Joining the Fish and Fisheries Lab is real full circle moment for Eva. In the 90’s Eva’s cruising yachtie parents ran a commercial coral trout boat that took part in the Effects of Line Fishing Project. Eva has fond memories of ‘helping look after’ trout and Māori wrasse in the live tanks after school, and from a young age was doomed to appreciate the environment, fish and fisheries.  After completing a Bachelor of Marine Studies at the University of Queensland, Eva worked as a research assistant there for many years, and began surveying reef fish for research. This time was interspersed with scientific and conservation endeavours in South America, French Polynesia, the Philippines, and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef where she has spent many hundreds of hours underwater watching or counting fish.

 

Eva completed a Master of Marine and Antarctic Science through the University of Tasmania, which took her to the Norwegian Arctic to assist in ecosystem monitoring of the Barents Sea. Her thesis investigated the effectiveness of fish bycatch mitigation measures in the Antarctic Toothfish fishery with the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). These experiences cemented her interest in fisheries and warm climes, and after many years of trying to make contact, she convinced Prof. Garry Russ at JCU to supervise her for a PhD.  Eva completed her PhD in 2019, working in the Philippines and on the Great Barrier Reef to understand the relative roles of no-take marine reserves, reef habitat and environmental factors in driving coral reef fish assemblages.

 

As a post-doc she has worked with Prof. Rod Connolly at the Global Wetlands Project, Griffith University, exploring the uses of artificial intelligence in ecological monitoring; with Prof. Andrew Hoey (JCU CSE), surveying fish in the shallow reefs of Australia’s remote Coral Sea Marine Park for Parks Australia, and exploring its deep mesophotic reef fish assemblages from 30-100m using BRUVS and ROVS; and with Dr Maya Srinivasan (TropWATER) on the GBR Inshore Reef Fish Monitoring program.

 

Eva is particularly interested in the ecology of fish species that have commercial and cultural value and how these species respond to their environment, including the effect of reef habitat change and fishing.