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I am an academic and practising lawyer who also trained as an environmental engineer. I work at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia, researching environmental and natural resources law and policy. My approach is empirical, interdisciplinary, comparative and engaged with government, NGOs, business and communities.

My academic journey started with a focus on groundwater law across the western United States and Australia, as well as further afield. From 2010-2014, I led the Comparative Groundwater Law and Policy Program, a collaborative initiative between Water in the West at Stanford University and the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. The Program focused on empirical research and stakeholder workshops to improve groundwater sustainability. I co-authored Australia’s current major water law text, Water Resources Law (LexisNexis Butterworths, 2nd ed).

Though I still keep my toes in the (ground)water, my research has now emerged above ground to investigate how law deals with cumulative environmental effects – essentially, how we can make sure that our laws can prevent environmental ‘death by a thousand cuts’. Under an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2018-2021), my research analyses and evaluates laws that regulate cumulative environmental effects around the globe. It is the first large-scale comparative study of legal responses to cumulative effects, which scientists and others have long criticised as inadequate.