Affiliated UNSW staff

Rob is a coastal geomorphologist with expertise in rip current and coral reef island morphodynamics. Rip currents represent the greatest drowning hazard to beach users on Australian beaches and his early research focussed on the field measurements of rip behaviour. More recently his research interests have turned towards beach user perception of beach hazards.  Rob is also involved community outreach programs involving beach hazard and rip current education and awareness. He is Chair of Beach Safety Australia, a working group of beach safety educators developing state of the art educational material.

Personal web page | Science of the surf

Dr Ian Turner’s current research interests include beach groundwater dynamics and sediment transport at the beach face, monitoring of coastal change and impacts of climate variability, coastal erosion control and coastal management, and coastal aquifer hydrogeology. In recognition of Ian’s leadership in the field of Coastal Engineering, since 2005 he has been an active member of the Engineers Australia ‘National Committee on Coastal and Ocean Engineering’.

Coastal imaging @ UNSW

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Scott is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences and Associate Dean (Undergraduate Programs) in the Faculty of Science at UNSW. Educated with undergraduate (BSc(Hons), 1988 in Applied Physical Geography) and postgraduate (PhD, 1996 in Palaeoecology, human impact and palaeoclimatology) degrees from UNSW, Scott is responsible for all academic matters relating to student recruitment, admissions and progression. Scott contributes to the teaching of GEOS1701 Environmental Systems and Processes, GEOS2711 Australian Climate and Vegetation and GEOS3761 Environmental Change. His research has a number of foci summarized by the question 'how can a better understanding of the past be applied to contemporary and future natural resource management?' In the recent past he has been investigating the history of bushfires to address the role of humans and climate.

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Iain Suthers has been involved in teaching and research in broad areas of marine and fisheries research off NSW, exploring upwelling in the south Coral Sea and northern NSW in relation to sewage plumes. He has also been involved in the study of home range, age and reproduction of a temperate reef fish and re-stocked mulloway, the environmental effects of Sydney's deep ocean outfalls, and surveys of nine NSW estuaries. He is supervising 7 graduate students (four of whom are APA(I)), and has supervised to graduation 12 PhD students and over 35 honours students.

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Personal web page

David Cohen has 15 years experience in pure and applied exploration geochemistry research based in Australia, Asia and North America.  He is President-elect of the (International) Association of Applied Geochemists.  Current research projects include sampling and analytical methods for exploration and environmental geochemistry, environmental geochemical baseline surveys and multivariate data mining.  He is a senior lecturer and researcher at UNSW in environmental and exploration geochemistry, economic geology, geological data processing and statistics methods, and supervises a number of postgraduate research students in exploration geochemistry. He has been involved in major environmental consultancies and has been a technical consultant to a number of industrial companies and government departments.

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Personal web page

Donna focuses on human-environment interactions, specifically on social and economical vunerability, adaptation and risk. Her current research programme uses indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge to understand climate impacts on remote communities in northern Australia. Her teaching focuses on linking energy policy, climate change and environmental impacts in Australia and internationally.

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Michael researches fundamental and applied research in air-sea interaction processes, with a strong focus on understanding surface processes and the coupling between aqueous and atmospheric systems. Of particular interest is the role of wave breaking on air-sea momentum, dissolved gas and sea spray, and forecast model development for severe sea states. Michael is also an Adjunct Senior Scientist in the Oceanography Division at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, New York.