Catriona MacDonaldDr. Catriona Macdonald is a research lecturer at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at the University of Western Sydney. With a BSc. and a Ph.D. in the fields of Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology, she has over 12 years’ experence in the field of soil microbiology and nutrient cycling. Her research interests focus on understanding microbial-mediated function under environmental change and interaction with plant communities and how we can utilise the microbial community to overcome associated constraints on productivity and ecosystem function. She has expertise in nutrient cycling, plant-soil interactions, climate change, heavy metals and forensic microbial ecology. Working across natural, agricultural, and managed ecosystems, she aims to improve understanding of how factors such as climate change and land management impact microbial-mediated nutrient transformations and how this feeds back to ecosystem functioning. To achieve this, Dr. Macdonald uses field-based and controlled environment studies to determine rates of nutrient (C, N, and P) transformations, quantify nutrient resource allocation in above- and below-ground pools,= and investigates the function and diversity of key microbial drivers in C, N, and P cycles using a range of in-situ approaches (soil CO2 flux, decomposition, net mineralisation), laboratory assays (MicroResp, enzyme activities, potential mineralisation, degradation rates), and molecular approaches (community profiling and sequencing analysis). She is co-investigator on three large industry-funded interdisciplinary grants related to sustainability: (1) a novel framework to identify, predict, and improve efficiency of bioremediation technology, (2) healthy bee populations for sustainable pollination in horticulture, and (3) pastures under climate extremes. She has more than 35 journal publications and two book chapters, more than 750 citations, and an h-index of 15. She serves on the editorial board of Pedobiologia (Elsevier) and provides scientific review for numberous international peer reviewed journals including Scientific Reports, Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Agriculture Ecosystems and the Environment, and Biodegradation. Read More Read Less