Accomplished Rat Catcher, dedicated Research Assistant for the Desert Ecology Research Group and survivor of the infamous Simpson Desert floods of 2000 - aka Aaron Greenville - is semi-retiring his field boots to commence a PhD with his long-time mentors Chris Dickman and Glenda Wardle.

Aaron began his association with the Dickman Lab in 1999 when, as a third year student, he worked with Chris on a research project, which continued into an Honours year studying the tight habitat association of Lerista labialis with the dune crests of the Simpson Desert.

After Honours, Aaron worked off-and-on for Chris on various desert ecology projects before securing a full-time position of Research Assistant. In this role, Aaron assisted with ARC-funded projects by organising volunteers for desert trips, data analysis, GIS support and help with the day-to-day running of the research group.

Rebecca moved to Sydney from Perth in late August to start her PhD under the supervision of Clare McArthur and Peter Banks. She will be studying mammal browsing and is lucky enough to be doing field work at Booderee National Park in Jervis Bay. Rebecca is interested in how we can use associational refuges in plant communities to reduce browsing by swamp wallabies and promote the retention of eucalypt regrowth.

Bob Hunt is a new PhD student working under the supervision of Will Figueira. Bob's project is born out of an ARC Linkage partnership between the University of Sydney and two external bodies - the NSW Recreational Fishing Saltwater Trust and the Fisheries Research Centre at Cronulla. His project seeks to improve management of recreational fisheries in Australia by developing model-based evaluation tools that can identify which strategies are most likely to achieve management objectives and to design surveys of recreational anglers that can accurately and precisely measure the performance of regulation change. By optimising the design of future recreational fishery assessment programs, Bob hopes his work will help reduce the cost of surveys and help provide an empirical mechanism to evaluate the impacts of management decisions (are objectives being met, both biologically and socially) and modify them as needed, thereby providing an improved outcome for both fish stocks and anglers.

Zeinab has taken up the role of casual technical officer in the genetics team, working with Xiumei and Helen. Originally from Lebanon, she finished her Masters of Molecular Biotechnology at Sydney, which she followed with a research project in Peter McGee's lab last year. Zeinab is also familiar with work in the genetics team, having done casual work supporting genetics classes during her studies last year.