Professor Quiggin has been an active contributor to Australian public debate in a wide range of media. He is a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review, to which he also contributes review and feature articles. He frequently comments on policy issues for radio and TV. He was one of the first Australian academics to present publications on a website (now at http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/johnquiggin). In 2002, he commenced publication of a weblog (now at http://johnquiggin.com) providing daily comments on a wide range of topics.

David's career has included time at the CRC for Tropical Pest Management (1994-97), and RDE Connections (1997-2000), with time spent at Resource Evaluation Services (2000-04) as a director. David has expertise in the cost benefit analysis of research and development programs, and has interests in impact assessment of agricultural pest management issues and quarantine risk analysis. He has worked on the Excel version of the Murray-Darling Basin model and has general experience in Microsoft Excel model development.

Thilak Mallawaarachchi, Ph.D., recently returned to the Group full-time on on long-term leave from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). His research encompasses economic, environmental and social aspects of resource management and focuses on using integrated modelling tools that link scientific data with economic frameworks to facilitate learning and problem solving.

He received the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Ph.D award in 2001 for bioeconomic modelling combining mathematical programming and choice modelling. He has published widely on various resource policy issues including water, land use planning, land degradation and the use of choice modelling and geographical information systems for resource policy.

Thilak's current work focuses on extending the Murray-Darling Model to examine adaptation patterns in irrigated farming systems facing reduced water availability in the Basin. Aim is to understand the production-environmental tradeoffs for Basin water uses under different institutional arrangements, in particular water trading and salinity mitigation when water supplies are both uncertain and variable across the Basin.

Nancy Wallace provides editorial and bibliographic expertise as well as expertise in document management, research administration and reporting.

Sarah is a graduate of the University of Queensland Natural Resource Economics program, gaining honours for research conducted with CIMMYT while on exchange in Mexico. She joined RSMG in early 2008, after gaining experience in economic analysis of agricultural policy and research at the Department of Primary Industries.

A major component of her current work is in modelling land and water allocations to irrigated production systems and other users in the Murray Darling Basin. Her research has included investigating the impacts of increased water allocations to the environment. She is also researching methods to improve the representation of catchment inflow and production variability in the state contingent model.

Her other research interests include risk and productivity analysis.

Mark Neal was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He completed his PhD at the University of Sydney, examining the economics of New Zealand dairy production through the optimisation of a whole-farm model. Advanced techniques including evolutionary algorithms and distributed computing were used in the optimisation approach. He has previously worked in Canberra at the Productivity Commission, the Australian Government's principal review and advisory body on microeconomic policy and regulation. His current work includes analysing the potential costs of regulation designed to improve environmental outcomes and the optimal input choice for a range of farm systems.

Peggy joined the team in November 2007 with a background in agricultural and resource project management in developing countries.

Her main focus in our group is the modelling of land and water allocations to irrigated agriculture production systems in the Murray-Darling Basin using different software tools. She recently investigated the effect of increased land allocations to forestry within the Basin and its impact on downstream water availability and socio-economic resilience. Peggy is currently working on improving the simulations of the salt loads carried within the Murray and Darling River systems.

Peggy is also interested in investigating the risks and uncertainties of environmental change to medium and small scale food production industries. She is involved in a project that aims to model the economic impact of changing chemical condition of our oceans on marine-based aquaculture production systems.

Liam Wagner is a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. He was awarded his PhD thesis in May 2008 in mathematics at the University of Queensland examining a variety of topics in mathematical physics. He has previously worked as a Trading Analyst in the energy industry, providing advice on risk, while also trading an Open Cycle Gas Turbine power station. While in the energy industry Liam also performed analysis on the impending carbon economy and its affects on electricity generators. His current research intersts includes analysis of the National Emissions Trading Scheme, impact of climate change on the Snoyw Hydro Scheme and the Murray-Darling Basin.

Tyron Venn’s fields of research include natural resource and environmental
economics, development economics and forestry science. His research interests
include the economics of forestry, market and non-market valuation of ecosystem
services, socio-economic evaluation of the management of natural resources,
and the property rights of indigenous Australians. In June 2005, Dr Venn resigned to take up an appointment at the University of Montana.