PhD | James Cook University

Cassie has worked as a marine fisheries and conservation scientist in shark fisheries, management, and research across government, academia and NGOs over the past 20 years. First delving into the shark world through shark finning issues in the late 1990s, Cassie has since been involved with Australian shark fisheries sustainability, deep water sharks’ life history (PhD), CITES capacity building for sharks and rays, and efficacy of marine protected areas for shark and ray conservation. More recently, Cassandra contributed to ecological risk assessments of southern Oceans deepwater sharks, risk summaries of all Australian sharks, and developed WWF tools to improve shark management and conservation in developing countries. Much of this was recent work done while living remotely in the Solomon Islands which allowed Cassie to enjoy island people and life and SCUBA dive as much as possible.

Cassie is currently involved in various global shark conservation and fisheries projects. These include preparing manuscripts from the Global Shark Trends project that has reassessed the Red List status of most of the world’s chondrichthyans over the past three years, assisting the Solomon Islands prepare their National Plan of Action, running capacity building workshops to improving efficacy of shark and ray marine protected areas in developing countries, and collaborating on a Pacific wide risk assessment of pelagic sharks and rays. Cassie is the IUCN Shark Specialist Group Red List Authority Coordinator and Chair of the Assess Working Group, roles that involve coordinating Red List assessments for newly described species, taxonomic changes, and reassessments reaching their 10-year lifespan.