Jim has worked as a hydrogeologist since 2007, beginning his research career at CSIRO Land and Water before going on to hold an ARC DECRA Fellowship and Senior Lectureship at the University of Western Australia. He is now a lecturer with the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) at Flinders University. His research interests involve investigating interactions between surface water and groundwater, the influence of fault structures and heterogeneity on aquifer behaviour, and groundwater flow processes across a range of basin and catchment settings. He has expertise in environmental tracers, groundwater age dating, uncertainty analysis, and numerical and analytical groundwater modelling.

He is passionate about applying rigorous, quantitative methods to support water resource managers, regulators and the broader community in understanding groundwater systems, from assessing the sustainability of ancient groundwater resources in basins like the Great Artesian Basin, to exploring novel approaches for representing complex geological structures in the models that underpin real-world water management decisions.

• Numerical and analytical groundwater flow and solute transport modelling
• Surface water–groundwater interaction
• Fault zone and heterogeneous aquifer hydrogeology
• Environmental tracer methods and groundwater age dating
• Uncertainty analysis and history matching in groundwater models

Jim is interested in understanding complex hydrological systems and how they control the movement of water through the landscape. Within this broad interest, his work focuses on three areas: how surface water-groundwater interactions influence surface water quality; how fault and fracture networks control connectivity and flow in structurally complex aquifers; and the application of environmental tracers to address questions of groundwater sustainability, including recharge, age, and long-term resource availability.