Dr Mark Stafford Smith has worked in desert areas around the world since 1975, and in Australian rangelands since 1980, and is now playing a key role in the CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship.
Current activities
Dr Mark Stafford Smith is the Science Director of the Climate Adaptation Flagship. He coordinates the science being undertaken across the Flagship research themes, developing research plans and managing research projects.
Dr Stafford Smith works with research theme leaders and external research partners to deliver strategies and tools that will allow Australia to minimise the risks and maximise the opportunities resulting from climate change.
Dr Stafford Smith is also a Research Fellow with the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) where his work focuses on the science of desert living and sustainable management of outback environments.
Background
Dr Stafford Smith joined CSIRO in 1984 as a Research Scientist at the Centre for Arid Zone Research in Alice Springs. Over the next 18 years, he worked on national issues relating to rangelands management in a range of roles.
“Dr Stafford Smith’s early research focused on plant responses to climate variability and soil conditions.”
He was also co-Task Leader for rangelands modelling under the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme for understanding global change worldwide.
Dr Stafford Smith’s early research focused on plant responses to climate variability and soil conditions. He then worked on the development and delivery of a series of computer-based decision-support tools for sustainable pastoral management.
This led Dr Stafford Smith to focus increasingly on the economics of the industry and decision-making in the face of climatic variability, including the impacts of various policy instruments on those decisions.
His work steadily broadened to integrate first plant and animal biology in rangelands ecological functioning, then economics and social issues in sustainable pastoral management, then policy and land use mixes in regional development outcomes.
In 2003, Dr Stafford Smith was appointed inaugural Chief Executive Officer of the Desert Knowledge CRC, a partnership of 28 organisations he was instrumental in establishing.
Dr Stafford Smith stepped down from this role in January 2006 to resume his research with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
Academic qualifications
Dr Stafford Smith holds the following qualifications:
- Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Cambridge University, United Kingdom (UK), in 1979
- Master of Arts (Cantab) also from Cambridge University, in 1983
- Doctor of Philosophy, Australian National University, Australia, in 1984.
Achievements
Dr Stafford Smith is an ICSU/UNESCO-appointed member and vice-chair of the Scientific Committee of International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).
He is the IGBP-appointed member of the Executive Committee for Global Environmental Change and Food Security Joint Project of the Earth System Science Partnership.
Dr Stafford Smith is also a member of the Department of Climate Change’s High-level Expert Working Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel to the Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Forum.
Find out more about the Climate Adaptation Flagship.
Site Map | Legal Notice and Disclaimer | Privacy | Copyright | Last updated: 8 July 2008
