Simon is currently Professor (E2) of Palaeoeoclogy and Natural History in the School of Culture, History and Language (CHL), College of Asia and the Pacific. He is currently leading the Canberra Pollen Monitoring Program at ANU and is a CI on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF).

He completed his PhD at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU, on the Late Quaternary Environmental History of the Tari Basin, Papua New Guinea, in 1994. In the same year he was awarded a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama, followed by a Leverhulme Fellowship at the School of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK, where he continued to pursue his interest in the role of past climate change and human activity on tropical and temperate ecosystems through work in the Amazon Basin and southern South America.

After returning to Australia in 1998 he was awarded an ARC QEII Fellowship and a Logan Fellowship at Monash University, Melbourne, where he researched the long-term history and impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon in Australia and the Pacific.

In 2004 he returned to the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (renamed to the School of Culture, History and Language in 2009) at the Australian National University to continue his work on the application of high-resolution palaeoecological analysis to our understanding of the impact of climate variability and human activity on terrestrial ecosystems of the Pacific and Indian Oceans during the Holocene. He has also developed e-Research tools in palaeoecology such as the Australasian Pollen and Spore Atlas. He is using his knowledge of Australian pollen to explore the impact of atmospheric pollen and spores on respiratory health.

Career highlights

He was Deputy Director (Research) of CHL from 2014-2015. He then became the Director of CHL from 2016-2024. He served 5 years on the International Advisory Board for the Graduate School of Human Development in Landscapes, University of Kiel (Germany, 2015-2019). He is Chair of the College of Asia and the Pacific Repatriation Committee (2010-) and elected Chair of the College Forum (CAP 2007-2008) and a member of the ANU Academic Board (2020-2022). He has also served as Director of the Centre for Archaeological Research (2006-2009); President of the Australasian Quaternary Association (2000-2004).

He was a Chief Invesitigator and ANU-hub co-leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH, 2017-2024) and is now a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF, 2024-2032).

Teaching

Teaching

Palaeoecology, Palynology; Palaeoclimatology; Fire History, Indian Ocean, Melanesia, Australia and Pacific Islands, Indigenous Data Sovereignty; see Google Scholar website for full details on research and publication downloads.