Camille Truong is a Research Scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research integrates natural history collections with state-of-the-art genomic methods to describe new fungal species, understand their interactions with plants and animals, and the ecological role that fungi plays in forest soils. She is a board member of the UNITE community database, the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and the Australasian Mycological Society. In 2022, she received an Maxwell/Hanrahan Award in Field Biology in recognition of her work in understanding and conserving fungi in forests.

I'm a PhD candidate at the Australian National University studying the effects of a future warmer, drier climate on Australia's sub-alpine grasslands. Interested in all things ecology, my work allows me to delve into plant function, how plants respond to abiotic stresses, and what effect this has on the broader ecosystem. I also get to work in one of the most beautiful places in the country (in my humble opinion) Kosciuszko NP! Now in the final 6 months of my candidature, I have some interesting results to share so please feel free to reach out or tap me on the shoulder if you're interested in hearing about my work. Happy conference!

Xin Han is a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia. She received her PhD in ecology from the Chinese Academy of Forestry, where her doctoral research focused on understanding ecological strategy patterns of forest plant communities and their environmental drivers across different climatic zones in China. Her PhD work integrated field surveys in forest ecosystems, functional trait measurements, and statistical modelling to reveal how climate and soil factors shape community-level ecological strategies and biodiversity patterns in forests. Her current research at Western Sydney University examines the relationships among plant functional traits, environmental conditions, and forest community dark diversity, with an emphasis on their geographical differentiation and implications for biodiversity conservation. Broadly, she is interested in exploring the assembly rules of plant communities and shifts in ecological strategies across environmental gradients based on functional traits, with the aim of improving our understanding of plant responses and adaptations to environmental change and the mechanisms maintaining biodiversity in forest ecosystems.

Genavieve Jurd is a Master of Research student at the University of Southern Queensland, interested in plant-microbe interactions and how these relationships contribute to ecosystem resilience and recovery following disturbance. Her current research investigates how fire regimes affect native plant and soil microbial communities in fire-prone landscapes of south-west Western Australia. Genavieve is passionate about translating ecological research into practical outcomes for future conservation measures and land management, particularly motivated by the need to protect and restore biodiversity under a changing climate. By deepening our understanding of above and below-ground responses to disturbance, her work aims to support more informed, adaptive fire management strategies that enhance resilience and long-term sustainability of native ecosystems.

Luke is a PhD candidate at La Trobe University with a passion for uncovering the ecological roles of mycorrhizal fungi in forest ecosystems.

Elina Rittelmann-Woods is a second-year PhD candidate at Murdoch University and with the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country. Her research focuses on the relationship between plant diversity and carbon storage in the context of restoration. She completed her B.Sc. in Biological Sciences and M.Sc. in Global Change Ecology in Germany, before moving to Perth for her PhD. Elina enjoys learning about the unique Country of south-western Australia through her research. She is passionate about nature conservation, protecting biodiversity and tackling climate change. Through her research, she aims to generate knowledge that can contribute to aligning Indigenous, carbon and biodiversity values in ecological and eco-cultural restoration projects. Elina’s presentation will give an insight into the first part of her thesis, in which she explored woody plant diversity effects on soil carbon storage in south-western Australia and globally, utilising data from a network of tree diversity experiments (TreeDivNet).

Wing Man Siu (Winnie) is a current PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, specialising in community ecology. Her research focuses on using below-ground plant traits and the intricate relationships between plant-soil-microbe interactions to understand plant assembly processes.