astronomy

Kerrie Wilson

Kerrie Wilson is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kerrie Wilson rather than just read about it. In short: Kerrie Ann Wilson is an Australian environmental scientist who is the Queensland Chief Scientist and a Professor in the Faculty of Science at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She was formerly the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability and Research Integrity) at QUT.

Key takeaways

Kerrie Wilson belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kerrie Wilson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kerrie Wilson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kerrie Ann Wilson is an Australian environmental scientist who is the Queensland Chief Scientist and a Professor in the Faculty of Science at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She was formerly the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability and Research Integrity) at QUT. Wilson is also an affiliated professor in conservation science at the University of Copenhagen, honorary professor at The University of Queensland, a member of the Australian Heritage Council and the Australian Natural Sciences Commissioner for UNESCO.

Education Wilson holds a bachelor's degree in environmental science (1999) from The University of Queensland and a PhD from The University of Melbourne (2004). Her PhD was undertaken in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, based in Cambridge.

Career From 2005 to 2007, Wilson held a postdoctoral research fellowship at The University of Queensland. In 2007, she left academia to become director of conservation with The Nature Conservancy Australia. She returned to The University of Queensland in 2008 after being awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2010, Wilson was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship, which she commenced after returning from maternity leave in 2013. In 2016, Wilson was appointed the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and professor of biological sciences at The University of Queensland. In 2019, Wilson became the executive director of the Institute for Future Environments at the Queensland University of Technology. On 4 August 2023, Wilson was appointed the Queensland Chief Scientist succeeding Queensland’s Interim Chief Scientist, Professor Bronwyn Harch.

Research Wilson's research bridges the science, policy and practice of conservation, with the aim of finding the most effective ways to protect and restore different kinds of landscapes and ecosystems. Her research focuses on applied conservation resource allocation problems, such as where to invest limited resources to protect or restore biodiversity and the role of ecosystem services in achieving conservation goals. She is a proponent of the theory that conservation investments should be influenced equally by biodiversity values, ecological dynamics and the socio-economic context. Wilson has developed analytical approaches to capture the social context in environmental decision making and demonstrated how to integrate social, economic and ecological analyses to improve evaluation and prediction of the outcomes of environmental policies and programs. She has also made contributions to the field of ecosystem services through the integration of decision science with ecosystem service assessments to investigate how management can enhance human well-being while improving protection of the natural environment. Her research has provided foundation for identifying conservation strategies in production landscapes, that involve many alternative land management options, including on the island of Borneo. Wilson has published over 170 peer-reviewed publications, including several in Nature and Science.

Awards and honours 2017 Australian Academy of Science Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science 2017 Academy of Sciences Malaysia Mahathir Science Award 2016 Prime Minister's Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year 2015 Women in Technology Life Sciences Research Award 2014 Scopus Young Researcher Award in the Life and Biological Sciences 2014 Royal Society of South Australia HG Andrewartha Medal 2013 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Outstanding Young Researcher 2013 University of Queensland Foundation Research Excellence Award

Selected publications

Wilson, K. A., Auerbach, N. A., Sam, K., Magini, A. G., Moss, A., Langhans, S. D., Budiharta, S., Terzano, D. and E. Meijaard. 2016. Conservation research is not happening where it is most needed. PLOS Biology. 14(3), e1002413. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002413 Wilson, K. A., Lulow, M., Burger, J., Fang, Y. C., Andersen, C., Olson, D., O’Connell, M., and M. F. McBride 2011. Optimal restoration: accounting for space, time, and uncertainty. Journal of Applied Ecology. 48(3), 715-725. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.01975.x Wilson, K. A., Meijaard, E., Drummond, S., Grantham, H. S., Boitani, L., Catullo, G., Christie, L., Dennis, R., Dutton, I., Falcucci, A., Maiorano, L., Possingham, H. P., Rondinini, C., Turner, W., Venter, O. and M. Watts. 2010. Conserving Biodiversity in Production Landscapes. Ecological Applications. 20(6), 1721-1732. doi: 10.1890/09-1051.1 Wilson, K. A., Carwardine, J. and H. P. Possingham. 2009. Setting Conservation Priorities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology 2009. 1162(1), 237–264. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04149.x Wilson, K. A., Underwood, E. C., Morrison, S. A., Klausmeyer, K. R., Murdoch, W. W., Reyers, B., Wardell-Johnson, G., Marquet, P. A., Rundel, P. W., McBride, M. F., Pressey, R. L., Bode, M., Hoekstra, J. M., Andelman, S., Looker, M., Rondinini, C., Kareiva, P., Shaw, R. M. and H. P. Possingham. 2007. Conserving Biodiversity Efficiently: What to do, Where and When. PLOS Biology. 5(9), 1850-1861. ARTN e233. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050223 Wilson, K. A., McBride, M., Bode, M. and H. P. Possingham. 2006. Prioritising global conservation efforts. Nature. 440(7082), 337-340. doi:10.1038/nature04366 Wilson, K. A., Westphal, M. I., Possingham, H. P. and J. Elith. 2005. Sensitivity of conservation planning to different approaches to using predicted species distribution data. Biological Conservation. 122(1), 99-112. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2004.07.004

References

External links Institute for Future Environments Queensland University of Technology Wilson Environmental Decisions Lab

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kerrie Wilson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kerrie Wilson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kerrie Wilson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kerrie Wilson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kerrie Wilson

In research: Kerrie Wilson appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kerrie Wilson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kerrie Wilson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of the Queensland University of Technology, Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen, Australian environmental scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kerrie Wilson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kerrie Wilson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kerrie Wilson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kerrie Wilson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kerrie Wilson in simple terms?

Why does Kerrie Wilson matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kerrie Wilson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kerrie Wilson.