Associate Professor Melissa Hart has used her role as Graduate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science to lead and develop a national, cross-institutional graduate program which has reimagined the traditional Australian PhD. With a vital combination of breadth, depth, support and collaboration, the program has provided over 160 graduate students with the skills, knowledge, and experience fundamental to developing world leading climate science researchers.
Melissa’s main research focus is in the area of urban climate, in particular the impact of land-use, surface characteristics and anthropogenic activities on the climate of cities and quantification of the magnitude of the urban heat island (UHI). Other research interests include statistical climatology and air pollution meteorology.