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SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Hugh completed Applied Mathematics Honours at The University of Adelaide in 1984. After attaining a Rhodes Scholarship Hugh completed his D.Phil at Oxford University in 1987. Postdoctoral research periods followed at Stanford University and ANU (as an ARC QEII Fellow). In 1991 he took a Lectureship, later Senior Lectureship, in Applied Mathematics at The University of Adelaide. In 1995 he was appointed Foundation Chair of the Department of Environmental Science at The University of Adelaide. In July 2000 Hugh took up a joint Professorship between Ecology and Mathematics at The University of Queensland. He was elected to The Australian Academy of Science in 2005 and now sits on its council. Professor Possingham was recently an ARC Federation fellow (2007 – 2011) and is now a Director of an ARC centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (ARC CEED) www.ceed.edu.au and an Australian Goverment National Environmental Research Program funded Hub - the NERP Environmental Decisions Hub - www.nerpdecisions.edu.au.
The Possingham lab includes nine postdoctoral researchers and twenty-five PhD students working on empirical and theoretical aspects of the applied population ecology of plants and animals. Particular areas of recent research include decision science for conservation, optimal monitoring, statistical methods in ecology, marine reserve design, optimal landscape reconstruction for birds, metapopulation dynamics of plants and animals, population viability analysis, kangaroo and koala management, and optimal weed control (as part of the Weeds CRC). The lab has a unifying interest in environmental applications of decision theory. Hugh has published over 100 refereed articles and book chapters.
Hugh coauthored the "Brigalow Declaration" that helped to bring an end to land-clearing in Queensland, thereby saving 10% of Australia's annual greenhouse gas emissions. This, work with the Wentworth Group, and many other statements and positions, have fundamentally changed the face of Australia.
Hugh has a variety of broader public roles including past Chair of the federal government Biological Diversity Advisory Committee, member of the NHT Advisory Committee, member of the state Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vegetation Management, member of the Research and Conservation Committee of Birds Australia and member of the Board of Greening Australia, Queensland. Currently he is a member of the Queensland Smart State Council and fourteen other boards and committees outside the University of Queensland.
The lab has a unifying interest in environmental applications of decision theory. Its reserve design software, Marxan (Eureka Prize 2009) is now used in over 100 countries to build their marine reserve system designs. Hugh has co-authored over 320 Web of Science papers which have received over 8500 citations.
He suffers from obsessive bird watching. This is an incurable disease and is best not discussed.
For an insight into the man himself, see the transcript of an interview conducted with Hugh on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science.
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