Dr. Graeme Cumming

Biography

Graeme Cumming is a professor and Premier's Science Fellow at the University of Western Australia. He grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe, and completed his studies in Zoology and Entomology at Rhodes University in South Africa. Later, he pursued his doctorate at Oxford University on 'The Evolutionary Ecology of African Ticks'. His postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on freshwater ecosystems. Cumming has held significant academic positions including Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, and Professor at the University of Cape Town where he occupied the Pola Pasvolsky Chair in Conservation Biology. He later joined the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, becoming its director before moving back to Perth in mid-2023. Cumming's research centers on spatial aspects of ecology, particularly concerning broad-scale ecosystem dynamics and social-ecological systems, as well as applications of landscape ecology and complexity theory. His current projects involve exploring coastal resilience and the interactions within marine protected areas.

Research Interests

Experience