After growing up in Australia I took a few years to travel and explore the world. Here I witnessed some incredible experiences from coming face to face with mountain Gorillas in Uganda, to witnessing the environmental impacts of the Ok Tedi Mine in PNG. These experiences instilled in me an urge to positively contribute to the way we manage our environments. As such, I undertook a Bachelor of Environmental Management at the University of Queensland. Through this degree I gained practical experience working with Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS), and undertook a development field trip to Indonesia. I discovered that it was the social component of environmental issues that I felt most engaged with. In 2015 I undertook an honours project looking at the implications of environmental change on the tourism industry on the Great Barrier Reef.

 

I began my PhD in 2016 with a stellar advisory team led by Karen McNamara, Patrick Nunn, and James Watson. The aim of my PhD is to assess the effectiveness of adaptation to climate change in the Pacific islands, with a focus on community-based and eco-system based initiatives. From this I hope to better understand how these projects can be implemented to optimise benefits for recipient communities, and other stakeholders alike. My dominant research interests relate to how environmental change is affecting vulnerable communities and industries around the world, and how they are adapting to such change. These interests further extend to human-environment interactions, international development, conservation and plastic pollution.

 

Outside of research, my main love is hiking and picking up rubbish. If you have any questions about me or my research, send me an email. I would love to hear from you.