Dr. Sharyn Hickey is a Senior Lecturer in the UWA School of Agriculture and Environment within the Faculty of Science, and she is affiliated with the UWA Oceans Institute and the Centre for Water and Spatial Science. She completed her PhD at the University of Western Australia in 2018, with a thesis entitled 'A spatio-temporal approach to understand environmental drivers of intertidal seagrass dynamics,' and holds a BSc in Marine Science. Throughout her career, Hickey has applied spatial ecology and geospatial sciences to marine and coastal environments, using remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) to investigate changes in habitats such as mangroves, seagrass meadows, coral reefs, and intertidal ecosystems. Her work emphasizes Western Australia's shallow coastal systems, developing and testing emerging remote sensing technologies and spatial analytics to monitor habitat dynamics, detect environmental changes, assess blue carbon stocks, and evaluate impacts from climate drivers like ENSO events, heatwaves, and sea level fluctuations. She has led multidisciplinary research projects, securing over $4 million in funding, and her research extends to population health applications of spatial modeling.

Hickey's contributions have been recognized with the UWA Research Collaboration Award in 2026, the School of Agriculture and Environment Early-Career Research Award in 2024, and the School Postgraduate Teaching Award in 2022. Key publications include 'Habitat mosaics of mangroves and reefs support fisheries sustainability for Traditional Owners' (Ocean & Coastal Management, 2026), 'Benthic Observation Survey System (BOSS) for surveys of marine benthic habitats' (Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 2025), 'Disconnect between settlement and fishery recruitment driven by decadal changes in nearshore habitats' (Science of the Total Environment, 2025), 'Multidecadal mapping of arid intertidal ecosystems reveals a dynamic mosaic of habitats north-western Australia' (Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 2025), 'Mapping emergent coral reefs: a comparison of pixel- and object-based methods' (Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 2025), and 'Mangrove dieback during fluctuating sea levels' (Scientific Reports, 2017). With an h-index of 13 and over 1,000 citations, her research informs sustainable management of coastal fisheries and conservation strategies.

Professional Email: sharyn.hickey@uwa.edu.au