SERA CHAIrpersON - Anita Thomas
Adelaide, South Australia
Marine and coastal restoration
Project planning, management, monitoring and evaluation
Blue carbon, shellfish reefs, seagrass, protected areas, community engagement
Anita Thomas (Nedosyko) is the South Australian Oceans Program Coordinator for The Nature Conservancy. Over the past 8 years, she has designed and managed the restoration of large-scale marine and coastal projects including shellfish reefs and coastal wetlands.
She is a marine biologist, a certified ecological restoration practitioner, and an associate lecturer at Flinders University. Anita sits on the Parks and Wilderness Council providing strategic leadership on the protected area system in South Australia.
Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, she developed a clownfish breeding conservation program at Flinders University, was as an environmental consultant and worked for the Commonwealth Government as an environmental assessment officer for mining and offshore oil and gas development.
IMMEDIATE PAST Chair - bruce clarkson
New Zealand
Independent reviewer of progress of New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy.
Advisor to New Zealand restoration projects including: Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park, Hakarimata Restoration Trust, Maungatautari Ecological Island.
Plant ecologist with main interests: Vegetation pattern, processes, and change (succession); Ecosystem Restoration and reconstruction; Autecology and conservation of threatened native plants.
Professor Bruce Clarkson ONZM is a restoration ecologist based at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. He has made significant contributions to conservation and restoration research and practice in his 40-year career. Bruce has produced over 223 publications on the ecology and restoration of New Zealand native plants and vegetation. He was a member, by appointment of the New Zealand Minister of Conservation, of the Interim Oversight Group for the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy and the Wildlife Act Review Strategic Oversight Group.Since 2016 Bruce has led ‘People, Cities and Nature’, a government funded research program focusing on restoring damaged or depleted indigenous ecosystems in urban environments. His research has guided biodiversity and restoration projects including the Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park and Hamilton’s Nature in the City Program, and he has contributed to many other North Island conservation and restoration projects.
He is currently Chair of the Waiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park Advisory Group, a trustee of the Rotokare (Taranaki) Sanctuary, and patron of the Aongatete Forest Restoration Trust and the Pirongia Te Aroaro o Kahu Restoration Society.
Vice-Chairperson - Vern Newton
Perth, Western Australia
Construction materials, quarrying and mining experience across Australia with several leading construction materials and mining companies.
Operational, project management, logistical, marketing and human resources experience.
Advocacy with local, state and federal government and agencies.
Working with science to provide a link to industry for improved restoration outcomes.Completing best practice restoration of Banksia woodland.
Vern’s areas of expertise include working for several construction material and mining companies in senior roles encompassing Operations, Logistics, Budgeting, Strategic Planning and Marketing within the Kimberley, Pilbara, South West, Goldfields and Metropolitan area of Western Australia and Australia as a whole. He has been involved in driving sustainable policies within corporate organisations including developing Energy Management Policy for a large Australian construction materials company, which resulted in the company being the first sign up for the Australian Greenhouse Challenge with the Federal Government.
With Rocla, Vern engaged with research institutes to help achieve partnerships between industry and science so that a higher standard of restoration is achieved on the ground, resulting in several environmental awards including two Golden Geckos. Additionally, Vern liaises with government (both Federal and State) and regulatory bodies regarding the benefits of restoration to ensure restoration principles are a key focus for government so that development occurs in a sustainable manner and net increases in habitat begin to occur. With the acquisition of Rocla Quarry Products by Hanson Construction Materials (Australia), Vern continued his work in the resource development field with Hanson, and now also holds the role of National Property Manager.
SECRETARY - MICHAEL JUST
Perth, Western Australia
Michael is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Restoration Ecology Group at Curtin University. Michael’s research interests include seed physiology, ecology, and ex situ propagation to better inform restoration practice.
Committed to advancing ecological restoration and sustainability, Michael collaborates with various stakeholders, including government bodies, community groups, and industry partners. His work on the board of SERA emphasises promoting best practices in restoration ecology, fostering community engagement, and enhancing education in environmental stewardship.
Treasurer - HILLARY SMITH
Townsville, Queensland
Coral-algal interactions
Genomics of coral health and adaptation
Reef restoration, carbon sequestration and circular economy-based biomaterials
Citizen science
Hillary is a Senior Research Scientist at James Cook University.
Her research focusses on low-cost and low-tech coral reef restoration techniques that can achieve scale through community action. She is particularly passionate about developing methods that can translate to remote and developing island nations with limited resources for ecosystem management.
She completed a Master of Science at James Cook University, a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate at Columbia University (USA), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Washington University in St Louis (USA). She changed careers into science after witnessing the environmental harm of the fashion industry, leaving New York City for Townsville, Queensland.
Hillary worked for a short time as a mine site environmental compliance officer in Queensland, and this experience gave her valuable insight into restoration policy, as well as an interest in how land-based management could be translated to marine environments.
More broadly, Hillary’s research interests include coral-algal interactions and genomics of coral health and adaptation. She has a developing interest in the intersection of citizen science, reef restoration, carbon sequestration and circular economy-based biomaterials. Her personal website can be viewed here.
General Board Member - Jen Ford
Brisbane, Queensland
Highly experienced practitioner (26 years) with advanced site assessment skills and ability to apply a range of restoration approaches on a wide range of ecosystem and habitat types.
Successfully worked across sectors in a range of roles including state and local government, not-for-profit and private.
Well-developed communication skills including teaching and training.
High level skills in linking science with practice.
Strategic thinker with high level skills connecting strategy, policy and practice.
Develops and leads multi-disciplinary teams to achieve successful restoration planning, on-ground works, monitoring and reporting.
Jen is a highly experienced ecological restoration practitioner who has worked in a range of positions including as a bush regenerator; a TAFE teacher; a senior officer in local government and most recently in the private sector where she developed a team from 4 people to 84 people over 11 years including restoration practitioners across south-east Queensland and a team of consultants.Her experience includes successfully applying a range of ecological restoration approaches such as natural regeneration, assisted regeneration and reconstruction techniques such as planting across a wide range of ecosystems.
Jen and her teams have successfully planned and delivered restoration at scale while working with a wide range of stakeholders to assist ongoing monitoring and management of sites. She has designed and developed environmental education programs, delivered accredited training and continues to work hard to improve standards in ecological restoration, large scale weed control, threatened species management and restoration planning.
Jen’s leadership qualities combined with her passion for healing nature and connecting (or re-connecting) people with our environment, has resulted in her sitting on national committees to improve training and the SERA Board for more than 11 years to advance our strategic vision.
General Board Member - Peter Erskine
Brisbane, Queensland
Leading multi-disciplinary teams designing monitoring programs, rehabilitation strategies and understanding ecosystem function for industry and regulatory bodies.
Working on forest landscape restoration and mine rehabilitation.
Forest landscape restoration: developing ways to scale-up and restore large areas of degraded land.
Developing research solutions with research organisations, mining companies and government agencies on issues of land restoration and the environmental impacts of mining.
Peter is a landscape and plant ecologist with experience in a range of countries and ecosystems. He currently holds the positions of Professor at The University of Queensland and Director of the Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation. Over the last 25 years he has worked on ecosystem function, landscape forest restoration and revegetation techniques in Australia, south-east Asia and Africa. He currently works closely with companies, government agencies and NGOs to develop monitoring methods to assess environmental rehabilitation of human activities. Peter’s research interests include the development of novel ecosystems, the utility of reference sites for measuring rehabilitation success and the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles to quantify issues of scale.
Board Member at Large - Bruno Fogliani
New Caledonia
Seed ecophysiology
Revegetation of mining degraded land on ultramafic rocks and of dry forests
Conservation biology of New Caledonian vegetations
In vitro research dedicated to rare plants
Bruno is an Assistant Professor at the University of New Caledonia and previously Deputy Director of the New Caledonian Agronomic Institute. He is involved in the coordination of several research programs engaged with New Caledonian Institutions as well as with Mining Industries dedicated to conservation, revegetation and/or ecological restoration.
His scientific interests focus on ecology of seed used for ecological restoration of mining site in New Caledonia. He has developed research programs on hyperaccumulator plants to understand their ecophysiology from seed to adult plant in relation with microorganisms (mycorrhizal fungus and/or bacteria). Bruno has participated in phytomining projects dedicated to the use of this kind of plant for revegetation of degraded mining sites and for utilisation of the metal contained in their leaves for green chemistry.
Bruno has co-organised international workshops in New Caledonia dedicated to "seed ecology" in 2010 and to “the conservation of the floristic biodiversity in New Caledonia” in 2012. In 2014, as a member of the Society for Ecological Restoration Australasia, he organised the 2nd International Conference in Noumea (17-21 November). He is member of the ISES, the SCB, the ISSS and of the French Seed Biology Network.
General Board Member - Valerie Hagger
Brisbane, Queensland
Biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration
Coastal ecosystems
Worked as an ecological consultant for over 12 years
Skilled in linking science with practice
SER2023 Program Chair, SERA2018 conference organiser
Valerie is an ecologist and conservation scientist based at The University of Queensland, Australia. Her research on ecological restoration has provided science to underpin strategies to improve restoration for nature and people, such as her papers on what motivates restoration, how to improve restoration success, and how to achieve carbon and biodiversity co-benefits.
Her current research informs coastal wetland conservation and restoration by identifying drivers of ecosystem change, opportunities for restoration, benefits for biodiversity and carbon abatement and assisting in carbon method development to incentivise restoration.
As a UN Ocean Decade Action, her AXA-UNESCO research fellowship is exploring how community- and Indigenous-based management of mangrove forests can enhance their conservation and restoration.
She leads research projects on developing biodiversity assessment methods for coastal wetland restoration, assessing the feasibility of coastal wetland restoration for blue carbon with Indigenous groups and local governments, and characterising carbon abatement and biodiversity enhancements from controlling feral ungulates in wetlands.
Valerie has co-authored international Best Practice Guidelines on Mangrove Restoration. She has 20 years of industry and research experience in environmental management, biodiversity conservation, and ecological restoration and is the Pacific representative for the international Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and a representative of Australia’s Restoration Decade Alliance.
General Board Member - Martin Breed
Adelaide, South Australia
Holding the position of Associate Professor, Martin is a scholar of restoration ecology, ecosystem health, and genomics at Flinders University.
His career highlights include working with the UN and WHO on the links between biodiversity and human health via the microbiome, serving as a patron for the IUCN Species Survival Commission, and teaching amazingly resilient and optimistic students during COVID-19.
Martin runs a close-knit research group that develops solutions to pressing global environmental and societal issues. Examples of their work include working on optimising biodiverse urban green spaces to maximise human health and biodiversity; pioneering the use of genomics to improve ecosystem restoration; and harnessing the power of plant-microbe interactions to improve ecosystem outcomes under global change.
Martin is a passionate university educator and science communicator who aims to enable the next generation to turn around the global environmental tide from decline and degradation to repair and restoration.
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER - Renee Young
Perth, Western Australia
The Restoration Economy
Ecological restoration of mine sites and degraded agricultural lands
Mine closure policy and associated completion criteria
Strategic landscape planning
Cumulative assessments
Renee is the Program Director for Conservation and Restoration at the Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute (WABSI). Renee is an experienced manager and environmental scientist specialising in ecological restoration, with recent projects showcased at The UN Climate Change Conference (COP28, COP26) and UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15).
Working with government, industry and research, Renee collaborates widely to ensure outputs are applied and readily implementable. Her on-ground knowledge, experience in restoration, and understanding of the limitations and challenges currently faced within the sector, assists her to facilitate and coordinate the multi-disciplinary programs of work required to overcome some of the biggest barriers to ecological restoration.
Renee has led and contributed to a number of key publications to support restoration outcomes including:
Global: International Principles and Standards for the Ecological Restoration and Recovery of Mine Sites.
National: Guidelines for embedded experiments in ecological restoration and management in Australia.
Local: The Western Australian Restoration Economy: A roadmap towards a sustainable industry with better environmental outcomes
Renee completed her PhD at Kings Park, Western Australia, before managing a large botanical team at a leading environmental consultancy. Renee returned to the academia space to manage the ARC Centre for Mine Site Rehabilitation bringing experience in managing large and complex projects before joining WABSI.
Renee holds a number of additional professional positions including:
Society for Ecological Restoration Australasia (Board member)
DEMIRS Mining Rehabilitation Advisory Committee (Chair)
DPIRD Soil and Land Conservation Council (Council member)
UWA Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy Advisory Committee (Committee member)
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER - Carolyn j. Einig
Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Native forest recovery
Stream and riparian health
Biodiversity corridors
Climate change mitigation
Stakeholder inclusivity
Carolyn is Director of Lifezone Ecological. She has over 15 years of experience working on ecosystem restoration projects in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.
Her skill set has been shaped by academic research and professional consulting in biological evaluations, environmental impact assessments, mitigation planning, restoration design, implementation, monitoring, and regulatory compliance. Carolyn’s background includes natural disaster planning and recovery from drought, fires, earthquakes, and flooding.
She holds a Master of Resource Science from the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia, and a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Management from Colorado State University. She conducted research on freshwater wetlands of eastern Australia under a PhD scholarship, and was appointed as an adjunct professional fellow with the Landscape Hydrogeochemistry Group at Southern Cross University GeoScience.
Carolyn served the SER board of directors nearly 10 years ago as Rocky Mountain Region Representative of North America. She has served various NGOs throughout her career including the Society for Conservation Biology, the Colorado Riparian Association, Nature Conservancy, and Wildlife Information and Rescue Service. She is passionate about inspiring her 8-year-old son and future generations to protect and restore the Earth.
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER - Damien Cook
Based in north-central Victoria. Current restoration work is focused in the semi-arid zone in north-western Victoria.
Wetland restoration
Grassland and woodland restoration
Ecological monitoring (mostly birds, frogs and vegetation)
Damien (he/him) is the Director and Senior Restoration Ecologist at the Wetland Revival Trust. Damien has been a keen naturalist for 35 years and has developed a sound knowledge of flora and fauna ecology, identification, and habitat requirements. He is a recognised expert in wetland, riparian and terrestrial ecology, particularly in the factors affecting the establishment and management of aquatic and wetland plants, and the revegetation of terrestrial grassland and woodland ecosystems.
Damien has been instrumental in planning and delivering some of the largest and most complex ecological restoration projects to date in Victoria including the 40-hectare Waterways Estate in Braeside, Southeast Melbourne. Damien won a Restoration Excellence Award from the Society for Ecological Restoration Australasia (SERA) in November 2016 for this work.
Involved in planning and implementing the restoration of 200 hectares of coastal park at the Victorian Desalination Plant, Wonthaggi (Victoria), he currently works with Traditional Owner groups restoring wetlands, grasslands, and woodlands in and around the Kerang Wetlands and Gunbower Island Ramsar sites in northern Victoria.
His current main interests are developing techniques to restore species-rich, macrophyte-dominated clear water wetlands from those that have become turbid and algae-dominated and restoring the tree canopy and carbon storage capacity in wetlands where this has been degraded by past poor water management practices.
Damien conducts training sessions and lectures on ecology and related subjects for universities, industry, and community groups and has been on numerous scientific advisory groups including ‘Growling Grass Frog Technical Advisory Group’ and ‘Western Grassland Reserve Technical Advisory Group’. Outside of Australia, Damien has worked on ecological restoration projects in Inner Mongolia and Timor Leste.
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER - Preeti Castle
Perth, Western Australia
Strategic communications
Stakeholder engagement
Strategy development
Preeti has extensive experience in building brand reputation and sustaining social licence through effective communication and stakeholder engagement.
Preeti works as the Strategic Engagement Director for The Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute (WABSI), developing strategies to build an engaged and informed stakeholder base, and to make scientific knowledge accessible and understood by end users of biodiversity science.
Preeti’s experience spans several international and national organisations across financial services, science, technology and environment, and established a niche consulting firm that specialised in developing strategies to communicate scientific and technological concepts with clarity.
In addition to being a SERA Board Member, Preeti holds the International Engagement portfolio on the National Council of the Australian Science Communicators and has previously as a Board Member and Deputy Chair of the Munda Biddi Trail Foundation.
Preeti holds a B.A. in Communications, an M.B.A. from The University of Western Australia and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
GENERAL BOARD MEMBER - Shaun Kennedy
Adelaide, South Australia
Improving the practice of restoration to achieve functional habitats
Grassy woodlands, riparian woodlands, and seasonally inundated habitats
Urban biodiversity projects
Shaun has worked at SA Water for over 20 years. He graduated from Adelaide University with an Honours degree in Botany and Zoology and a Diploma in Project Management. He has over 20 years experience in the design and delivery of a broad range of ecological restoration projects comprising more than 1,100 hectares of water catchment and several prominent landscape installations featuring local indigenous flora. Shaun has a keen interest in improving the quality of ecological restoration efforts and urban biodiversity.
General board member - Aaron Eger
Sydney, New South Wales
Marine restoration
Kelp forests
Trophic interactions
Aaron is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science at University of NSW, Sydney. His work spans marine ecology, economics, science communication and kelp forest conservation.
Aaron’s research has resulted in the:
first ever Kelp Restoration Guidebook
first ever analysis of the global value of kelp forests, and
the first comprehensive review of kelp forest restoration across 300 years of practice.
He is also the Founder and Program Director of the Kelp Forest Alliance, a global community of practice and home of the Kelp Forest Challenge, a mission to protect and restore 4 million hectares of kelp forests by 2040.
Student Representative - CHrissi charles
University of Melbourne, Victoria
Grassland and Grassy Woodland Restoration
Vegetation ecology
Spatial mapping
Chrissi is an Early Career Vegetation Ecologist who focuses on conservation, ecosystem management and ecosystem restoration. Since graduating with a Bachelor of Plant Ecology in 2017, Chrissi has worked across a wide variety of roles including as a researcher for the ABC’s Gardening Australia, as an ecological restoration practitioner at Merri Creek Management Committee, and as a research assistant contributing to vegetation assessments, monitoring and data compilation at the University of Melbourne. Chrissi is currently completing her Masters in Ecosystem Management and Conservation at the University of Melbourne and working as a vegetation ecologist and GIS technician at EcoFutures consulting.
Student Representative - CHristian Miller-sabbioni
University of Western Australia, Western Australia
Cultural and ethical best practice
Indigenous knowledge
Conservation and restoration science
Christian is a Research Assistant working at the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country. He is a Whadjuk and Ballardong Nyoongar man, currently studying Philosophy, Political Science, and International Relations at the University of Western Australia. His research interests are focussed on what constitutes ethical best practice when working in conjunction with Indigenous Australians, specifically in the conservation and restoration science paradigm. Christian’s other interests include the synthesising of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge with Western Science and the Philosophy of Science.