Rate My Professor Simon Haberle

Professor Simon Haberle is Professor of Palaeoecology and Natural History in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, at the Australian National University, where he also served as Director of the School from 2016 to 2024. He earned his BA Honours in Geography focusing on the palaeoecology of the Baliem Valley, Irian Jaya, in 1986, and his PhD on the Late Quaternary Environmental History of the Tari Basin, Papua New Guinea, from ANU in 1994. Immediately after his doctorate, Haberle received a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and a Leverhulme Fellowship at the School of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK, examining the roles of past climate change and human activity on tropical and temperate ecosystems in the Amazon Basin and southern South America. In 1998, he was awarded an ARC QEII Research Fellowship and Logan Fellowship at Monash University, Melbourne, to study the long-term history and impacts of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon in Australia and the Pacific.

In 2004, Haberle returned to ANU's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (renamed School of Culture, History and Language in 2009), advancing high-resolution palaeoecological analyses of climate variability and human impacts on terrestrial ecosystems across the Pacific and Indian Oceans during the Holocene. His research specializations encompass palaeoecology, palynology, palaeoclimatology, fire history, and Indigenous Data Sovereignty, with fieldwork spanning Melanesia, Polynesia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Pacific Islands. He leads the Canberra Pollen Monitoring Program, developed the Australasian Pollen and Spore Atlas e-Research tool, and investigates atmospheric pollen and spores' effects on respiratory health. Haberle has been Chief Investigator and ANU-hub co-leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH, 2017-2024) and Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF, 2024-2032). Additional roles include President of the Australasian Quaternary Association (2000-2004), Director of the Centre for Archaeological Research (2006-2009), Chair of the College of Asia and the Pacific Repatriation Committee (2010-present), Elected Chair of the College Forum (2007-2008), and ANU Academic Board Member (2020-2022). His work has garnered over 14,000 citations and an h-index of 49.