University of Tasmania homepage
Photo of Doctor Kathleen Beyer

Doctor

Kathleen Beyer

Senior Lecturer in Climate Impacts and Adaptation

Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences

Orcid identifier0000-0001-9825-8082
  • Senior Lecturer in Climate Impacts and Adaptation
    Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences
  • School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences, 429 Geography-Geology & CODES, Sandy Bay Campus, TAS

BIO

Kathleen is Director of the Climate Futures Research Group (https://climatefutures.org.au/), and Senior Lecturer in Climate Impacts and Adaptation in the School of Geography and Spatial Sciences. She is passionate about delivering innovative, complex and integrated climate impacts and adaptation research. Kathleen’s research aims to improve our understanding of the past, present and future climate and the impacts of climate change on communities and the environment. Her broad research interests are in climate change impacts on human health, social systems, infrastructure, urban environments, energy efficiency, biosecurity, invasive species ecology, ecosystem resilience and biodiversity. Her recent work has centred around the design and development of regionally downscaled climate projections to deliver fit-for-purpose climate data, tools and products for climate-resilient planning. She led the delivery of enhanced regionally downscaled climate projections (NARCliM), which are widely used by NSW government agencies and stakeholders to support climate-resilient planning and manage climate risk.

Biography

Kathleen has more than 15 years of experience in leading and delivering successful environmental and cross-disciplinary research programs. Her experience spans the academic, industry and government sectors having worked in various fields including land use modelling, strategic infrastructure planning and policy development, data analytics, environmental science, conservation and restoration research, ecological research, biosecurity and natural resource management. Kathleen has a passion for the delivery of effective climate impacts and adaptation research outcomes to provide information to allow for robust conclusions to be made and have dedicated a large part of my working career towards this field.

Working across NSW State Government she applied quantitative approaches to understand urban and environmental interactions across metropolitan and regional New South Wales. Her work included the development and implementation of integrated models to assess the implications of land use changes within the planning and policy development framework. Before joining the University of Tasmania Kathleen led a multidisciplinary Climate Research Team delivering regional climate projections and climate change impact and adaptation research. As part of her portfolio she led the Urban Heat and Green Cover research program including the delivering the Green Cover Baseline Assessment for NSW and International Best Practice Review of Green Cover Program Evaluations. Her work provided important information required as a basis for the new NSW Climate Change Policy Framework. She was Chair of the Steering Committees of both, the NSW Human Health & Social Impacts Research Node and the NSW Energy Efficiency Decision Making Research Node.

Memberships and professional practice

• Member, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• Member, Society for Conservation Biology
• Member of the STEM Sector Policy Committee of Science and Technology Australia (2019 – 2022)
• Member of the Management & Policy Committee of the Society of Conservation Biology (2019 – 2022)
• Member of the Steering Committee of the Climate Systems Hub of the Natural Environment Science Program 2 (May 2021 – Jan 2022)
• Initiated and established the Cross-Jurisdictional Community of Practice for Climate Science (CJCoPCS) comprised of representative across Australian states/territories to support the establishment of a consistent national approach to regional climate modelling and decision-making

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Director Climate Futures
    University of Tasmania, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia13 Feb 2022 - present
  • Senior Lecturer Climate Impacts and Adaptation, School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences
    University of Tasmania, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia13 Feb 2022 - present
  • Associate Head Research, School of Geography, Planning and Spatial Sciences
    University of Tasmania, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia1 Jan 2023 - present

NON-ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Senior Team Leader Climate Research
    NSW Government, Climate & Atmospheric Science Branch, Science Division, Sydney, Australia1 Jan 2015 - 31 Jan 2022

DEGREES

  • PhD
    University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom1 Dec 2003 - 30 Jan 2007
  • MSc
    University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany3 Sep 2000 - 31 Jul 2002

LANGUAGES

  • German
    Can read, write, speak, understand and peer review

SCHOOL AND PORTFOLIO

  • School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences

UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

  • 13 Climate Action
  • 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • 14 Life Below Water
  • 15 Life on Land
  • 3 Good Health and Well Being

AVAILABILITY

  • Masters by research or PhD student supervision
  • Media enquiries
  • Membership of an advisory committee
  • Panellist or speaker
  • Industry projects
  • Collaborative projects

FIELD OF RESEARCH