Today, as part of our STEM Mentor Spotlight series, we’re shining a light on Dr Jennie Mallela - Researcher at the School of Biology at The Australian National University, Google Scholar and total Superstar of STEM!
Dr Mallela has spent much of her career conducting research that addresses real-world problems focusing on pollution and climate change.
An enthusiastic, environmental bio-geo scientist, Dr Mallela also features as a virtual mentor in our new STEM Pathways online learning program, so students can learn directly from her about what a career in environmental science really looks like!
After gaining her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, which focused on assessing the impacts of catchment pollution on Caribbean coral reefs, Dr Mallela has gone on to held postdoctoral positions at the Australian National University and the University of the West Indies. She also recently completed an Australian Research Council research fellowship (DECRA) where she assessed the impacts of climate change, agricultural runoff and mining impacts on coral reefs.
That involved lots of diving in spectacular waters, assessing coral health - and then working out how we protect it for future generations! (Dr Mallela is a highly qualified commercial and scientific SCUBA-diver, and this enables her to conduct extensive underwater research on coral reefs around the world. She also acts as a scientific diving consultant and advises international scientists on diving related research.)
A keen advocate for science, Dr Mallela has also co-authored 39 research outputs with 129 international co-authors and her research has been cited more than 1000 times. She is regularly invited to join international teams of researchers as their scientific diving expert, and her 2017 popular online video on the causes of coral reef bleaching in 2016, released by her University, received over 100,000 views in the first 10 days.