Rate My Professor Andy Baker

Dr Andy Baker serves as an Adjunct Lecturer and Teaching Associate in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Southern Cross University. He earned a Bachelor of Environmental Science with Honours (BEnvSc(Hons)) and a PhD from Southern Cross University in 2021, with his doctoral thesis titled 'The ecological consequences of rainforest expansion into long-unburnt eucalypt forests in Eastern Australia.' With more than 25 years of experience as a vegetation, fire, and restoration ecologist, Baker has consulted for all levels of government on native vegetation management. He returned to Southern Cross University in 2015 to conduct research in fire ecology, contributing to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to life on land and climate action.

Baker's research focuses on the impacts of low-frequency fires on open ecosystem biodiversity and function, fire-mediated alternative stable states and positive feedback mechanisms, the reinstatement of appropriate fire regimes in ecological restoration, the revival of cultural burning practices, and the effects of wildfires on rainforests. He teaches undergraduate units in Fire Ecology & Management and Plant Biology and supervises Master's students on fire ecology topics. His work is cited 327 times on Google Scholar in the fields of fire ecology and restoration ecology. Key publications include 'Rainforest expansion reduces understorey plant diversity irrespective of fire history' (Austral Ecology, 2020), 'No room to move: bat response to rainforest expansion into long-unburnt eucalypt forest' (Pacific Conservation Biology, 2020), 'Rainforest persistence and recruitment after Australia’s 2019–2020 fires in subtropical, temperate, dry and littoral rainforests' (2022), 'Where has all the fire gone? Quantifying the spatial and temporal components of ecological drift' (Ecological Management & Restoration, 2015), and contributions to 'AusTraits, a curated plant trait database for the Australian flora' (Scientific Data, 2021).