Dr Frederieke Kroon, Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems

Dr Frederieke Kroon: informing rehabilitation of coastal zones

Dr Frederieke Kroon's research informs rehabilitation of coastal zones using a collaborative and integrated approach to both catchment management and aquatic health, to improve water quality, aquatic biodiversity and fisheries production.

• 10 May 2010 | Updated 14 October 2011

Overview

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications 
• Achievements and impacts  

Current activities

Dr Frederieke Kroon is a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, where she is conducting research to improve water quality, aquatic biodiversity and fisheries production in tropical and sub-tropical coastal zones.

Her areas of expertise include:

• integrated catchment management
• stream and river rehabilitation
• invasive fish ecology
• behavioural ecology and endocrinology of fish

She currently leads the Catchment and Aquatic Health Stream within CSIRO's Water for a Healthy Country Flagship Program.

Background

Dr Kroon is a fish biologist, and obtained her postdoctoral degrees working on the behavioural ecology and endocrinology of sex change in marine fishes in the Caribbean and Pacific North-West, respectively.

She subsequently came to Australia and worked as a tropical ecology lecturer at the Boston University accredited School for Field Studies in Far North Queensland.

From 2000 to 2002, Dr Kroon worked as a Research Scientist with New South Wales (NSW) Department of Primary Industries' Fisheries, where she managed a coastal floodplain rehabilitation project in northern NSW.

This project resulted in wide-spread changes in management of tidal floodgates and drainage systems, improving water quality and fish passage in acid sulphate soil catchments.

Dr Kroon joined CSIRO in Brisbane in 2002 as an aquatic ecologist, and conducted research on:

• riparian condition and tropical stream health
• control of invasive fish species.

Subsequently, she was appointed project manager for the Tully Water Quality Improvement Plan in Atherton in 2005, and lead research on:

• integration of biophysical and socio-economic approaches to provide management and policy options for effects-based, diffuse pollution in the Great Barrier Reef.

Since 2008, she has continued to lead research on integrated assessments, as well as commenced work on:

• ecosystem services supporting fisheries production
• integrated management of invasive fish species
• endocrine disruption in freshwater and marine fish species.

Dr Kroon is also Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Tropical and Marine Biology, James Cook University, Townsville.

Academic qualifications

Dr Kroon holds the following academic qualifications:

• Master of Science in Biology (Fish behavioural ecology – Studies on behavioural energetics in stoplight parrotfish) from the University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, 1991
• Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology (Fish behavioural endocrinology – Studies on sex change in black-eye goby) from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 1997.

Achievements and impacts

Dr Kroon's academic and research awards and achievements include:

• Guest editor Marine and Freshwater Research (Vol 60, Issue 11, 2009).
• CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems Award for Partnership Excellence (seminal contributor), 2008
• over 40 peer-reviewed, scientific publications.

Dr Kroon's professional affiliations and memberships include:

• Organising Committee, Annual Conference of Australian Society for Fish Biology, Townsville 2011
• Regional Implementation Group, Reef Water Quality Partnership (2005–07)
• NSW Oyster Research Advisory Committee, 2001–02
• NSW Fisheries Scuba Diving Committee, 2000–01
• Local Marine Advisory Committee, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, 1999–2000
• Adjunct Lecturer, School of Tropical and Marine Biology, James Cook University, Townsville
• The International Society of Reef Studies
• The Freshwater Biological Association
• The Australian Society for Fish Biology
• The Australian and New Guinea Fish Association
• North Queensland Pest Fish Working Group
• Steering committee and biodiversity action team, Tully Murray Floodplain Program.

Learn more about the Water for a Healthy Country Flagship.