Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

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Rachael is an evolutionary botanist based at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and the University of Melbourne. In 2018 Rachael completed her PhD on the genus Eremophila, where she used genetic sequencing tools to generate the first molecular phylogeny (family tree) for the group. Since then, Rachael has worked with a diverse range of plant groups, but the research questions that drive her work typically combine DNA sequence data with plant morphology and species distributions to better understand the evolutionary history of a plant group or geographic region. Rachael loves being out in the bush, working collaboratively and using research to understand plants, animals and the environment around her.

Monash University

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Kay is a plant evolutionary biologist at Monash University with a long-standing interest in how plants adapt to changing environments. Her research focuses on climate adaptation, invasive species, and the genetic diversity of plant populations, using a combination of fieldwork, experiments, and genomic approaches. She is particularly interested in how this knowledge can be applied to conservation and restoration, including how we can better manage and use native plant diversity in a changing climate. Her work includes studies of Australian native species and grasses, and she enjoys connecting fundamental evolutionary biology with practical outcomes for biodiversity and land management.

Charles Darwin University

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Dr Steve Morton is an Honorary Professorial Fellow with Charles Darwin University in Alice Springs. He is an ecologist who studied at the Universities of Melbourne, California (Irvine) and Sydney. He joined CSIRO in Alice Springs in 1984 to work in the desert environment that has long been his focus. From 2000 to 2010, based in Canberra and Melbourne, he helped lead CSIRO as Chief of Division and Executive Team member. He was responsible during his CSIRO executive career, consecutively, for environment and natural resources, energy, and manufacturing, materials and minerals, as well as stimulating engagement with Indigenous Australians. On retirement from CSIRO, he returned to his original scientific domain, and through work on numerous boards and advisory bodies has used his experience to assist conservation and natural resource management. His recent books are Desert Lake: Art, Science and Stories from Paruku (2013), Ten Commitments Revisited: Securing Australia’s Future Environment (2014), Biodiversity: Science and Solutions for Australia (2014), and Australian Deserts: Ecology and Landscapes (2022).

Charles Darwin University

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Dr Margaret Friedel PSM has been an Adjunct Professor in the Research Institute for Environment & Livelihoods at Charles Darwin University in Alice Springs since 2013. She joined CSIRO Alice Springs in 1974 to research the ecology and management of arid rangelands and since then has explored aspects of range assessment, rehabilitation, tourism, land use planning, policy development and invasive plants. Having retired in 2010, she was appointed an Honorary Fellow with CSIRO Land & Water to 2019 and was made a Fellow of the Australian Rangeland Society in 2017. Marg enjoys writing about rangeland management and engaging with fellow natural history enthusiasts. In recent years she has written about the history of plant invasions – particularly buffel grass – in arid Australia, CSIRO’s 64 years of rangeland research in central Australia and beyond, and the life of Australia’s ‘father of rangelands research’, Ray Perry.

Australian Plants Society of SA

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Hans is currently Vice President of the Australian Plants Society of SA, after having served as President for the last two years. Born in Switzerland, Hans migrated to Canberra for a two-year job and fell in love with Australian plants and the wide open spaces, especially the Outback, which he still traverses as often as possible. In the Adelaide Hills he has established a large garden with a wide variety of native plants on his 10-acre property. As an academic researcher in chemistry he investigated antibacterial and antifungal chemicals extracted from Eremophila species. Now retired, he loves propagating plants, including grafting those that don’t like the local soils.

APS Alice Springs President

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Suzanne has been the President of the Australian Plants Society Alice Springs for the past four years. Originally from NSW, she has lived for a total of 14 years in the NT where she enjoys the diversity of the environment in all its extremes as, no matter what the weather is doing, there are always native plants to discover and learn about. She has always been interested in plants and, no matter where she has lived, she has wandered around the bush and now describes herself as an 'enthusiastic amateur botanist'.

Eremophila Study Group

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Lyndal has led the Eremophila Study Group since 2015. She is a Life Member of ANPS Canberra Region Inc, having joined it in 1979 when first moving to Canberra for work. Her interest in Eremophila started in 1985 when she bought an Eremophila maculata 'Wendy', a plant which s1ll grows in her Queanbeyan garden. She has a life1me interest in na1ve plants, birds and general ecology, having graduated from Sydney Uni with an Honours degree in ornithology. This didn't provide access to paid employment at the 1me, so her natural history interests con1nued through early involvement with what was then called SGAP, Canberra Ornithologists' Group, Barren Grounds Nature Reserve and many surveys for the then Royal Australian Ornithologists' Union (using pen and paper!). She also held roles on ANPS Canberra's Council for a decade and was Federal Secretary of the then ASGAP in the 1980s. In the last 5 years she has become ac1ve in contribu1ng to both Canberra Nature Mapr and inaturalist and also joins ANPS NSW South East Region field trips with her husband Tom. In the last decade Lyndal and Tom have also discovered the joys of hun1ng Eremophila in the wild, par1cularly in Queensland and western NSW. She is glad that Tom really likes long distance driving.

Australian PlantBank, Botanic Gardens of Sydney

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Ganesha is a Plant Conservation Scientist at the Australian PlantBank and has over nine years of experience in seed ecology and ex situ seed conservation. She has long been passionate about the natural environment and biodiversity conservation. Her research interest in conservation began during her Honours research on the seed biology of invasive species in Sri Lanka. Ganesha later moved to Australia to undertake a PhD at the University of Wollongong, where she studied variation in seed dormancy and its ecological importance in fire-prone ecosystems. Following completion of her PhD, she joined the Australian PlantBank in 2018. Her current research focuses on understanding seed dormancy mechanisms (how to promote germination) and investigating seed storage behaviour in ex situ seedbanks. This work helps identify species suitable for long-term seedbank conservation and those that may require alternative storage strategies.

Adelaide University

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Ilaíne is a plant ecophysiologist interested in understanding the different mechanisms by which plants respond to climate change, particularly to the interactive effects of droughts, heatwaves and fires. Her research combines observational and experimental fieldwork, greenhouse and laboratory experiments, functional trait assessment, process-based modelling, meta-analysis, and outreach engagement with local communities, middle and high schools, and visitors of protected natural areas. Besides researching plants, Ilaíne also loved to paint them in her watercolors.

Northern Territory Herbarium

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David has been working as an Herbarium-based botanist since1983. He has had stints at the Melbourne Herbarium and the Australian National Herbarium, and is currently based at the Alice Springs Herbarium, where he has worked for over 20 years. He is interested in a broad range of botanical topics including plant taxonomy, floras and other identification aids, vegetation survey and ecology, threatened species, weed ecology and vegetation management.  

Adelaide University

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Rebecca is a PhD Candidate who is digging into the effects of livestock on soil ecological processes in Australia's arid rangelands. Her project utilises the TGB Osborn (Koonamore) Vegetation Reserve, a unique site that has been free from livestock for 100 years, as an ecological baseline to compare with neighbouring grazed land in South Australia's arid rangelands.

Rebecca is passionate about revitalising interest in this under-recognised site and demonstrating how grazing exclusion reserves have immense value for understanding arid ecosystem function, with benefits for both conservation and pastoral land management.

Huntington Botanical Gardens

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Kathy started at The Huntington as Assistant Botanist in July 1982 and became Botanist in January 1983, a position changed to Curator of Living Collections in 1985 and Senior Curator of Living Collections in 2024. She is responsible for overall curation of the non-succulent living plant collections including acquisition, development, landscape siting, tracking, mapping, and identification of plants. She has served on the boards of several horticultural organizations.

Kathy has traveled widely worldwide to see plants in their native habitats and has led several natural history tours. She has a particular love for Australian flora, fauna, natural history, and geology, and has travelled all over Australia on a dozen trips since 1980. In 2025 she visited the Kimberley, the Top End, and the Centre; this will be her third visit to the Centre.