Libby Evans-Illidge has enjoyed a 30 year diverse marine science career which has blended the doing of research with policy development, science uptake and commercialisation, stakeholder engagement and collaboration, and research management.
Since joining AIMS in 1994, her role has included leadership of sponge biology and aquaculture research, biodiscovery research, management of Australia’s largest and most comprehensive marine bioresources library, and most recently, the Research Director role with AIMS@JCU, where she leads the joint venture to facilitate collaboration between AIMS and JCU through post-graduate research training. She has negotiated and managed contracts to facilitate access to bioresources, and benefit sharing agreements with resource management jurisdictions in Australia. She has participated in numerous policy development forums on the utilisation of marine genetic resources and access and benefit sharing, both nationally and internationally, including with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the development of new domestic policy and legislation in Australia. Her early career focused on reef sponge biology and chemical ecology, and she co-founded a small partnership in marine research in Torres Strait, in a range of fields including fisheries, seagrass and other benthic research, as well as the Torres Strait Baseline Study which assessed potential contamination of the marine environment and seafood species with heavy metals from mining activities in Papua New Guinea.