My research interests are in two areas: conservation ecology and evolutionary ecology. In the last 25 years I have worked most on macropods and dasyurids, and these are the main study animals that students in my group work on in Australia. My research interests include causes and detectability of extinction and decline, conservation ecology of threatened and declining marsupials, bats, and tropical mammals, mating systems and life history evolution, especially associations between life histories and seasonality, climate, and sexual selection. My interest in dasyurids started at the University of Sydney where I was an honours student of Chris Dickman. I did a PhD on ecology of bridled nailtail wallabies at the University of Queensland with Craig Moritz and Anne Goldizen. My research fellowships and programmes since then have investigated ecology, extinction and evolutionary ecology of mammals: a Royal Society fellowship at the University of Aberdeen with Xavier Lambin, an ARC APD fellowship at ANU with Andrew Cockburn, and an ARF fellowship, and a Future Fellowship, UQ Fellowship, and Vice Chancellor's Senior Fellowship at the University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences. I have worked in state environment agencies and the Australian Museum at times before joining UQ in 2007.

I am a conservation biologist, involved in research, management and policy. I have authored and edited eleven books, and more than 300 scientific papers and book chapters. Much of this work has been on the ecology, biogeography and conservation management of mammals and birds, but also includes a very broad range of other subjects including invertebrates, reptiles, plants, reserve design, fragmentation, forestry, biodiversity monitoring, and island biogeography. My work was recognised with the Eureka Prize for biodiversity research (2001), the Serventy Medal for life-time contribution to Australian ornithology (2001), the Northern Territory Tropical Knowledge Research and Innovation Award (2008), the Northern Territory Chief Minister’s Award for Research and Innovation (2008), the Australian Natural History Medallion (2011), and the Society for Conservation Biology Distinguished Service Award (2013).