Dr. Kristine Crous
– Associate Professor – Plant ecophysiolgy and global change
Kristine has been at Western Sydney University since 2016 as an ARC DECRA (Discovery Early Career Research Award) Fellow.
She moved to a permanent position in 2021. Since 2024, she is affiliated to both the School of Science and the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University
Kristine did her PhD at the University of Michigan where she studied the effects of elevated COâ‚‚ and nutrient addition on photosynthesis at the Duke and BIOCON FACE (Free-Air CO enrichment) experiments.
This was followed by a first postdoc at the Australian National University investigating the effects of nutrients and drought on leaf respiration with Prof. Owen Atkin. She did a second postdoc at Western Sydney University to investigate how photosynthesis is affected by phosphorus before receiving her DECRA award on how rainforests will cope with warming.
Kristine is is an expert on temperature responses of plant metabolic processes including photosynthesis and respiration. She is interested in how these processes adapt to future climate change and how this differs across different biomes.
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She has worked in canopies of both temperate and tropical systems to evaluate physiological responses of both rainforests and Eucalyptus trees to warming and extreme heat. Her experience with leaf temperatures, including the unique leaf heating system she developed during her DECRA will provide opportunities to evaluate the link between functional loss and leaf damage during heatwaves, both at the leaf and canopy scale.
She values collaborations with other scientists. Her work often leads to large collaborations evaluation ecosystem processes such as carbon storage and forest productivity at larger scales, including predicting these processes for a future climate.
