Elizabeth Evans-Illidge

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Libby Evans-Illidge has enjoyed a 30 year diverse marine science career which has blended the doing of research with policy development, science uptake and commercialisation, stakeholder engagement and collaboration, and research management.

Since joining AIMS in 1994, her role has included leadership of sponge biology and aquaculture research, biodiscovery research, management of Australia’s largest and most comprehensive marine bioresources library, and most recently, the Research Director role with AIMS@JCU, where she leads the joint venture to facilitate collaboration between AIMS and JCU through post-graduate research training. She has negotiated and managed contracts to facilitate access to bioresources, and benefit sharing agreements with resource management jurisdictions in Australia. She has participated in numerous policy development forums on the utilisation of marine genetic resources and access and benefit sharing, both nationally and internationally, including with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the development of new domestic policy and legislation in Australia. Her early career focused on reef sponge biology and chemical ecology, and she co-founded a small partnership in marine research in Torres Strait, in a range of fields including fisheries, seagrass and other benthic research, as well as the Torres Strait Baseline Study which assessed potential contamination of the marine environment and seafood species with heavy metals from mining activities in Papua New Guinea.

Experience

  • 2011–present
    Research Director, AIMS@JCU
  • 1994–present
    Manager, AIMS Bioresources Library, Australian Institute of Marine Science
  • 1988–1994
    Research Director, Port Lihou Research
  • 1984–1987
    Experimental Scientist, Australian Institute of Marine Science

Education

  • 1983 
    James Cook University, Bachelor of Science

Publications

  • 2012
    Guiding principles for natural product drug discovery, Future Med Chem
  • 2008
    An assessment of the aquaculture potential of the tropical sponges Rhopaloeides odorabile and Coscinoderma sp., Aquaculture
  • 2008
    Spatial variability in community structure of Dictyoceratida sponges across Torres Strait, Australia., Continental Shelf Research
  • 2007
    Developing methods for commercially farming bath sponges in tropical Australia, Porifera Research: Biodiversity, Innovation and Sustainability
  • 2007
    National sovereignty, 'green mining' and the UN Convention on Biodiversity., Socotra: A Natural History of the Islands and their People.
  • 2007
    Marine natural products discovery in Australia: from Reef to Royalty, and the pursuit of convention on Biological Diversity compliance., J Biolaw and Bus
  • 2004
    Marine microbes for biodiscovery: Just the tip of an iceberg, Microbial genetic resources and biodiscovery
  • 2004
    Natural ways - learning from Nature's 4.5 billion year biotechnology experimentt, Issues
  • 2004
    Tabus or not taboos? How to use traditional environmental knowledge to support sustainable development of marine resources in Melanesia., SPC Traditional Marine Resource Management and Knowledge Bulletin.

Contact Elizabeth for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision