Dr Eve Mcdonald-madden

Biography

Dr McDonald-Madden is an ARC Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management at the University of Queensland and a Chief Investigator on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, NESP Threatened Species Hub and is a founding member of UQ Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science. Her research is focused on improving environmental decision-making in complex systems. To resolve questions in environmental decision-making her team uses a suite of analysis techniques that are largely novel to ecology and conservation. The foundation of our work is 'Decision Theory', a concept initially used to maximise the effectiveness of scarce military resources while dealing with the uncertainties always present in war. By investigating the use of techniques from fields such as manufacturing sciences, artificial intelligence research and economic theory her group hope to improve decision-making in the face of complexity that is inherent, but often ignored, in environmental problems, incorporating the social context of decisions, the complexity of interacting species and the uncertainty faced by decisions makers. Eve's groups work spans all forms of conservation decision-making including population management, organisational and government reporting, the management of interacting species, ecosystem services and conservation planning. Dr McDonald-Madden completed her PhD at the University of Queensland (2009), prior to that she worked for the Victorian Government on biodiversity research and management whist completing a graduate diploma in Mathematics. She has two young children.

Research Interest

• Agricultural Safety and Health • Air Pollution Exposures • Air Quality Monitoring • Pesticides • Polycyclic hydrocarbons • Public policy • Real-time detection and sampling of contaminants