Rate My Professor Brendan Choat

Professor Brendan Choat is a Professor at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment in the field of environmental science at Western Sydney University. He obtained his BSc (Hons) in 1997 and PhD in plant physiology in 2003 from James Cook University. Following his PhD, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University from 2003 to 2005. He then held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis, from 2005 to 2008. Returning to Australia, Choat served as a Research Fellow at the Australian National University in 2008 before joining the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University in 2011. He was an ARC Future Fellow from 2014 to 2018.

Choat's research specializations encompass plant physiology and ecology, with a focus on xylem hydraulic function, cavitation and embolism, drought response strategies, and the impacts of climate change on native vegetation, forestry, and horticultural plants. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in top journals such as Nature, Science, PNAS, Plant Physiology, and New Phytologist. Key publications include "Triggers of tree mortality under drought" (2018), "Beyond species means: the intraspecific contribution to global wood density variation" (2026, New Phytologist), "Drought sensitivity is climate-adapted and consistently influenced by wood density and maximum height in eucalypts" (2025, Functional Ecology), "Adaptation in wood anatomical traits to temperature and precipitation—a common garden study" (2025, Plant, Cell and Environment), and "Demographic change and loss of big trees in resprouting eucalypt forests exposed to megadisturbance" (2024, Global Ecology and Biogeography). His contributions have established him in the top 1% of Highly Cited Researchers according to Clarivate in Plant and Animal Science for years 2018 through 2024. Major awards include the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (2010), ARC Future Fellowship (2013), Thomson Reuters Citation and Innovation Award (2015, shared with Tim Brodribb for drought and tree mortality research), and Western Sydney University Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Excellence in Research Leadership and Development award (2024). Choat serves as Editor-in-Chief of Prometheus Protocols and on the editorial board of Plant Biology.