Professor Steve Williams
Centre Director
Research Interests
Professor Stephen Williams is the Director for the Centre, and co-convenes the NCCARF National Adaptation Research Network - Terrestrial Biodiversity. Steve has broad research interests in rainforest biodiversity, ecology, ecosystem processes and the related impacts of climate change. His research started out on mammals but over the last ten years has focused more on birds, frogs and reptiles. Steve is passionate about field biology and spends several months a year in the bush. He received his doctorate in 1998 from James Cook University on “Vertebrate Biodiversity & Assemblage Structure in the Australian Wet Tropics”. From 1997-1999 he was a Postdoctoral and Research Fellow in the Rainforest CRC biodiversity and rarity projects. His research has always been multi-disciplinary and collaborative with significant research effort on species and community ecology, evolutionary biology, extinction dynamics, species distribution modeling, the determinants of biodiversity patterns, ecophysiology, conservation biology and, more recently, a strong emphasis on the impacts of global climate climate change on natural ecosystems.
Steve has established an international reputation in the research fields of understanding tropical biodiversity and climate change impacts. This recognition is demonstrated by many publications, leadership of a national climate change network, invited participation in international meetings on climate change, participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th assessment report as an expert reviewer and as an invited member of scientific advisory panels/workshops at the regional (Wet Tropics Management Authority, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority), state (QLD Government), national (National Assessment of the vulnerability of Australias biodiversity to climate change; federal environment Minister advisory panel on climate change) and international levels (IUCN, Earthwatch Institute, UNEP, DIVERSITAS).
Since 2003, Steve has had numerous publications on climate change impacts on biodiversity and has received significant external competitive grants. His research has had significant outcomes and has been incorporated into the Wet Tropics Conservation Strategy, QLD climate change policy, National Biodiversity & Climate Change Action Plan, State of the Worlds Birds Report, IUCN Climate Change reports and has instigated many more research projects. Steve’s research was the first to identify global climate change as a severe threatening process in the tropics and the first to predict that we may be facing many species extinctions in mountain systems around the world.
As Centre Director, Steve oversees and coordinates all research activities for the Centre. He has a very active field program covering the whole of the Wet Tropics region in North Queensland. The research has recently expanded to include tropical savanna woodlands and forests and the rainforests of Cape York and mid-east Queensland.