Rate My Professor Darren Southwell

Southwell's academic interests lie in quantitative ecology, encompassing optimal monitoring, population modelling, species distribution modelling, and conservation biology. He develops mathematical models to predict endangered population responses to management actions, identifying cost-effective strategies amid limited conservation funding. Key projects include efficient monitoring of threatened species like koalas and green and golden bell frogs, a long-term biodiversity monitoring program in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park with Indigenous rangers using 120 camera traps and 30 sound recorders, and tracking bird-eating rodents on Norfolk Island. He has developed software for designing effective large-scale biodiversity monitoring programs used by managers worldwide. Notable publications include 'Fire regimes drive population trends of a threatened lizard in the central and western deserts of Australia' (Wildlife Research, 2025), 'Monitoring impacts and recovery' (2023), 'The impacts of the 2019–20 wildfires on Australia’s lizards and snakes' (2023), and 'Essential principles to guide monitoring of threatened biodiversity' (2018). Southwell received the 2018 Whitley Award for the book 'Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities' and has secured $5,872,012 in funding across 16 grants.