Jane Melville

Jane is the Senior Curator, Terrestrial Vertebrates at Museums Victoria. She received her PhD in Zoology at the University of Tasmania in December 1998 on the evolution of ecology, morphology and behaviour in Tasmanian snow skinks. In 2002 she joined Museums Victoria as Curator of Herpetology and in 2008 became the Senior Curator of Terrestrial Vertebrates. She currently holds a joint position at the School of Biological Sciences, Monash University. Her contributions to herpetology and the museums sector have been recognised with appointment as a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia in 2021.

Dr Melville’s research combines field-based studies on reptiles and amphibians across conservation, genetics, ecology, taxonomy and evolution. Current projects include investigating the impacts of habitat disturbance, particularly the recent Victorian bushfires, on frog populations in the Kinglake region and the evolution of eastern Australian reptiles past, present and future using fossil and current species. She is also running genetics projects aimed at the conservation of endangered reptiles and frogs, such as grassland earless dragons and growling grass frogs. She is also an expert on dragon lizards and has described and revised more than thirty species