Francesca McInerney
Senior Research Fellow
College of Science and Engineering
Cesca McInerney uses the geochemical signatures of plants and animals to decipher ecological interactions both in the geologic past and today. Her work has focused on terrestrial ecosystems during the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (56 million years ago), the Neogene expansion of grassland ecosystems (15-3 million years ago), tropical climate changes during the Quaternary (200,000 years to present), and modern processes in plants, animals and soils. Her applied research focuses on isotopic signatures of agricultural practices and geographic origins of food and fibre to combat illegal trade, enforce environmental laws and promote sustainable practices.
Cesca received her Bachelors from Yale University and her Masters and PhD from the University of Chicago and conducted postdoctoral research at the Smithsonian and Pennsylvania State University. She was an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University in Chicago for six years before relocating to Australia for an ARC Future Fellowship at the University of Adelaide after which Cesca was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Palaeontology at Flinders and a Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO Agriculture and Food.
Cesca is the Lead CI on ARC Discovery (DP210100508) project - Fire and rain: Drivers of deep-time ecosystem assembly in Australia.
This project aims to investigate the influence of bushfires and shifting rainfall patterns on the development of Australia’s dominant ecosystems. By combining a range of novel geochemical, isotopic and palaeontological techniques, this research seeks to reveal the causes and consequences of Australia’s transformation from a forested to mainly open landscape of grassland, shrubland and savannah. The expected outcome is detailed knowledge of how changes in fire and rain shaped the ecology and evolution of plants and animals. This knowledge is key to understanding how Australian ecosystems function and to protecting their cultural, economic and environmental values, especially as climate and fire regimes continue to change into the future.
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South Australia 5042
South Australia | Northern Territory
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