Professor Brendan Wintle is a Professor in Conservation Ecology in the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne, within the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences. He currently serves as Director of the Melbourne Biodiversity Institute and leads the Quantitative and Applied Ecology (QAEco) research group, focusing on biodiversity science including modelling, mapping, and economic methods to inform conservation priorities, policy, monitoring, reporting, and nature law reform. Wintle completed a Forestry Degree in 1994, followed by work as a senior forest policy officer in the Queensland State Government. He earned his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2004, with a thesis on characterizing and dealing with uncertainty in species distribution models. Post-PhD, he held an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship to design wildlife monitoring programs and took up a position as Lecturer in Conservation Ecology in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne.

His career includes ARC Discovery Fellowship in 2007 and ARC Future Fellowship in 2012 on climate adaptation strategies for conserving biodiversity in changing landscapes, as well as the 2025 Woodward Medal for profound impact on environmental policy and public discourse. Wintle's research has produced over 217 scholarly works, with highly influential publications such as 'Cross-validation strategies for data with temporal, spatial, hierarchical, or phylogenetic structure' (Roberts et al., 2017, Ecography), 'Predicting species distributions for conservation decisions' (Guisan et al., 2013, Ecology Letters), 'Zero tolerance ecology: improving ecological inference by modelling the source of zero observations' (Martin et al., 2005, Ecology Letters), and 'Global synthesis of conservation studies reveals the importance of small habitat patches for biodiversity' (Wintle et al., 2019, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). He has advised on committees including Forest Stewardship Council reference committees, Regional Sustainability Planning Advisory Committee, Monitoring and Evaluation advisory group, and Save the Tasmanian Devil Science Advisory Group, contributing significantly to conservation decision-making and policy.

Professional Email: b.wintle@unimelb.edu.au