Professor Andrew F Bennett wins Bullard Fellowship

Deakin University's Professor Andrew F Bennett from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences has won a Charles Bullard Fellowship in Forest Research from Harvard University.

The Charles Bullard fellowship program 'supports advanced research and study by individuals who show promise of making an important contribution, either as scholars or administrators, to forestry and forest-related subjects from biology to earth sciences, economics, politics, administration, philosophy, humanities, the arts or law'.

"I offer my warm congratulations to Professor Bennett  on his success in obtaining a Bullard Fellowship at Harvard University in 2012,'' said Professor Guang R. Shi, the head of the School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

"This is a highly competitive and application-based international opportunity for scientists to spend a period of six to 12 months at either Harvard Forest or the main Harvard campus, to carry out research in the broad area of 'forestry'.

"This is a wonderful news not only for Andrew himself, it is just as valuable for the School and Deakin as an institution."

Professor Bennett said it was an honour to have won the award.

"Harvard Forest is both an aesthetic and an intellectual place," he said.

"It is right in the middle of a forest which really appealed to me.

"I went there on a private visit last year and thought then I would really like to try for this Fellowship. There is some really great long-term research going on there."

During the fellowship at Harvard Forest, Professor Bennett will study the way in which landscape structure mediates change in biodiversity at large scales and over long time frames. He will investigate factors which contribute to ecological resilience in regional landscapes, using data from a large-scale study of change in woodland birds in temperate woodlands of southern Australia; and by learning from the wealth of knowledge at Harvard Forest on long-term change in land cover and land use in the New England region.

• Professor Andrew Bennett
• The Centre for Integrative Ecology