Our Lab

DR NICHOLAS MURRAY

Associate Professor Nicholas Murray is an Australia-based research scientist and Associate Professor in the College of Science and Engineering at James Cook University (JCU). He is the Lead Scientist of the Global Ecosystems Atlas initiative and a current member of several international advisory boards related to global ecosystem knowledge and conservation (see CV). Before joining JCU in 2019, Nick was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow and held research positions at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science (UQ), the Earth Observation Research Centre (UQ) and the Centre for Ecosystem Science (UNSW).

Nick holds degrees in Environmental Science (Flinders University), Spatial Ecology (Griffith University) and a PhD in conservation biology (University of Queensland). Nick teaches environmental data science, remote sensing and environmental computing to Masters in Marine Biology students at JCU.

Nick is a leading ecologist and remote sensing scientist with over 80 research publications focused on advancing a global understanding of the status and distribution of ecosystems, quantitative methods in earth observation, conservation science and coastal ecosystem dynamics. Nick developed some of the first high-resolution global datasets on the distribution and change of the world's coastal ecosystems, including tidal flats and saltmarshes, developed the Global Intertidal Change global coastal ecosystem monitoring system, led the scientific development of the Global Ecosystems Atlas, and has contributed to high-profile ecosystem monitoring programs such as Global Mangrove Watch and Allen Coral Atlas. He has been awarded over $10M in research funding since 2015. 

His research has been published in journals including Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Nature Geoscience, Nature Ecology and Evolution, Methods in Ecology and Evolution and Conservation Biology (see Google Scholar). His conservation software, which includes Remap and the Redlistr R package, has been used by over 80,000 users from >170 countries. 

Nick has received numerous awards, including an ARC DECRA Fellowship, a Queensland-Smithsonian Fellowship, an Australian Museum Eureka Prize (as part of the IUCN Red List global science team), selection as Australia's nominee for the APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (ASPIRE Prize), IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management Young Professional Award, JCU Award for Excellence in Research and a Google GEO for Good Impact Award for work on global coastal ecosystems. 

Email: nicholas.murray@jcu.edu.au

Scholar: Google Scholar link

Office: The Science Place (142) Room 211. College of Science and Engineering, Bebegu Yumba Campus, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

Twitter: @remotelysense

LinkedIn: Nicholas Murray

JCU Portfolio: https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/nicholas.murray 

Academic CV: Full CV