Abbi Scott
- abbi.scott1@jcu.edu.au
- Senior Research Officer
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Biography
Summary
Abbi Scott is a Research Officer with the TropWATER Team based at James Cook University in Cairns, she works across seagrass and coral ecosystems on projects that collect data to inform management and rehabilitation. Abbi is passionate about connecting science and community to deliver better outcomes for research, people and ecosystems. Abbi studied a masters degree in marine biology at the University of Southampton in England, including a research project on the value of seagrass meadows as nursery habitat. After her degree, Abbi worked in seagrass conservation, engagement and coorindating citizen science projects at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, and then on a nationwide citizen science project at the University of Portsmouth.
In 2017 Abbi moved to Australia for her PhD research with the Cairns TropWATER team. Abbi's PhD research investigated the impact of grazing by herbivores such as green turtles, dugong and fish on seagrass meadows in the Great Barrier Reef. She carried out field experiments at multiple locations to understand; the individual and interactive impact of different grazers, changes in both turtle/dugong and fish/urchin herbivory over space and time. As part of her PhD research, Abbi documented new green turtle feeding behaviours which had previously not been recorded in the Great Barrier Reef.
Current projects
Abbi's current projects include research, monitoring and restoration across both seagrass and coral ecosystems with a strong focus on local community engagement in research. Abbi is the coordinator of the Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub, where she connects local stakeholders and Traditional Owners involved in reef stewardship projects with each other and scientists, providing capacity building and facilitating collaboration (for example the Moore Reef Collaborative monitoring project). Abbi is continuing her PhD research into grazing in seagrass meadows in various locations and works with Traditional Owners to understand green turtle and dugong grazing dynamics and also leads long-term seagrass monitoring projects with the TropWATER team in Karumba and Thursday Island. Abbi works across other projects within the TropWATER team including; coral monitoring, seagrass monitoring, seagrass restoration and coral rehabilitation. Abbi collaborates with Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef on the Great Reef Census citizen science project, leading expeditions and developing methods to integrate seagrass surveys into the sampling.
Communication
Abbi is passionate about communicating her own work, and science more generally, to local communities, managers and the public. From 2020 - 2023, Abbi hosted a regular radio segment on ABC North Queensland with presenter Phil Staley, this 20-minute segment highlighted interesting research and interviewed scientists about their new findings. Abbi has delivered various invited seminars about her work and about communicating science, inluding for the Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science and World Seagrass Association. Abbi has presented public talks for Science Week, as part of Pint of Science and International Womens Day events, she also talks in schools and has delivered a Live in Orbit lesson. Abbi has featured on various other social media or web pages including National Geographic, Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef. Abbi is the Cairns coordinator for the Pint of Science festival and brought the event to Cairns in 2018.
You can stay up to date with Abbi's research by following her Twitter (@abbilscott), Instagram (@abbi.scott.science) and on her website (www.abbilscott.com).