Dr Valerie Hagger
Researcher biography
Valerie Hagger is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at The University of Queensland.
Her research interests include ecological and socioeconomic interactions in ecological restoration, biodiversity conservation and climate change. She has previously published her research on the climate change adaptation of sub-tropical rainforest fauna (see Hagger et al. 2013).
Valerie’s current research project investigates the costs and success of ecological restoration in Australia and the potential for achieving multiple outcomes for biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration. More specifically, it involves identifying the motivations for undertaking restoration, analysing the factors influencing the success of restoration from planning to monitoring/evaluation, assessing the cost-effectiveness of different restoration methods for Australia’s broad vegetation types, and identifying the links between biodiversity and socioeconomic outcomes in restoration projects. Her project has been awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) and a CSIRO Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM) Postgraduate Award, and is supervised by Dr Kerrie Wilson (UQ) and Dr John Dwyer (UQ and CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences).
Valerie is an experienced terrestrial ecologist with 12 years of ecological and environmental consulting experience for a range of industries (including government, defence, mining, transport, water, energy and communications). She has been involved in 53 ecological projects, and was the project manager of 10 of those. She was also the ecology team leader/manager.
Valerie is currently the Student and Early Career Representative of the Society of Ecological Restoration Australasia (SERA).