David S Ellsworth

Professor David Ellsworth is Professor of Plant Eco-physiology at Western Sydney University. He was educated at Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin, and has held faculty positions at Duke University, the University of Michigan, and Western Sydney University. He leads a cutting-edge team of scientists who seek to understand how plants perform key biotic functions in relation to the environment they live in. He has made distinguished contributions in the areas of tree physiological ecology and effects of rising atmospheric CO2 on plant photosynthesis for over 20 years, and he is the scientific lead for the Eucalyptus free-air CO2 Enrichment experiment ('EucFACE'). Ellsworth has published extensively in the scientific literature about the effects of climate change and high CO2 on forest trees. He has interests in plant responses to climate change including how plants respond to urban stresses such as heat and drought. He has worked on tree photosynthesis for native and planted trees on five continents, though he prefers working on our native Australian flora. David ranks among the most highly-cited scientists in the world in the area of Ecology and the Environment.