Professor Hugh Possingham is widely know in Australia, as the Chief Scientist in the State of Queensland, but also as a champion of birds, and for his work assisting to develop conservation stragegy and plans utilising his skills as a mathematician, combined with his training as an ecologist to devise conservation initiatives that integrate spatial planning and economic factors.
He has co-authored more than 650 peer-reviewed papers, with more than 30 in the world’s top two scientific journals Science and Nature, and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in. In 2016, Hugh was elected a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Alongside his official duties, Hugh is a confirmed (massive) Bird Nerd, and an originator of Bird-A-Minute. It was my pleasure to spend some time talking birds and conservation policy with Hugh.