BSc (Hons), PhD

Dr Rachael Gross is a non-Indigenous refugee-settler, geographer and a reformed ecologist with a PhD in the decolonial management of African elephants across Southern Africa in response to climate change.

Working at the intersection of decolonial pedagogy, landscape science, community development and wildlife conservation, Rachael works with and for Indigenous communities on using geospatial technology to repatriate their land and manage wildlife in the face of modern anthropogenic challenges as well as developing a global framework to decolonise National Parks and Protected Areas.

Her current research is in the space of understanding different people's relationship to nature and how that can inform environmental management strategies and policies where people have historically been excluded. Rachael is currently a postdoctoral research fellow based at the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.

• Decolonial pedagogy, ontology and applications in research
• Environmental and social justice 
• Indigenous cultural and natural resource management
• Wildlife and landscape conservation
• GIS and cultural mapping
• Ethnobiology
• Cultural geographies

Bachelor of Science
Major: Biology
Minors: Evolution and ecology, biodiversity conservation and management

Honours (H1) (Environmental management)
Title: Loxodonta africana: responses to a warming climate 

Doctor of Philosophy (Interdisciplinary science & natural resource management)
Title: At a crossroads: African elephant conservation, climate change and community-based management