Rate My Professor Cris Brack

Associate Professor Cris Brack is an honorary academic at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment & Society and Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions. He completed a B.Sc. in Forestry with first-class Honours at the ANU in 1981 as a Forestry Commission Trainee. Following graduation, he worked for three years as a field forester for the New South Wales government before advancing to Senior Inventory Officer in Sydney, where he quantified the growth and value of plantations and native forests. In 1994, Brack returned to the ANU to teach and conduct research in forest measurement and management. His career includes a three-year leave in 2009 to serve as the inaugural Chair and Professor of Forestry at Waiariki Institute of Technology in Rotorua, New Zealand, followed by his role as Director of Research to elevate the institute’s profile across primary industry, Māori development, nursing, computing, and business fields. Upon returning to the ANU, he resumed teaching and research duties at the Fenner School and accepted an honorary position in 2020. Brack continues collaborating with land managers and urban foresters through affiliations with the ANU and The Mullion Group.

Brack’s research specializes in developing optimal sampling strategies, modelling tools, and decision-support systems for trees and associated biota across stand, landscape, and continental scales. This work integrates applied statistics for sampling, data acquisition from remotely sensed imagery and ground surveys, modelling of tree and stand dynamics, and expert decision-support systems, with applications in natural, plantation, and urban forests. His contributions were influential in the development of Australia’s National Carbon Accounting System, which received the Eureka Environmental Science Award. Key publications include 'Forest and woodland stand structural complexity: its definition and measurement' (Forest Ecology and Management, 2005), 'Pollution mitigation and carbon sequestration by an urban forest' (Environmental Pollution, 2002), 'Fauna-habitat relationships: a basis for identifying key stand structural attributes in temperate Australian eucalypt forests and woodlands' (Pacific Conservation Biology, 2006), and 'Tree biomass equations for tropical peat swamp forest ecosystems in Indonesia' (Forest Ecology and Management, 2014). Brack’s research has shaped approaches by forest and land managers and policymakers nationally and internationally. His interests encompass forest science and management, urban forestry, natural resource management, landscape ecology, and environmental monitoring.