Sean Connolly

Sean Connolly is a Program Leader of Dynamics of Coral Reef Ecosystems in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. Sean combines mathematical and statistical modelling with fieldwork and laboratory experiments to study the dynamics of biological turnover at all scales, including ecophysiology, population dynamics, species interactions and biodiversity, and macroevolution.

He received his doctorate in 1999 from Stanford University in California, USA, for research on the ecology of rocky shores. In 1999-2000, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Arizona, USA, where he examined global dynamics of marine biodiversity in the fossil record. In 2000, Sean came to JCU to develop and lead a research and research training program in ecological modelling applied to coral reefs. Sean has >100 publications in leading international journals, including 5 papers in Science or Nature, and he has supervised 38 Postgraduate and Honours students since 2001.

Recent awards include the Fenner Medal of the Australian Academy of Science (2009), which honours outstanding research in the biological sciences by a scientist under 40.