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About Carolyn
Emeritus Professor Carolyn Burns is a distinguished zoologist in the Division of Sciences at the University of Otago, specializing in freshwater ecology. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science with first-class honours in zoology from the University of Canterbury in 1962 and earned her PhD from the University of Toronto in 1966, with a thesis on the feeding behaviour of Daphnia under natural conditions. Following a research associate position in biology at Yale University from 1967 to 1968, she joined the University of Otago as a lecturer in zoology. In 1993, she was awarded a personal chair in zoology and served as Head of the Department of Zoology from 1997 to 1999. Upon retirement in 2010, she was conferred the title of Emeritus Professor. Throughout her career, Burns has been actively involved in conservation and scientific leadership, including membership on the Nature Conservation Council from 1975 to 1990 (chair 1978–1983), the National Parks and Reserves Authority from 1981 to 1990, and various commissions of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. She was the first woman to chair the Royal Society of New Zealand's Academy Council and convened the Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour panel for the Marsden Fund.
Burns' research focuses on biological processes in lakes, plankton ecology, microbial food webs, zooplankton population dynamics, and the impacts of climate change, eutrophication, and invasive species on freshwater ecosystems. She teaches ZOOL 416 Freshwater Ecology and supervises postgraduate students on topics such as picocyanobacterial diversity, Daphnia-phytoplankton interactions, and food web biomanipulation for water quality improvement. Key publications include 'Predicting distribution and establishment of two invasive alien Daphnia species in diverse lakes in New Zealand-Aotearoa' (Biological Invasions, 2024), 'The rapid, mass invasion of New Zealand by North American Daphnia “pulex”' (Limnology & Oceanography, 2021), 'The Relationship Between Body Size of Filter-Feeding Cladocera and the Maximum Size of Particle Ingested' (Limnology and Oceanography, 1968), and 'The Size-Efficiency Hypothesis and the Size Structure of Zooplankton Communities' (Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1976). Her contributions have been recognized with the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1984, Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1993, Naumann-Thienemann Medal in 2007, Marsden Medal in 2017, and Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DNZM) in 2021. Burns continues to advance understanding of New Zealand's lakes and wetlands.
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