We warmly welcomed three new staff members and one PhD student recently to the GFAR team.
Valerie Lawley
Valerie Lawley joined GFAR in July 2018. Her research is focused on ecosystem service provision (biodiversity and pollination services) on private land in the South East of South Australia. Valerie’s background is in natural resource management, market-based instruments for biodiversity conservation projects, threatened species recovery planning, and spatial information science.
Stuart Collard
Stuart completed a science degree at the University of Adelaide in the 1990s. His subsequent PhD research in Southern Queensland focussed on ecosystems services in agricultural landscapes of the Brigalow Belt. He has since worked for government and non-government organisations across the environment and agriculture sectors for more than 10 years. His recent roles include State Manager at Greening Australia, Conservation Programs Manager at The Nature Conservation Society of South Australia, Senior consultant at Rural Solutions SA and Landscape Ecologist at the Queensland Department of Natural Resources. Stuart has a strong research interest in the use of market-based instruments to achieve resilience in multi-functional landscapes. He has a long-standing involvement in ornithology, using birds as indicators of land use and environmental change. He has experience and knowledge of the land sector carbon and environmental markets and recently worked with National Australia Bank on a ‘Valuing natural capital’ project. Stuart’s research interests include: Markets for ecosystems services and carbon; Landscape ecology; Agro-ecosystem resilience; Natural resources management and policy; and Ornithology.
Daniel Hill
Daniel Hill joined GFAR in August 2018 as a research assistant to work on the ACIAR Project in Uganda looking at developing value chain innovation platforms to improve food security in East and Southern Africa. Daniel is currently completing his Honours in Economics from the University of Adelaide, where he is researching poverty dynamics in rural India. Prior to this, he participated in the Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre (ECIC) Sustainability Internship Program, and is currently the Vice President of the Adelaide Sustainability Association.
Ben Fee
Ben Fee joined GFAR in August 2018 as a PhD student. His PhD will focus on “Improving Conversion of Policies to Desired Program Outcomes – Lessons from Watery Recovery Programs in the Murray Darling Basin and Asia”. Prof Sarah Wheeler, Dr Daniel Gregg from GFAR and Prof Quentin Grafton from Australian National University will supervise Ben’s PhD.
Claire Settre
Since finishing her PhD in water resource economics with GFAR in 2017, (supervised by Prof Sarah Wheeler and Prof Jeff Connor) Claire has worked as a research fellow on carbon neutrality for Adelaide City Council with the University of Adelaide and DEW, and on ACIAR projects in China and the Asia Pacific with the University of Griffith and the University of Adelaide. She continues to publish work from her thesis on hydro-economic modelling of the Murray-Darling Basin.
This year, Claire has started work as social and environmental consultant at a consulting firm in Bristol, England. Her ongoing projects include: a feasibility of inland fish farming as a rural livelihood restoration method in Sierra Leone; identifying innovative methods to improve upland rice farming in West Africa; and assessing the cumulative impacts of hydropower in Lao PDR.
