Farzin Shabani
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Assistant Professor in Qatar University
He holds the position of Asst/Prof in environmental science, environmental modeling, and climate change impacts. His role encompasses a significant teaching load, catering to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. He teaches a range of courses, including Basic Ecology (BIOL 221), Earth System (BIOL 501), GIS and Databases (BIOL 502), Earth System Modeling (BIOL 617), and Geospatial Methods (BIOL 613). Additionally, he is presently serving as a Research Fellow specializing in environmental modeling and climate change within the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University, and he holds an adjunct Research Fellow position at Flinders University.
He graduated with a PhD in environmental science, environmental modeling, and climate change from the University of New England in Australia.
He currently serves as an academic editor for several journals, including the Journal of Biogeography, Scientific Reports – Nature, Ecology and Evolution, PeerJ.
Prior to his move to Qatar, he held 4 research postdoctoral fellowship positions at four Australian universities: the University of New England, Macquarie University, and RMIT University, and Flinders University. He worked for the Biosecurity Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Queensland Government, and for the Department of Regional NSW – Primary Industries.
In February 2018, he joined Global Ecology Lab as an Associate Investigator in palaeo-ecological vegetation modeling for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), a $46M project. Here, his work involved the application of cutting-edge global dynamic vegetation models, including the LPJ-GUESS model, alongside various bioclimatic envelope models.
In the Which Plant Where project ($12M), he ran bioclimatic envelope models for ~ 2500 plant species and then developed online tools allowing people to find out where popular plants are likely/unlikely to thrive in Australia under current and future climates. Which Plant Where, When And Why Database For Growing Urban Greenspace is funded by the Hort Frontiers Green Cities Fund, part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative developed by Hort Innovation, with co-investment from Macquarie University, Western Sydney University and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and contributions from the Australian Government.
He also was involved in another project entitled “WEED FUTURES, determining current and future weed threats in Australia.”
From February 2016 to February 2018, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of New England (UNE) within the School of Environmental and Rural Science. During his tenure at UNE, he taught courses in GIS, Remote Sensing, and Image Analysis to both undergraduate and postgraduate students (EM334/534 & EM432/EM532). Additionally, he co-supervised several Doctor of Philosophy students, two of whom he began supervising on December 2nd, 2015. At UNE, he also served as one of the GIS specialists for the Commonwealth Department of Environment Pacific Climate Change Project, a national project conducted at UNE on behalf of the Australian government during 2013 and 2014.
He is particularly interested in the area of
– Vegetation modeling
– Climate change impacts on biodiversity and plant species
– Risk assessments
– GIS and spatial analysis
– Biodiversity
– Big data analysis
– Soil erosion
He has also been involved in the scholarly community as a grant reviewer for The Marsden Fund Council in 2019.
His academic achievements include being awarded the prestigious Chancellor’s Doctoral Research Medal for excellence in the University of New England Doctor of Philosophy program, as well as the University of New England International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and the Keith and Dorothy Mackay Travelling Scholarship.
He can be reached via email at fshabani@qu.edu.qa, farzin.shabani@mq.edu.au, AND farzin.shabani@flinders.edu.au.