Who We Are

Professor, Premier's Science Fellow

Graeme Cumming

Graeme is a highly experienced landscape ecologist, interdisciplinary scientist, and conservation theorist. His research focuses primarily on wicked problems in conservation and management. His UWA profile is here and Google Scholar profile here.

Mid-Career Premier's Science Fellow

Abbie Rogers

Abbie is an interdisciplinary economist and co-Director of UWA’s Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy (CEEP). Her research focuses on integrating social and environmental values in evidence-based decision making. Her UWA profile is here.

PhD student

Teigan Collins

Teigan graduated with an MSc in Geology from Imperial College London in 2022. She moved to Perth in January 2024 to pursue a PhD with Graeme Cumming and Ryan Lowe. Her research will apply and extend existing frameworks in social-ecological systems research to understand biophysical and social-ecological feedbacks in coastal erosion governance, using WA as a case study. More information can be found on the UWA Repository and LinkedIn.

Ph.D. Student

Ilaria Gliottone

Ilaria is a conservation scientist, CFH and EA Jenkins Postgraduate Research & Keiran McNamara World Heritage PhD Scholar at the UWA Oceans Institute. Her PhD research explores decision-making for protected areas, focusing on the geography and social network structure that underpin protected area sustainability and with special emphasis on the collaborative design and governance of coastal and marine protected areas in Western Australia.

Ph.D. student

Valeria Mendez

Valeria is an environmental scientist (MSc), with a specialization in conservation biology, and a Forrest Research Scholar. Her PhD project explores the relationship between area-based conservation and the well-being of human communities, focusing on access and property rights as influences on social and economic spillover effects.

PhD student

Siwat Kongwarakom

Siwat is a geomatic engineer and geospatial data scientist. His PhD project focuses on understanding how ecosystem service tradeoffs may occur across space and time along the coast and over the open waters of Western Australia. He also aims to identify resource conflicts that may arise under the pressure of climate change and understand the consequences of prioritising certain Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP).

Notes for Prospective PhD Students

If you are a student or early career researcher looking for a PhD or postdoc and are interested in joining the team, please contact Graeme or Abbie via email. Send a copy of your CV and a short summary of your research interests.

The following information may also be useful to you:

1. UWA scholarships are available to international students. The application deadline is August 31st each year. You would need to send us an expression of interest in June or July, so that we have time to discuss your interests and if appropriate, to develop a project proposal with you.

2. We will be looking to increase the number of PhD students on our programs quite rapidly over the next 2-3 years.

3. We do not currently have postdoc funding available. However, we would be happy to support an application from you for a DECRA (Discovery Early Career researcher fellowship) or similar opportunity. We would love to have more postdocs engaged with our programs!

4. Our work is highly interdisciplinary. This does not mean that you have to have interdisciplinary skills at the time of application. You just need to be strong in one area, and willing to challenge yourself by learning new approaches and engaging with new concepts.