April
2005
Brief CV: Mark Westoby
Education:
BSc (Hons Ecology) Edinburgh 1970, PhD
(Wildlife Ecology) Utah State 1973
Employment history: Macquarie University
1975 to present, Lecturer to Professor
Publication track record: 242
papers as of May 2007. Has been “Highly-Cited”
(top
0.5% total citation impact in Ecology and Environment worldwide) since
this
form of recognition was introduced. The citation impact does not arise
from a
single paper or review, but has been spread widely and sustained over
time.
Topics contributing to the overall impact include diet selection by
herbivores,
the -3/2 power law in plant population dynamics, kin selection and the
triploid
endosperm, vegetation management on rangelands, evolution of
germination
strategy, dispersal and seed size, global change, phylogenetic contrast
methods, ecological strategies across plant species.
Service has included
President,
Ecological Society of Australia
Commonwealth
Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee
Science
Advisory Board of the US/NSF National Centre for Ecological Analysis
and
Synthesis
Australian
Research Council Plant and Animal Biology Panel (Chair
1993-94)
Academy of Science National Committee on Plant and Animal Science
Proudest achievements
- Research students
from Westoby's lab have won
best-presentation or best-paper awards from national scientific
societies on 16
occasions through the past 25 years.
- Seventeen students or postdocs
have won faculty
positions (Sao Paulo, Newcastle, U South Qld, Harvard, Nuevo Leon,
Macquarie,
Wollongong [2], James Cook, UTS, Curtin U Tech, Otago, U Vale do Rio
dos Sinos
[2], ANU, UNSW, Melbourne), fourteen are in CSIRO or similar research
agencies, and 4 are
currently in competitive postdocs.
- Initiated (2001) and continues
to organize
yearly Australia-wide postgrad short courses on current research in
ecology and
evolution, supported by Ecological Society of Australia and
Australasian
Evolution Society.
- Awarded Gold Medal of the
Ecological Society of
Australia (2003) for contributions to research and to postgraduates; Clarke Medal of Royal Society of NSW (2005) for distinguished research in biological sciences in Australia
- Represented
in Peoplescape,
a 2001 public art event for the centenary of Federation. An
Australia-wide call for nominations led to effigies of 5000
people who had made a contribution to the country. These were installed
on the lawns of Parliament House.
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