Alice Hughes

Alice is a Professor at the University of Melbourne, and previously led research groups at the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese Academy of Sciences following positions in Thailand, the CSIRO in Canberra, and a PhD at the University of Bristol. She is President of INTECOL, Co-Chair of GEOBON, Chief editor of Climate Change Ecology and on various task forces for the UN, and a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPBES assessment on the monitoring framework. She has also worked with various science Ministries, drafted policy briefs, and worked with UN missions to inform more effective science driven policy. Through these roles she seeks to better mobilise and translate data to enable change in policy and practice.

Alice’s research covers a wide array of topics pertaining to understanding patterns of biodiversity and the drivers of biodiversity change with an aim of informing more effective conservation at all scales. Her work focuses on the interface between conservation ecology and conservation action, with an additional special focus on bats, including ecology, biogeography and OneHealth. She and her team collect and utilise diverse data to enable the development of new methods and frameworks, then integrate the outcomes into policy and practice through her various roles. Her research is driven by the need for better data and understanding to empower evidence informed change. By providing a bridge between science and filling key data and knowledge gaps she hopes to facilitate a transition to a more sustainable, and biosecure future.