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Prof Paul Iji

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Dr Paul A. Iji is a Professor of Animal Science and Dean of the College of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry at Fiji National University, Koronivia Campus, Suva. Prof Iji studied in Nigeria, Scotland and Australia and has worked in similar positions in Nigeria and South Africa. His main area of research is gastrointestinal physiology of poultry. He has supervised and currently supervises several postgraduate students. He is the author of a book, Writing and Publishing Your Research (Amazon), and several journal and conference papers.
Unable to supervise more students.
Collaborates with Agriculture and Food Technology discipline of the University of the South Pacific.

Dr Bree Wilson

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Research fellow (Plant pathology, biofertlisers, biological control)
Dr Bree Wilson works at the Centre for Crop Health, University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). She is an Adjunct at the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research, University of Sunshine Coast (UniSC).
Yes. Bree is able to supervise PhD or MSc students in the areas of insect biological control, plant pathology, mycorrhizal fungi and other microbial related studies
Papua New Guinea (PNG), 7 years
Fiji, 2 years
Bree has supervised 5 PhDs to completion and 4 MSc to completion in the areas of insect biological control, plant pathology, mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB). She has supervised a students from several different countries including Australia, Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Cambodia and Fiji.

I enjoy supervising higher degree by research students (HDR students), and watching them become experts in their chosen fields.

Dr Deeksha Krishna

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Associate Dean Research & Assistant Professor, Department of Soil Science and Biosystem Engineering, College of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Fiji National University Fiji
Dr Deeksha Krishna’s research interest focuses on how climate affects agriculture, soil, and ecosystem function. She has previously worked in IRRI as a Soil Scientist -CSISA, ICAT-GHGMI MRV system setup for GHG emission-agriculture Fiji.
Up to 3 students
Topics of interest:
Soil fertility, Nutrient management, Soil and Water Management, Soil and Water Conservation, Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Change with soil health, soil contamination, Abiotic & biotic stress- plant and soil, GHG emission–rice.
Dr Deeksha Krishna teaches soil science courses to undergraduate and post graduate students. Currently she is part of the research team for ACIAR-Landcare project Fiji. She is also a Crawford Fund mentee. She has completed an ACIAR leadership training and UNITAR Women’s Leadership Course in tsunami‐based disaster risk reduction training. Dr Krishna has worked as national expert in Fiji’s setup of sectoral monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) system for estimating agriculture sector GHG emissions for Fiji under Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI), through Fiji’s Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) project, MOE Fiji.

Prof Arun Elias

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Director and Dean, Rajagiri Business School, Kochi, India
Professor Arun Elias is the Dean, College of Business, Hospitality and Tourism Studies, Fiji National University from November 2021.

Prior to joining FNU, Prof Elias was associated with Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand for more than 22 years. He held positions like Associate Dean (International and Accreditation), Director MBA and Post Experience progarmmes, and Associate Professor in Management.
In addition to his PhD in Management from Victoria University of Wellington, Arun has two master’s degrees, in Industrial Engineering and Management from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur and in Agricultural Engineering from Allahabad University. Before joining Victoria, he worked in Tata Steel India as an Industrial Engineer; in academia as a lecturer in Agricultural Engineering with Allahabad University; and in R & D as an Agro specialist in Sustainable Agriculture.
He has extensive experience in international accreditation of business schools, being both a mentor for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and a panel member of the Association of MBAs (AMBA) Accreditation Panel.
Yes, with interest in the following topics:
Systems Approaches to Complex Problems in Agriculture
Supply Chain Management
Stakeholder Management
Agri-business Management

Dr Sarah Burkhart

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Senior Lecturer, Nutrition & Dietetics, School of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Dr Sarah Burkhart is a Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics in the School of Health and Behavioural Sciences, and the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research at UniSC. Sarah’s research uses a food systems lens to explore food security and food choice in the Pacific Islands. Working with Pacific partners, academics and stakeholders, Sarah is interested in nutrition education and food provision in Pacific Island school settings and understanding determinants of food security across Pacific Island food systems, with a focus on food environments and consumer behaviour/food choice.

Sarah is currently leading projects that aim to develop a food and nutrition resource toolkit for Pacific Island teachers, to develop an Overview of Food and Nutrition Security in the Pacific Islands Report, and to adapt a NOVA screener for use in the Pacific Islands. She is also part of a team scoping the potential for local agriculture in food provision in Pacific Island schools. Other current and recent projects have focused on the role of diets, food systems and policy in the prevention of obesity and non-communicable diseases in Fiji, the current state and capacity for school food and nutrition education programmes across 14 Pacific Island countries, food environments in Samoa, nutrition impacts of climate change in Fiji, the impact of Covid-19 on food systems and food choice, dietary assessment methods and food literacy in the Pacific Islands region.

Sarah is a co-founder and current chair of the Pacific School Food Network, a group that advocates for and supports school food activities throughout the Pacific Islands region to eliminate hunger and improve food security.

Sarah teaches into several courses across the Bachelor of Nutrition and the Bachelor of Dietetics, with a focus on improving the student experience and readiness for practice using blended learning and the flipped classroom approach. Sarah’s scholarship of learning and teaching interests include the integration of a food systems approach and sustainability within Nutrition and Dietetic curricula, the use of blended learning strategies and the flipped classroom approach. Sarah is also an advocate for involving students in overseas learning and research experiences and has travelled with, and supervised UniSC students undertaking projects in Samoa and the Solomon Islands.

Sarah is a Registered Nutritionist with the Nutrition Society of Australia (NSA). She is also a member of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) and is currently Chair for the SNEB Division for International Nutrition Education and Chair-elect for the SNEB Sustainable Food Systems Division.
Yes, would depend on workload at the time.
Topics of interest:
School food and nutrition environments in the Pacific Islands
Food environments in the Pacific Islands
Food choice in the Pacific Islands
Currently or have recently collaborated on research that includes; Cook Islands, Fiji, FSM, Kiribati, Palau, Marshall Islands, Niue, Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

Collaborating partners include FAO-UN, SPC, Ministries of Education/Health/Agriculture, Global Child Nutrition Foundation, National and Regional Universities, Pacific School Food Network, DFAT, The Alliance for Bioversity International and CIAT.

Dr Daniela Medina Hidalgo

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Research Fellow
Dr Medina Hidalgo is a Research Fellow with the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research (ACPIR). She holds a BSc in agricultural engineering from EARTH University in Costa Rica, an MSc in environment with a specialisation in climate change adaptation, from Griffith University in Australia, and a PhD in human geography from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Daniela has over 10 years of experience in international agricultural development projects. She worked for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture as climate change and agriculture specialist for over 6 years. Her work allowed her to engage with policymakers and governments in the development, implementation, and evaluation of climate change strategies for the agricultural sector in the Americas and the Caribbean regions, and support capacity building, knowledge, and information management strategies.

Daniela also has practical and technical experience working with farmers’ organisations, community groups and the tourism sector on sustainable agriculture practices, agroforestry, payment for environmental services programs, waste management and environmental education. She has work and travel experience in more than 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Regions. Daniela’s current research aims to assess the capacities of rural communities in the Pacific to adapt to climate change, placing emphasis on smallholder food systems and the potential to implement strategies targeted at increasing food and nutrition security. She is fluent in English and Spanish and has experience designing and managing development projects with multiple partners, funding sources and stakeholders.
Yes, able to co-supervise up to 3 students.
Topics of interest:
Climate change adaptation
Food systems
Food and nutrition security
Community development
Sustainable livelihoods
Dietary change and food environments
Climate change planning and policy
Daniela’s current research aims to assess the capacities of rural communities in the Pacific to adapt to climate change, placing emphasis on smallholder food systems and the potential to implement strategies targeted at increasing food and nutrition security. She is fluent in English and Spanish and has experience designing and managing development projects with multiple partners, funding sources and stakeholders.

Dr Tiago Alves Correa Carvalho da Silva

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Postdoctoral Research Fellow – School of Environmental and Rural Science
Dr Tiago da Silva is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Environmental and Rural Science. He earned a Bachelor of Agronomic Engineering from University of São Paulo and subsequently a PhD in Animal Science from the University of Queensland. Since his undergraduate degree, he has worked in numerous research projects in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil on a diverse variety of topics related to ruminants and pasture production.
Yes, 2 more.
Topics of interest:
Effect of creep-feeding on performance of lambs
Effect of early weaning on reproductive performance of small ruminants
Fiji – Ministry of Agriculture, Fiji National University & University of South Pacific
Samoa – Ministry of Agriculture & University of South Pacific

Prof Phil Brown

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Professor of Horticultural Science
Prof Phil Brown is Professor of Horticultural Science and Director of the Institute for Future Farming Systems at CQUniversity. Over the past 25 years, he has led research teams delivering new knowledge and better production practices for the horticultural industry both in Australia and in neighbouring Pacific Island countries. His research approach is to develop improved horticultural industry agronomic and post-harvest practices based on sound scientific knowledge. This approach has been applied in over 40 large industry supported research grants and consultancy contracts, including projects in PNG, Fiji Samoa and Tonga. Phil is a past President of the Australian Society for Horticultural Science and has been an invited speaker at conferences in Asia, Europe and North America.
Yes (2)
Topics of interest:
Crop agronomy/physiology topics, preferably with an agtech or protected cropping systems component.
PNG: Research Leader on ACIAR funded project HORT/2014/097 Supporting commercial sweetpotato production and marketing in the PNG highlands, and collaborating research on project ASEM/2006/023 Re-Commercialisation of the PNG Pyrethrum Industry to Improve the Harvested Yields in Australia. Collaboration with staff at NARI and FPDA. Successful supervision of one PNG Masters student.
Fiji, Samoa, Tonga: Research Leader on ACIAR funded project HORT/2014/080 Integrating protected cropping systems into high value vegetable value chains in the Pacific and Australia. Collaboration with staff at SPC, Fiji MoA and Tonga MAFFF. Successful supervision of two Masters students.

Prof Patrick Nunn

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Professor of Geography; Director, Sustainability Research Centre
After his BSc in Geography and Geology from the University of London King’s College, Prof Patrick Nunn went on to undertake a PhD on Quaternary landscape evolution at University College London. After completing this and holding various short-term appointments in British universities, Patrick was appointed to a Lectureship in Geography at the University of the South Pacific, an international university serving 12 Pacific Island nations, based at its main teaching campus in Suva, Fiji. Thinking he would complete his three-year contract there before returning to the UK, Patrick in fact spent 25 years there, being appointed to a Personal Chair (Professor of Oceanic Geoscience) in 1997 and then in 2009 becoming Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research and International). Patrick left the University of the South Pacific in 2010 to become Head of the School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences at the University of New England, a position he held until joining the University of the Sunshine Coast as Professor of Geography in March 2014.

Patrick’s main research interests for the past 30 years have focused on the Pacific Basin (both islands and the surrounding continents) and, as befits a true geographer, have been in a number of distinct areas. His early work on the Quaternary geology and tectonics of many islands and island groups in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu still represents the latest word on many of these issues today. In response to an invitation from the Fiji Museum, he began a collaboration that lasted more than a decade and involved Patrick directing a number of excavations in Fiji, notably the seven-year programme along the Rove Peninsula in southwest Viti Levu Island that involved the discovery of what is still likely to be Fiji’s first settlement at Bourewa, established perhaps 3100 years ago. Firmly believing in the importance of community awareness, Patrick has ensured that the results of his research have been returned to the people of the land in ways that they can understand its nature and importance, something helped in the case of Fiji by his fluency in the Fijian language and his familiarity with cultural protocols.
One of Patrick’s current research interests focuses on ancient understandings of coastal-environmental change and how these have been culturally filtered and encoded in narrative and myth. This research was laid out in his books, Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific (University of Hawaii, 2009) and The Edge of Memory (Bloomsbury, 2018). His new book, out last year from Bloomsbury, is Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth.
The other main interest of Patrick at present is focused on climate change issues in the Pacific Islands, understanding past and (likely) future human-climate interactions and their implications for coastal livelihoods. This work has seen the publication of several books including Oceanic Islands (Blackwell, 1994) and Climate, Environment and Society in the Pacific (Elsevier, 2007) and more than 320 peer-reviewed publications. A long involvement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) led to Patrick sharing its 2007 Nobel Peace Prize; Patrick was a lead author on the chapter about ‘Sea Level Change’ in the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report and is currently a lead author on the chapter about ‘Small Islands’ for its 6th Assessment.
Yes, up to 4.
I am interested in supervising Pacific Island students at PhD level working on
• Heritage issues, including tangible heritage (like stonework structures including artificial islands) and intangible heritage (including oral traditions).
•Climate change challenges, including (a) traditional and local knowledge for coping with climate variability and (b) coastal settlement relocation.
•Livelihood sustainability, including autonomous community adaptation, peripherality, and anticipatory adaptive pathway development.
• Traditional and local knowledge in the Pacific Islands – use in future climate change adaptation
• Past community relocations in the Pacific: lessons learned for the future
• Veiqanivivili: Investigating the Only Known Shell-Midden Island in the Western Pacific Islands
Water security in relocated Pacific Island coastal communities
Has conducted research in most Pacific Island Countries, especially Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

Taught for 25 years at the University of the South Pacific, currently Adjunct Professor in Pacific Studies there and Adjunct Professor at Solomon Islands National University, with both of which he has close and ongoing links.

Dr Simon Quigley

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Research Fellow – Livestock and Animal Science
Dr Simon Quigley grew up on mixed crop-livestock farms in New South Wales, Australia. He completed a B. Ag. Sci. at The University of Queensland and a PhD at The University of Adelaide. His research focuses on beef cattle, sheep and goat nutrition and production systems, and ranges from feeding and grazing studies through to the use of molecular techniques to better understand animal metabolism. He is passionate about developing research capacity and improving the livelihoods of smallholder livestock farmers in developing countries, and has been involved in research in Indonesia, Timor Leste, Myanmar, Thailand and Vanuatu.
Yes, 2 as Principal Supervisor, and 2 as Co-Supervisor
Topics of interest:
Ruminant production and feeding systems (cattle, goats, sheep)
Ruminant metabolism and gene expression
Climate resilience in livestock systems (methane, carbon)
Use of technology in farm planning and animal management
ACIAR funded research with smallholder cattle farmers in Vanuatu, in collaboration with Department of Industry, Vanuatu Agriculture Research and Technical Centre, and Department of Livestock.

Regional description of beef cattle industries in Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The Pacific Supervisor Register is an initiative of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). © University of the Sunshine Coast – 2023.

     

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