Stephen Simpson

Steve Simpson is the Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre and a Professor in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney. He began his academic journey as a biologist at the University of Queensland and completed his PhD at the University of London. After spending 22 years at Oxford, Steve returned to Australia in 2005 as an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and later an ARC Laureate Fellow. He is renowned for developing the Geometric Framework, an integrative modeling approach for nutrition, which he initially tested using insects. This innovative framework has been successfully applied across a diverse range of organisms and challenges, from aquaculture and conservation biology to addressing dietary factors in human obesity and aging. Additionally, Steve's groundbreaking work on locust swarming has transformed the understanding of neurochemical processes in individual locusts and their implications for mass migrations on a continental scale. His contributions have been recognized with numerous accolades, including election as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2007, the Eureka Prize for Scientific Research in 2008, NSW Scientist of the Year in 2009, and a Fellowship of the Royal Society of London in 2013. In 2015, he was honored as a Companion of the Order of Australia. Steve is also a prominent media figure, having presented the four-part documentary series "Great Southern Land" for ABC TV.