Rate My Professor David Keith

Professor David Keith is a Professor of Botany in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, where he is affiliated with the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences and serves as a core member of the Centre for Ecosystem Science. His distinguished career commenced in early adulthood at the New South Wales Herbarium, where as a tenured research assistant in ecology by age 21, he undertook extensive vegetation surveys and mapping while fostering community involvement in the protection and sustainable management of remnant ecosystems under intensifying land use pressures. He progressed to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service as part of a dedicated team conserving biodiversity, and later held the position of Senior Principal Research Scientist at the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. Currently at UNSW, he leads an ARC Industry Laureate Fellowship project that provides rigorous scientific foundations to advance Australia's nature-positive ecosystem conservation agenda. Keith's primary research specializations include the dynamics and management of plant populations and ecological communities, fire ecology, biodiversity risk assessment and conservation planning, vegetation dynamics, population and ecosystem modelling, and the impacts of climate change and altered fire regimes on biodiversity.

Professor Keith's groundbreaking contributions have established him as a world leader in botany, ecology, and conservation biology, with profound global influence. He pioneered the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, operationalized following endorsement by the IUCN World Conservation Congress, which has enabled systematic risk assessments for over 5,000 ecosystems across more than 100 countries, diagnosing threats and guiding nature-based solutions. Additionally, he led the development of the world's first Global Ecosystem Typology, adopted by the United Nations, classifying 108 major functional ecosystem types spanning oceans, freshwater systems, and land biomes to support conservation amid environmental change. Notable publications encompass his authoritative books "Australian Vegetation" (third edition, Cambridge University Press, 2017) and "Ocean Shores to Desert Dunes: The Native Vegetation of New South Wales and the ACT" (2004), alongside key papers such as "Predicting extinction risks under climate change: coupling stochastic population models with dynamic bioclimatic habitat models" (Biology Letters, 2008) and "Scientific Foundations for an IUCN Red List of Ecosystems" (PLoS ONE, 2013). His accolades include the 2025 International Cosmos Prize, 2023 Ecological Society of Australia Gold Medal, election as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2023), 2024 ARC Industry Laureate Fellowship, 2021 IUCN Luc Hoffmann Award, 2017 Clarke Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales, 2019 NSW Premier's Prize for Environmental Science, and multiple Australian Museum Eureka Prizes. Keith also holds influential roles as Deputy Chairperson of the Australian Threatened Species Scientific Committee and member of IUCN standards committees for the Red Lists of Threatened Species and Ecosystems.