Finally decided to post something I consider vaguely interesting on my profile instead of personal details... suffice to say am 25 yr old uni student recently ex-Australian National University. Interests include any sport (do not consider golf, basketball or baseball sports) have played AFL after becoming dissolusioned with many cold hours standing on the wing in a forward dominated rugby union team... however missed last season due to uni commitments.
Stupidly fanatical St Kilda supporter.
ACT rep for Oztag.

Love literature and reading, although have only recently rediscovered the time to indulge.

Have managed to inherit the family passion for botany.

My honours at ANU, under the supervision of Dr Mike Crisp, Dr Lyn Cook, and Mr Lyn Craven from the CSIRO Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research, concerned the phylogenetic relationship and biogeographical radiations of the Melaleuca group of trees and shrubs within Australia. Traditional taxonomy is based upon some fairly dodgy, or at least unreliable morphological characters, with a hazy division between Melaleucas (paper barks)


and Callistemons (bottle brushes)


Using Chloroplast molecular sequences I constructed a phylogenetic tree of the group, against which I mapped new and traditional morphological characters. While I am currently supposed to be writing this up as a paper, work has the better of me at the moment.

The next step is to investigate some of the more interesting genetic patters that I found in the Broadleaf Paperbark group in Northern Australia.
Currently PhD application is pending at the University of Queensland, where Lyn Cook has conveniently moved, and is closer to my study organisms :)



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Although thoroughly out of date, I could not bring myself to take off the pictures of my beloved penguins, so here they stay :)

From January through March 2004 I was lucky enough to assist in a research project studying the dispersal and possible control of various introduced invertebrates on Macquarie Island. "Macca" is a unique protrusion of ocean floor lying halfway between the Australian continent and Antarctica, providing an important haven and breeding ground for many antarctic and several endemic animal and plant species.


Below are one or two pictures of some of the gorgeous birds on the island.
Despite heavy elephant seal and penguine hunting in the early to mid 20th century, the majority of the wildlife remains unfazed and generally curious about human intrusion.


A pair of Light-mantled sooty Albatosses courting.


A gorgeous black-browed sooty albatross who will occasionally confront researchers on the western featherbeds.


My favourite birds, King Penguins. Incurably curious, fiercly independant and individual in character while Charlie Chaplin-esquely comic. This particular gentleman developed a taste for my boots :)


Rich vegetation, makes a pleasant change from the continent.


WISH LIST

Probably best summarised as "popular science books that I should read, but can't afford to buy":


*The Botany of Desire (Michael Pollan)
*In Search of Schroedinger's Cat
*Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Jared Diamond)
*The History and Social Influence of the Potato (N. Redcliffe)
*Seeds of Wealth: Four Plants That Made Men Rich (Henry Hobhouse)
*The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (Jonathan Weiner)
*Anything from Stephen Jay Gould (one has to keep up with popular science, even if it isn't becoming ;) )
*The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (Richard Dawkins)
*The Selfish Gene (also Richard Dawkins) sadly lost my copies of both of the above.
*The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Daniel Dennett)
*River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (More ramblings by Richard Dawkins)
*Atheist Universe: Why God Didn't Have A Thing To Do With It (David Mills)
Or anything along those lines...
* The Number One Ladies Detective Agency
* The Geology of South Australia: Vol 2 (Drexel, J.F. and Preiss W.V.)
* Watsons Dictionary of Weasel Words
* Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)