Dr Megan Saunders
Pronouns: she,her,hers
Senior Research Scientist
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Biography
Dr Megan Saunders is a interdisciplinary marine scientist who specializes in marine and coastal ecosystem restoration. She works in the Sustainable Marine Futures Program at CSIRO Environment (formerly Oceans and Atmosphere) and is based in Hobart, Australia. She does research and communication to share evidence of outcomes and examples of success for coastal and marine ecosystem restoration for inspiring people to take individual and collective action.
Dr Saunders has a BSc in Marine Ecology and a PhD in oceanography. She has over two decades of research experience in a broad variety of coastal ecosystems, from cold temperate to tropical environments, including empirical field-based research, ecological modelling and synthesis, and end-user engagement and expert elicitation. Her research has been published in highly regarded multidisciplinary and disciplinary journals, including Science, Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Current Biology and PloS Biology.
Dr Saunders is a national leader in the field of marine and coastal restoration. Her research program includes a portfolio of projects funded by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub. These projects are designed to develop the knowledge based needed to overcome current barriers and to scale up restoration programs. Dr Saunders is leading research required to underpin decision making for development of biodiversity certificates in Australia through her role as Marine and Coastal Activity Lead in An Ecological Knowledge System for the Nature Repair Market. She leads the Australian Coastal Restoration Network and the CSIRO Marine Restoration and Nature-based Solutions Community of Practice. She also holds a Julius Career Award from CSIRO to conduct research into social and environmental drivers of restoration success in marine ecosystems.
Much of her current research uses Structured Decision Making as a framework to underpin research on restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems. This framework is useful as it is evidence-based and transparent, and it lends itself well to involving stakeholders in decision making processes and to focusing thinking and data collection for scientific applications. She has led research applying this approach in Australia and South America. Dr Saunders has contributed modelling expertise to a number of Blue Carbon research projects throughout the Indo-Pacific, including Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia. In particular, she has expertise is predictive modelling of seagrass ecosystems.
In addition to research on marine and coastal restoration, her research has included highly interdisciplinary collaborations aimed at addressing challenging coastal management issues. For instance: reconciling multiple objectives for coastal planning for sea-level rise; addressing whether land- or marine-based conservation interventions will best benefit coastal systems influenced by land-use change; examining how environmental policies related to biodiversity offsets influence marine ecosystems; examining interactions among multiple stressors of ecosystems; documenting population dynamics and drivers of outbreaks of marine invasive species, and working with end-users to understand restoration decision support needs.
Academic Qualifications
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2010
PhD Oceanography
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada -
2002
BSc Marine Biology
Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada
Achievements and Awards
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2021-2025
Julius Career Award
CSIRO -
2017-2019
UQ Development Fellowship
The University of Queensland -
2016-2016
Tuition Scholarship
National Excellence in Educational Leadership Initiative -
2015-2015
Bommies Award for science communication video on impacts of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef Foundation -
2010-2010
Nomination for best PhD thesis completed at Dalhousie University in 2009
Dalhousie University -
2010-2010
Nomination for the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award, for the thesis ranked 1st among Engineering, Medical & Science disciplines at Dalhousie University in 2009
Dalhousie University -
2010-2010
Selected participant to the Ecological Dissertations in Aquatic Sciences symposium
America Society of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) -
2009-2010
Endeavour Research Fellowship
Australian Government -
2007-2009
Canada Graduate Scholarship D-2
Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council -
2007-2008
President’s Award
Dalhousie University Faculty of Graduate Studies -
2007-2009
Predoctoral Scholarship
Izaak Walton Killam Foundation -
2007-2007
Scholarship
Women Divers Hall of Fame -
2005-2006
Postgraduate Scholarship MSc
Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council -
2005-2005
Kathy Ellis Memorial Book Prize
Dalhousie University Department of Oceanography -
2004-2005
Canada Graduate Scholarship MSc
Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council -
2004-2009
Scholarship
Dalhousie Faculty of Graduate Studies
Current Roles
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Senior Research Scientist
Coastal ecosystem modelling -
Network Lead
Australian Coastal Restoration Network -
Project Leader
NESP MAC Project 3.7 Identifying and overcoming barriers to marine and coastal restoration -
Convenor
CSIRO Marine Restoration Community of Practice
Grants
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2021-2026
National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub
-
2019-2022
Australian Research Council Linkage Grant
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2016-2019
National Environmental Science Programme Grant
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2016-2016
National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility Travel Grant
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2015-2015
Advancing Women Researchers Grant
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2013-2013
University of Western Australia-University of Queensland Grant
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2012-2014
University of Queensland Early Career Research Grant
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2011-2012
University of Queensland New Staff Grant
Professional Experiences
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2017-2019
Senior Research Fellow / UQ Development Fellow
School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland -
2016-2017
Research Fellow
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland -
2011-2014
Research Fellow
The Global Change Institute & Marine Spatial Ecology Lab, The University of Queensland -
2010-2010
Endeavour Postdoctoral Research Associate
Oceans Institute, The University of Western Australia
Professional Areas
Related links
Publications
We have publications by Dr Megan Saunders