Dr. Kristine Crous
–Senior lecture (Assistant Prof equivalent) – plant ecophysiolgist and global change
Kristine has been at Western Sydney University since 2016 as an ARC DECRA (Discovery Early Career Research Award) Fellow.
She moved to a permanent position as Senior lecturer in 2021.
Kristine studied ecophysiology, including the effects of elevated COâ‚‚ on photosynthesis at Duke FACE (Free-Air CO enrichment) experiment doing a PhD at the University of Michigan.
This was followed by a postdoc at the Australian National University investigating the effects of nutrients and drought on leaf respiration with Prof. Owen Atkin.
She did a second postdoc at Western Sydney University to investigate how photosynthesis is affected by phosphorus before receiving her DECRA award on how rainforest will cope with warming.
Kristine is excited about trees, and rainforests in particular.
She wants to know everything about how trees work, how they adjust to their surrounding environment and how they deal with stresses such as drought, warming and or climate change.
Her work leads to large collaborations to understand forest productivity and carbon storage now and in the future.
During leisure times, Kristine enjoys travelling, hiking, camping, gardening and spending time with her family.