I began my tertiary education in Tasmania with a Bachelor degree in aquaculture, then did my honours degree on abalone digestive physiology. Following this, still at the University of Tasmania (UTas), I embarked on a PhD to investigate the environmental requirements of abalone. In this PhD I examined growth and survival of greenlip and blacklip abalone, but also added to some work from my honours in the areas of respiratory physiology and histopathology. After receiving my PhD, I took a post doctoral fellowship, still at UTas, extending the work of my PhD. I did a second postdoc at UTas on the pathophysiology of amoebic gill disease before accepting the position of Lecturer at Flinders University in late 2004. Since then, I have developed my research interests in the areas of aquaculture and aquatic animal health with abalone, kingfish, endemic freshwater fish and oysters. For these animals my research has included culture practices, digestive physiology, nutritional health, farm trial management, anaesthetic use, bioenergetics, freshwater fish ecology, dietary intervention, dietary ingredient replacement, colour manipulation, disease treatment optimisation, applied parasitology and feeding behaviour of aquatic animals.

My research is focussed on maintaining the best possible health and welfare for aquatic animals. Throughout my career I have worked through many intersecting areas of research investigating the impacts of a variety of infectious and non-infectious diseases, including determining environmental requirements, examining respiratory and osmoregulatory physiology in parasitised or transported animals, epidemiological and treatment studies of parasites and nutrition of cultured animals. This work has led to industry expansion in cold water fish and mollusc culture within Australia. The animals I have worked with include several species of molluscs (abalone, oysters, whelks), fish (kingfish, salmonids (Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, brown trout), silver perch), and crustaceans (rock lobsters, yabbies). Some highlights include work on including waste food products into animal feed, improving survival through nutritional intervention and treatment optimisation.