Miranda Mortlock

Biography

Dr Miranda Mortlock started her career by studying BSc (honours) Agriculture at Reading University. In addition she obtained a scholarship for an undergraduate exchange to Cornell University where she specialised in integrated pest management and tropical farming systems. Miranda was awarded a scholarship (from the British Aid program) to undertake a Masters in Applied Plant Science at Wye College. She then headed overseas to Botswana and worked as an agronomist on the Dryland Farming Research Scheme. Following this she obtained a Graduate Research Scholarship at Kansas State University in the USA. Miranda's PhD involved both field work in Kansas and in Botswana on farmer fields. She took position as Senior Lecturer at the University of Botswana. She was awarded two Post Doctoral Fellowships at UQ examining transpiration efficiency of sorghum. She was awarded a Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Education (UQ) , and in 2000 joined Queensland Treasury as a Senior Statistician until in 2008 took up the role of Principal Advisor (Research and Evaluation). Miranda returned to UQ SAFS in 2012 and now enjoys teaching biometry and researching into areas of crop physiology and household surveys. She recieved a Teaching and Learning Grant to support innovation in her courses, and in 2014 obtained funding for and initiated work on BeST online statistical course to support scientist in Africa.

Research Interest

Current projects and interests include: Methods for improving the efficiency of measuring crop physiological traits. Undergraduate teaching; Use of novel statistical methods applied to new areas of agricultural research; Monitoring and evaluation using quantitative data and focused surveys; Online statistical training and capacity building.