Rod is Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, and formerly Chair and Head of Department of Forest and Ecosystem Sciences, at the University of Melbourne. From 2009-14 he was Director of the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, a research partnership between Victorian universities. Rod has a B. Sc. (Forestry) from the ANU and a PhD in forest ecology from University of British Columbia and has research interests in many aspects of forest and environmental management and policy. He has undertaken research across Australia and in Canada, Japan, Papua New Guinea and South East Asia. He was a member and past-Chair of the UN-FAO Advisory Group for the Global Forest Resource Assessment.