Michael Bird

I trained as a geologist at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University, obtaining a PhD in isotope geochemistry in 1988. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, I returned to Australia as research Fellow, ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow and Fellow at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University.

In 2000 I took up an Associate Professorship in Singapore and in 2004 moved to the Chair in Environmental Change at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. I returned to Australia to take up an ARC Federation Fellowship in the School of Earth and Environmental Science at James Cook University (Cairns campus) in February 2009. I was awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship form 2014-2019 and am now Distinguished Professor in the College of Science and Engineering.

My research interests include the terrestrial carbon cycle, biochar, geoarchaeology and understanding the trajectory of past and future environmental change in the tropics.