Hugh Possingham

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Hugh Phillip Possingham, FAA (born July 21, 1962, in Adelaide, Australia), is an ARC Federation Fellow in the Department of Mathematics, and the School of Integrative Biology at the University of Queensland. He is best known for his work in Conservation Biology, and is currently Director of the Applied Environmental Decision Analysis facility.

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[edit] Academic career

Possingham, an alumnus of St Peter's College, Adelaide, finished an Honours degree in Applied Mathematics at the University of Adelaide in 1984. He secured a Rhodes Scholarship to St John's College at Oxford University in 1984. He completed his D.Phil. under Michael Bulmer in 1987, focusing on optimal foraging theory.

His first postdoctoral research position was at Stanford University, under Joan Roughgarden, where he worked on biophysical models of intertidal communities. He then returned to Australia on a QEII Fellowship at the Australian National University. He work there made particular contributions to the field of Population Viability Analysis. In 1991 Possingham took a staff position at the University of Adelaide, in the Department of Mathematics. In 1995 he was appointed Foundation Chair and Professor of the Department of Environmental Science at the Roseworthy campus of The University of Adelaide.

In July 2000 Possingham moved to the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, where he took up a joint Professorship in the Department of Zoology & Entomology, and the Department of Mathematics. In February 2001 The Ecology Centre was established with Possingham as Director. His 2001 ARC Professorial Research Fellowship was followed in 2006 by an ARC Federation Fellowship. He was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2005.

During his career, Possingham has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers. He co-developed the MARXAN software for systematic conservation planning, which is used by over 1300 conservationists in 80 countries.

[edit] Public Roles

Possingham serves on a large number of committees, for both state and federal governments, as well as non-governmental agencies. Among others, he has been involved in:

  • The Australian Federal Government Biological Diversity Advisory Committee (Chair),
  • The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Biodiversity Hotspots (Chair),
  • The Koala Task Force (Chair).

[edit] Awards

  • POL Eureka Prize for Environmental Research (for collaborative work with Dr David Lindenmayer) - 1999
  • Inaugural Fenner medal for plant and animal biology from the Australian Academy of Sciences - 2000
  • General Systems medal from MSSANZ - 2003
  • ARC Professorial Fellowship 2003
  • UQ Higher Degree Supervision Excellence Award 2005
  • ARC Federation Fellowship 2006

[edit] External links

[edit] Selected bibliography

  • Biodiversity – turning up the heat on hotspots. Possingham, H. P. and K. A. Wilson, Nature (2005) 436:919-920.
  • Ecology – Are US coral reefs on the slippery slope to slime? Pandolfi J. M., J. B. C. Jackson, N. Baron, R. H. Bradbury, H. M. Guzman, T. P Hughes, C. V. Kappel, F. Micheli, J. C. Ogden, H.P. Possingham and E. Sala. Science (2005) 301:1725-1726.
  • A stochastic metapopulation model with variability in patch size and position Day, J. R. and Possingham, H. P., Theoretical Population Biology (1995) 48:333-360
  • Recruitment dynamics in complex life cycles. Roughgarden, J., Gaines, S.D. and Possingham, H.P., Science (1988) 241:1460-1466.