend James Cook University. At JCU she completed a BSc in Marine Biology and Aquaculture, and an MSc researching prawn health markers, at the Centre for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland Tracy completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. She was investigating microbial communities associated with the coral holobiont during disease and stress, specifically using fluorescence in situ hybridisation, molecular techniques and histopathology to determine the architecture of the changing coral-microbe association and the cell biology of holobiont. Following her PhD Tracy hopes to continue research on the coral holobiont and effects of stress and climate change within a post-doctoral position at ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
	Dr Bridget Ayling - ANU PhD Student Contact : Bridget.Ayling@ga.gov.au Bridget grew up in Napier, New Zealand and completed a BSc(Hons) in geology and physical geography at Victoria University of Wellington. Her Honours thesis examined locally-derived aeolian sediments deposited on coastal glaciers in South Victoria Land, Antarctica, as indicators of regional wind regime. She moved to Canberra to pursue a PhD at the ANU with Professors Malcolm McCulloch and John Chappell, reconstructing seasonal climate from two warm interglacial periods of the last 500 thousand years, using the skeletal geochemistry of fossil Porites corals and giant Tridacna clams. She submitted her PhD early 2006, and was employed in the 2006-intake of Geoscience Australia's 12-month graduate program. During the program she worked in a variety of projects including characterising seabed fluid escape features on Australia's continental shelf, and the use of predictive modelling in earthquake risk assessment. She graduated with her PhD in December 2006, and is now working in the Geothermal Energy Project at Geoscience Australia.
	Dr Michael Berumen - Contact : mberumen@whoi.edu After finishing his PhD, Michael returned to his home state of Arkansas and spent two years working on as a postdoc and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the biology department of the University of Arkansas. In 2007, he took a position as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Fish Ecology Lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Despite being based far from coral reefs, he continues to work in the west and south Pacific, collaborating with several Centre members on projects based in Papua New Guinea, Australia, and French Polynesia. With colleagues at WHOI, Michael is also beginning work in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea and in Belize. His research includes larval connectivity, tagging and tracking fish movements, reef community ecology, and anything to do with butterflyfishes. In 2008, Michael was named a Sir Keith Murdoch Fellow by the American Australian Association to do several months of fieldwork on the Great Barrier Reef, and he will thus be frequenting the JCU Centre as a Visiting Postdoc in 2008 and 2009. He also maintains http://butterflyfish.net.
	*Dr Dan Breen* Contact: dbreen@doc.govt.nz Dan completed his PhD at JCU on systematic conservation planning for marine protected areas (MPAs) with the supervision of Prof. Geoff Jones and Dr Nick Otway. He now works for the New Zealand Department of Conservation in Auckland on MPAs and provides science advice for Maui's dolphin and other threatened species. He previously worked for the NSW Marine Parks Authority and NSW Fisheries in establishing marine parks and aquatic reserves, for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on the Representative Areas Program, as a consultant in monitoring the impacts of tourism and other activities and as a interpreter with Reef Biosearch in Port Douglas. Dan's research interests include quantitative marine ecology, spatial and statistical modeling of marine communities and applying GIS based decision support systems (including Marxan, C-Plan and Zonation). Dan, his wife Dr Barbara Bollard-Breen (Auckland University of Technology and WWF), and two children (Jack and Cassie) now live on a vineyard on Waiheke Island in New Zealand, love to have visitors and enjoy working throughout the Pacific.
	*Dr Kathleen Broderick* Contact: kathleen.broderick@gbrmpa.gov.au Kathleen hails from Western Australia. She has had several careers: first in education; second in natural resource management in the Western Australian government, and; recently in studying the social systems surrounding the Great Barrier Reef and its river catchments with the Centre of Excellence. Her passion for restoration and improved management of ecosystems has now lead her on to her new role as Manager, Social and Economic Information and Research for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
	*Dr Sam Burgess* Contact : Sam.Burgess@earth.ox.ac.uk Sam grew up moving around four States and Territories in Australia before moving to South Australia to complete undergraduate studies in geology and environmental biology at the University of Adelaide. She moved to New Zealand to complete an MSc in marine ecology at the University of Auckland, examining the biogeography and reproductive ecology of deep-sea coral with Russ Babcock. Sam took a break from study for a year to work as a marine consultant for the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI). Continuing on with the cold-water coral theme, she started a PhD in 2003 at the Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University with Malcolm McCulloch, Mike Gagan and Tim Ward (from SARDI). The project was investigating the geochemical ecology of a high-latitude species of coral, commonly found in temperate waters around Australia. Sam enjoys spending her spare time outdoors, preferably by the ocean, doing something active such as diving, hiking or mountain biking. She is pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford, building on her geochemical and ecological background in paleoenvironmental archives.
	*Neil Chan* Contact: neil.chan@jcu.edu.au Neil grew up in Malaysia before moving to Townsville to pursue a degree in Marine Biology in 2004. He has just finished his Honours in which he used Leslie matrix models to investigate the influence of density dependence, age structure and sex change on the efficacy of marine reserves, under the supervision of Sean Connolly and Garry Russ. He intends to continue on to a PhD in the near future but is still contemplating a topic of choice.
	*Tim Cooper* Contact : t.cooper@aims.gov.au After completing his undergraduate degree at JCU, Tim spent some time applying his skills and knowledge in the environmental consulting industry in Sydney and Brisbane. He then returned to research and completed his PhD at the JCU node of the Centre, supervised by Ken Anthony and Katharina Fabricius (AIMS). Tim's project aimed to identify physiological and ecological health/stress indicators of corals on nearshore reefs. This study was the first to combine information on physiology, population and community ecology of corals to identify indicators responsive to changes in water quality on the Great Barrier Reef. In his spare time, Tim dreams of riding in the Tour de France, so postdoctoral positions in Europe are high on his agenda.
	*Chris Cvitanovic* Contact : christopher.cvitanovic@jcu.edu.au Chris grew up in Canberra, where he began his BSc at the Australian National University, yet transferred to JCU in 2005, where he completed his undergraduate studies with a major in Marine Biology. At JCU Chris undertook his honours under the supervision of Prof. David Bellwood and Dr. Morgan Pratchett, focusing his research on the roles and relative importance of herbivorous fishes in maintaining the function of coral reefs ecosystems. Chris is now in Canberra with DEWHA
	*Dr Maria Dornelas* Contact: maria.dornelas@jcu.edu.au Maria grew up in Portugal and did her BSc at the University of Lisbon. She studied diversity patterns of reef corals for her PhD at the JCU node of the Centre, supervised by Sean Connolly and Terry Hughes. Specifically she tested if the neutral theory of biodiversity can explain community structure of corals across the Indo-Pacific. Her research on this was published in Nature. She submitted her thesis on 29 June 2006 and gave birth to her first child, Martim on 29 July. She says that she wouldn’t be surprised if Martim’s first words are “demographic stochasticity”…In January 2007 she took up a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of St Andrews in Scotland but then moved back to Townsville to undertake a a post-doctoral position at ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
	*Claire Farnsworth* Contact: claire.farnsworth@jcu.edu.au Claire is originally from Victoria, but moved to Townsville in 2003, where she completed her BSc in marine biology. In her honours Claire focused on investigating the community structure of gobies (Eviota spp in particular) across the continental shelf of the GBR, under the supervision of Prof. David Bellwood and Dr. Lynne van Herwerden.
	*Dr David Feary* Contact: dfeary@inweh.unu.edu From New Zealand, David completed a Masters degree at the Leigh Marine Laboratory in Auckland. However, warmer temperatures and exceedingly diverse reef fish communities drew him to Australia where he completed his PhD in 2007, examining the role of coral loss in structuring tropical reef fish communities. At present he is working at the United Nations University-INWEH: a post-doctoral position under Professor Peter Sale, based in Dubai, UAE
	*Dr Ida Fellegara* Contact: i.fellegara@uq.edu.au Ida is from Italy where she completed her Bachelor of science in marine biology. She moved to Brisbane to do her Master on the ' Biology and ecology of the coral-eating gastropode Drupella from Heron Island'. She has just been awarded her PhD on the Ecophysiology of the corals from a high-latitude marginal environment (Moreton Bay, south east Queensland). These coral live under conditions of extreme water temperatures, high turbidity and occasional reduced salinity. There are, in part, able to survive these conditions by hosting a specific Symbiodinium population which, although not exclusive of Moreton Bay, was present in all organisms investigated. Her main interests are biodiversity, coral community dynamics and coral reproduction. She loves any outdoor activity.
	*Dr Chris Fulton* Contact: Christopher.Fulton@anu.edu.au Wave energy and the role of swimming in reef fish ecology. PhD Thesis, JCU (Graduated 2006). Chris research at JCU combined techniques in oceanography, functional morphology and ecology to determine how wave energy shapes patterns of fish diversity on tropical and temperate reefs. After spending seven years chasing fishes around coral reefs, Chris moved in August 2006 to Canberra to take up a Lectureship in Marine Ecology at the Australian National University. Chris is teaching the marine ecology strand of the new marine science degree at ANU. While he's planning to work more on temperate reef systems, Chris plans to come back up north occasionally to dip a toe in warmer waters!
	*Dr Mia Hoogenboom* Contact: mia@centrescientifique.mc Mia grew up in Australia and spent some time studying in Indonesia before moving to Townsville in 2001. Mia has recently completed her PhD at the JCU node of the Centre, supervised by Sean Connolly and Ken Anthony. Her research focused on investigating energy allocation strategies of corals, with the aim of establishing how population growth rates are influenced by environmental factors. Mia has moved to Monaco to pursue a postdoctoral position in Europe. When she’s not doing field work, she enjoys growing orchids.
	*Dr Victor Hugo Beltran Ramirez* Contact: victor.beltranramirez@jcu.edu.au Victor Hugo born in Mexico City, He completed is BSc with Honors degree in Marine Biology at La Paz Baja California University. His master degree at the National University of Mexico. Hugo has work on coral research projects for over 10 years involving Pacific Ocean reef ecology, physiology of the algae-coral symbiosis and has just submitted his PhD thesis on molecular aspects of the GFP-like proteins on the coral Acropora millepora. Hugo found that coral GFPs are expressed early in embryogenesis, displaying a temporal and spatial specific arrangement. The Functionality of these undoubtedly wide spread proteins is one of the postdoctoral endeavors that he wants to go after. When Hugo is not at work he plays harmonica music and enjoy Australia's outback landscape.
	*Dr Akira Iguchi* Contact: akira.iguchi@jcu.edu.au Akira came from Okinawa, Japan, and he gained his bachelor and master degree at Kyoto University. He is interested in speciation process of marine animals. His PhD was supervised by David Miller, Comparative Genomics Centre. Akira was examining fertilisation mechanism of Genus Acropora to clarify the relationship between fertilisation related genes and the speciation of Genus Acropora. He returned to Okinawa after completing his PhD to pursue a post-doctoral position at the University of Ryukyu in Okinawa, Japan.
	*Dr Stacy Jupiter* Contact: sjupiter@wcs.org In April 2008, Stacy bid farewell to the Centre of Excellence to join the Wildlife Conservation Society as an Associate Conservation Scientist for the South Pacific Marine Program based in Fiji. She will be responsible for structuring and supervising the science behind their marine conservation program. By far their largest project, funded largely by the Moore and Packard foundations, involves aiding local communities to establish and maintain networks of marine protected areas (MPAs). They work at 2 main regions on Vanua Levu: Kubulau and Macuata. Kubulau involves cooperation between 10 villages that form a qoliqoli (fisheries management area) to enforce protection in traditional tabu sites as well as 3 established marine reserves. The Macuata region covers a much broader area, including 4 qoliqolis and perhaps a broader range of reef habitat. Their main tasks, in partnership with WWF and Wetlands International, are to assess threats to the reefs from overharvesting, land pollution and climate change, using both biological and socioeconomic surveys. Stacy hopes to maintain strong links to the CoE and invite any interested researchers and students to get in touch about future collaborations.
	*Dr Paulina Kaniewska* Contact: p.kaniewska@uq.edu.au Paulina comes from Sweden. She completed her PhD at the Centre for Marine Studies and was supervised by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Ken Anthony and is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre. When not occupied with the marine world she enjoys capoeira.
	*Dr Ailsa Kerswell* Contact: ailsa.kerswell@environment.gov.au Ailsa Kerswell has recently submitted her PhD thesis entitled "Biogeography and Macroecology of Benthic Marine Algae". Her research focused on world-wide patterns of maroalgal (i.e. seaweed) diversity and community structure. The major outcome of this research paper was that global contours of algal species richness were documented for the first time. Unlike many other organisms (e.g. corals and reef fishes), macroalgae have diversity hotspots in temperate regions in southern Australia and Japan. This research helps us to understand where biologically important algae communities are located and also what processes underpin global patterns of biodiversity. Originally working for the Department of Environment, Ailsa now runs her own consulting business.
	*Ann Mooney* Contact: akmooney@gmail.com From Hawaii, Ann began her career hauling marine debris off coral reefs of remote Pacific Atolls, working as a benthic habitat analyst and coordinating research cruises. She completed her BSc in biology and MSc under the supervision of Ken Anthony at the Centre for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland studying how ocean acidification affects the strength of the skeletal structure of scleractinian corals. In her free time, Ann can be found surfing or buried in a good book.
	*Dr Pippa Moore* Contact: ppm@mba.ac.uk Pippa has just returned to the United Kingdom after working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Queensland node of the Centre of Excellence where she looked at the effects of past climate on the ecology of coralline algae. Prior to joining the Centre she spent 13 years in the UK where she did a PhD in Marine Biology (2005) jointly between the Marine Biological Association of the U.K and the University of Plymouth. She is broadly interested in community ecology and more particularly in understanding how species, populations and assemblages are likely to respond to anthropogenic impacts, particularly climate change.
	*Maria Rodrigues* Contact : maria.rodrigues@jcu.edu.au Maria grew up in Maputo, capital of Mozambique in East Africa. She moved to Australia to start a Masters Degree in Marine Biology at JCU and later upgraded to a PhD. She was supervised by Terry Hughes and Andrew Baird, and her study project was to examine the effects of over fishing on coral communities. She has now returned to her country and become involved in the study of Mozambican extensive coral reefs.
	*Eugenia Sampayo* Contact: s4022881@student.uq.edu.au Eugenia was born in The Netherlands. She grew up with a passion for the ocean that increased when her parents moved to the Dutch Antilles for a few years. She completed a Masters Degree in Marine Biology at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) working on coral reproduction with Prof. Rolf Bak and Dr Mark Vermeij. In 2003 she started a PhD under supervision of Dr Sophie Dove and Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg at the University of Queensland. Her research was focused on genetic diversity of coral symbionts and whether this diversity was reflected in host-symbiont ecology. Furthermore, she was interested in assessing flexibility of the host-symbiont partnership and its importance on coral reef resilience. She finished her PhD in 2006 and continues working on coral reefs.
	*Dr Shaun Wilson* Contact : Shaun.Wilson@dec.wa.gov.au Shaun received his first degree in pharmacy from the University of Sydney, before becoming interested in marine biology. He was awarded his Phd in Marine Ecology in 2002 from James Cook University, and then held teaching and research positions overseas (USA and UK). His postdoctoral research at the Centre of Excellence and University of Newcastle focused on impact of habitat loss on coral reef fish communities. Shaun started work for the Department of Environment and Conservation, Perth, Western Australia, in October 2008. He is a Senior Research Scientist within Marine Science Program, where he conducts research that facilitates a better understanding and management of marine resources in tropical Western Australia.
	*Dr Marian Wong* Contact: marian.wong@yahoo.com.au Marian Wong completed her BA in Zoology from the University of Cambridge, U.K. and then went on to conduct her PhD in Marine Biology at James Cook University under the supervision of Drs. Philip Munday and Geoff Jones. Her current research focuses on understanding the evolution of social and reproductive behaviour using fishes as model organisms. During her PhD, she used the coral-dwelling goby, Paragobiodon xanthosomus, to test key hypotheses for the evolution of monogamy, group-living and conflict resolution, using experimental techniques. Currently, she is based at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada where she is collaborating with Dr. Sigal Balshine in investigating various aspects of the social and reproductive behaviour of the African cichlid fish, Neolamprologus pulcher. This fascinating species exhibits a complex social system which makes it ideal for testing a broad range of theories for the evolution of cooperative behaviour, social aggression and the formation and maintenance of dominance relationships, as well as the molecular correlates of social behaviour.