Our people

The Species Spectrum Research Centre working group topics span five departments in the Faculty of Science and Engineering and its executive committee reflects this.

Core members

Director of the Species Spectrum Research Centre

Professor Marie Herberstein

Professor Marie Herberstein investigates the behavioural ecology of invertebrates including spiders and insects within an evolutionary framework. She’s interested in establishing spiders as significant models in behavioural and evolutionary research, deceptive signals in spiders and orchids, and the mating behaviour and sexual selection in spiders and insects.

Deputy Director Department of Biological Sciences

Professor Michael Gillings

The unifying theme of research in Professor Michael Gillings laboratory is the investigation of genetic diversity using DNA markers and sequence analysis. He has worked on viruses, bacteria, fungi, plants, invertebrates, sharks, bony fish, birds and mammals. He has have developed a range of molecular methods for rapidly assessing genetic and functional diversity in genomic DNA and in DNA extracted directly from environmental samples (metagenomic DNA).

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Professor Dorrit Jacob

Dorrit Jacob is an ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor at the Department since April 2013. She studied Mineralogy and Geology at Johannes-Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany and obtained a Dr. rer. nat. from the Georg-August University in Göttingen (Germany). Both, Diploma and PhD Thesis were undertaken and supervised at the Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz.

Department of Environmental Sciences

Professor Neil Saintilan

Prior to his appointment as Professor and Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Macquarie University Neil Saintilan was Senior Principal Research Scientist in the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (the lead environment agency in NSW) where he served as Theme Leader of the Water and Wetlands Knowledge Strategy and Senior Team Leader for Water and Wetlands.

Department of Biological Sciences

Associate Professor Andrew Barron

Andrew Barron studies the neural mechanisms of natural animal behaviour, and research examines how animals recognise, classify and learn features of their environment, and how they navigate. Much of my research studies honey bees, which demonstrate remarkably complex social behaviour, communication, learning abilities and navigation with a relatively tiny and comprehensible brain.

Department of Biological Sciences

Professor Mark Westoby

Professor Mark Westoby’s PhD was in wildlife ecology, from Utah State University in 1973. He came to Macquarie University as a lecturer in 1975, and held a Laureate Fellowship from Australian Research Council and a Distinguished Professorship from the University. He’s chair of the Australian Academy of Science's National Committee for Ecology Evolution and Conservation.

Department of Statistics

Doctor Georgy Sofronov

Doctor Georgy Sofronov’s areas of interest cover Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and Cross-Entropy method. This also extends to linear mixed models, small area estimation, biological models, theory and applications of random processes, optimal stopping rules, sequential analysis, asymptotic theory, and change-point problem.

Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences

Doctor Sasha Tetu

Doctor Sasha Tetu’s areas of expertise include microbial ecology, mobile genetic elements, and ecotoxicogenomics.