Herp Supervisors

Potential Supervisors for Australian Herpetological Research Projects

Australia has an astounding diversity of frogs and reptiles and lots of undergraduate students are keen to follow their interests by studying for a Graduate Diploma or Honours and perhaps a Masters and/or PhD.

It is now very common that students do Grad Dips, Honours or Masters degrees at the same university that they did their undergraduate. It is also very common for students to do PhD degrees at the same place they did their Honours. That can be fine and many students have done extremely well by doing all their degrees at the same university, but there are a couple of things you should know.

It can be very good to move to a different university to do your next degree. It broadens your experience base, you might get to go in a totally new direction, and you gain access to mentors you otherwise might not meet.
There is a strong feeling among top researchers that moving labs between Honours and the PhD and/or PhD and postdoc is an important part of academic development (for example, ARC Postdoc applicants are required to give good justification if they are seeking to stay in the same lab).
There is considerable and ever increasing pressure from universities on their academics to keep students in place and not let them move to other places to study. Incredibly, at some universities this is now official policy. This is entirely driven by money - your enrolment is worth cash to a university.
Your supervisor might not want to let you go. This could be because you are an excellent student, but it also could be because they need students, they are feeling the pressure from the university, or because they are not acting in your best interest.

With these issues in mind, I have created a list of Australian-based people who can serve as a supervisor or co-supervisor on a herp related project, either for honours or postgraduate study.The idea here is that as long as students know about this web site, there is no excuse for not being aware of alternatives.

The list is not complete. For example, I have only included people who have permanent or senior long-contract jobs. I have not included postdoctoral fellows even though they generally are able to co-supervise students. Of course there are also lots of potential supervisors who do not themselves work on herps.

There are surely people I have missed and I will endeavour to add them as I become aware of them. Please email any comments or suggestions to me at: Scott.Keogh@anu.edu.au

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Last updated 31 October 2017.

ACT

The Australian National University

University of Canberra

New South Wales

Charles Stuart University

Dr. Edward Narayan

Macquarie University

University of Newcastle

Prof. Michael Mahony

University of New England

Dr. Debbie Bower

University of New South Wales

University of Technology, Sydney

A/Prof. Jonathan Webb

University of Sydney

University of Western Sydney

University of Wollongong

Dr. Phil Byrne

Northern Territory

Charles Darwin University

Prof. Keith Christian
Dr. Michael Guinea
Dr. Christine Schlesinger (based in Alice Springs)

Queensland

Central Queensland University

A/Prof. John Parmenter

Griffith University

Dr. Paul Oliver

James Cook University

Queensland University of Technology

Dr. Ian Williamson

Southern Cross University

Dr David Newell

University of Queensland

South Australia

Flinders University

A/Prof Michael Gardner
Prof. Mike Lee (South Australian Museum, adjunct at Flinders)

University of Adelaide

A/Prof. Jeremy Austin
Prof. Steve Cooper (South Australian Museum, adjunct at UA)
Prof. Steve Donnellan (South Australian Museum, adjunct at UA)
Dr. Bruce Firth
Dr. Mark Hutchinson (South Australian Museum, adjunct at UA and Flinders University)

Univerity of South Australia