Elizabeth Buccheri

Elizabeth is a PhD candidate at The University of Queensland under the supervision of Professor Peter Mumby and Dr Christopher Doropoulos. Her research is focused on identifying critical population thresholds to maximise coral recovery on the Great Barrier Reef to guide effective conservation and restoration initiatives in the future. 

Elizabeth obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies at Adelphi University in New York in 2018. During this time, she worked as a laboratory assistant in a marine geology laboratory, a teaching assistant for a marine science institute and a volunteer abroad with two international non-profit organisations. She found her passion for marine conservation when she studied on the Great Barrier Reef for the first time in 2017 and led a project assessing how sea cucumber behaviour was influenced by ocean warming at Heron Island Research Station. She moved to Australia in 2019 and received her Masters in Conservation Science from UQ in 2020, in which she conducted a research thesis which sought to guide more robust site selection for future reef restoration initiatives on the Great Barrier Reef to minimise the likelihood of damage via tropical cyclones.

Publication:

Buccheri, E., Foellmer, M.W., Christensen, B.A., Langis, P., Ritter, S., Wolf, E. and Freeman, A.S. 2019. Variation in righting times of Holothuria atra, Stichopus chloronotus, and Holothuria edulis in response to increased seawater temperatures on Heron Reef in the southern GBR. Journal of Marine Biology, doi:10.1155/2019/6179705.