Associate ProfessorSusanna Venn

I am an Associate Professor of Plant Ecology and an Australian Research Council Mid-Career Industry Fellow with the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. At Deakin, I lead the eXtreme Plant Ecology Research Team in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Burwood. I chair the Australian Institute of Alpine Studies, and I am an executive committee member of the Australian Mountain Research Facility, leading alpine research projects across Australia. I also work on the scientific steering committee and co-chair the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment.

Research
My program of research is centred around how vegetation patterns and processes drive the ecological functioning of alpine ecosystems, and through this, I aim to improve conservation and biodiversity outcomes under a changing climate for high mountain ecosystems worldwide. I combine manipulative field and laboratory-based studies with long-term monitoring of alpine vegetation, and work closely with land-managers and researchers across global mountain networks. A long-term focus of my research is how reduced snowpack (the depth, density and duration of snow) is driving change in alpine vegetation patterns and how this affects a range of ecological processes. With my team of PhD and post-doctoral researchers, we have led the development of new methods for understanding alpine seed germination strategies and the growth and development of seedlings under various climate change scenarios, determined the upper and lower limits for alpine plant thermal tolerance in several species and interactions with drought, determined the regeneration-related causes for stability of the alpine treeline, and evaluated the shifts in community composition and functional traits of alpine plants in response heat waves and a future climate using the Australian Mountain Research Facility’s in-situ field-based infrastructure.   

In Australia and internationally, I am recognised as a leader and expert in alpine plant ecology research and I actively contribute to the profession through the reviewing manuscripts and funding proposals. I am an Associate Editor for the Australian Journal of Botany and Plant Ecology and Diversity and I regularly join special issue panels, such as the Journal of Vegetation Science special issue on Alpine Vegetation and Global Change, and the Nordic Journal of Botany special issue on Tundra Transitions: Understanding Vegetation Change Across Scales and Systems. I also review manuscripts for many other botanical and ecological journals. I have over 80 publications, a H-index of 34 and over 6200 citations (Google Scholar page). As well as attracting over AU$4.69M in competitive research funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), industry, government and philanthropic grants, I also review applications for the ARC, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Research Excellence Council of Hungary.

Teaching
As an educator, I supervise PhD, Masters and Honours students and I teach into the Bachelor of Environmental Science (Wildlife and Conservation Biology) course. I teach into the units Environmental Botany (SLE203, 2^nd year) and Australian Vegetation and its Management (SLE317, 3^rd year). I also teach into the Honours course-work unit Science Professionalism (SLE451) and supervise high-achieving third year students in Research Project (SLE314). My passion is teaching botany and plant ecology in the field, where the plants are responding to their natural environment, and students can see first-hand how ecological theory is expressed in the real world. Field-based teaching is also important for immersive student experiences, where learning and interactions with plants, the environment.

My career objectives are:

• To provide botanical and ecological understanding to underpin the management of mountain areas; 
• To improve the educational and research environment for tertiary students; 
• To lead a successful research group that is sustainable and productive; and 
• To increase the profile and respect of the scientific endeavour in the community.