Across his decades' long career, Southern Cross University's world-renowned coral reproductive ecologist Professor Peter Harrison has mentored many of the next generation of marine scientists.
Like Colleen Rodd and Chelsea Waters who are set to graduate at Southern Cross University's Northern Rivers campus with Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees. They join more than 270 graduands who will receive awards across three ceremonies on Thursday October 9. The Northern Rivers event is available to view as a livestream from 10am.
Professor Harrison's project to restore depleted sections of Australia's iconic and much-loved Great Barrier Reef – in a process known as Coral IVF, whereby his team cultures then releases millions of coral larvae to establish and create baby corals – has inspired many to join him.
Colleen and Chelsea explored different aspects of Coral IVF in efforts to increase the number of healthy coral larvae across multiple locations.
Colleen investigated whether feeding coral larvae can enhance survival and increase the likelihood that the larvae transform into baby corals (Thesis title: Enhancing coral larvae culture methods and settlement for coral reef restoration).
Chelsea, meanwhile, tested different ways of putting coral larvae onto reefs while investigating what site conditions might make it better for corals to survive (Thesis title: Developing and Scaling Settlement, Deployment and Monitoring of Wild Cultured Larvae for Reef Restoration).
Professor Harrison congratulated Colleen and Chelsea on completing their research theses.
"It has been a great pleasure working with Colleen and Chelsea during their PhDs and their research has provided important new insights into more efficiently culturing coral larvae and improving larval settlement and survival outcomes on damaged reefs," said Professor Harrison.
"Their work is leading to more effective larval restoration practices for larger scale Coral IVF deployments that can now be used by a wide range of stakeholders on many degraded reefs in the future."
Colleen relocated to Australia from Florida in the USA to embark on her PhD journey.
"My biggest achievement is that my research into coral larval feeding has been adopted into restoration efforts and is contributing to making real positive impact on the Great Barrier Reef," said Colleen.
"As a researcher who has devoted years exploring a single topic, having that real impact of my research is incredibly meaningful. Makes all the long spawning nights and weeks away from my family, worth it!
"My PhD research training under Peter Harrison has been amazing. I was afforded the opportunity to work both independently and as part of large, interconnected teams through the Paul G Allen Family Foundation's Opticorals project. I collaborated with outside researchers and was encouraged to take on leadership roles within a research context and with the University. As a result, I have not only gained world-class research skills, but also developed critical thinking, project management, and communication abilities that go way beyond being a researcher."
When Chelsea established the Institute for Marine Research – a non-profit research organisation protecting coastal marine ecosystems in the Philippines from over-exploitation, destructive fishing, coastal development and sedimentation – in 2019 she knew she had to build local research capacity.
Chelsea said the learnings from her PhD research on the Great Barrier Reef are transferable to the Institute for Marine Research (IMR)'s work in the Indo-Pacific.
"Whilst establishing IMR, I became aware of Peter Harrison and his team's larval restoration work in the Philippines being trialled just a few islands away. These methods could be implemented at significant scales by well-resourced non-government organisations (NGO), but doing so requires a deep understanding of the biological and ecological processes underpinning larval survival, settlement, and recruitment," said Chelsea.
"Pursuing a PhD with Peter gave me the opportunity to develop this expertise; combining rigorous scientific training with applied restoration approaches that directly inform and strengthen the work of IMR and other community-based initiatives.
"By the end of my research, I created a simple tool to help choose the best sites for larval restoration, so future efforts have a greater chance of success."
Colleen and Chelsea's PhD research theses were supported by Southern Cross University scholarships. In addition, Colleen's research supported by a grant from the Paul G Allen Family Foundation; while Chelsea's research was supported through the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (funded by the partnership between the Australian Government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation), and a Paul G Allen Family Foundation grant.
