Contact Us
The Australian Plant Phenomics Facility (APPF) is strategically located at two renowned plant research organisations in Australia, enabling us to benefit from a world class concentration of expertise in plant and soil science. You will find our facilities at the University of Adelaide in South Australia, and the Australian National University in Canberra.
APPF Central Office
Richard brings a wealth of corporate and ag science experience to the APPF helm – and when not charting our strategic direction he balances his other ag leadership roles with sailing, hiking and the occasional marathon.
Fit, fast and fun, Helli keeps a close eye on business planning, performance monitoring and general operations. If she is not playing beach handball you are likely to find her at Pilates.
With a background in agricultural science and business operations, Ali provides senior project and admin support to the APPF. Her spare time is dedicated to hiking, camping, yoga and travel writing.
With a background in translation, Kirsten likes things neat and tidy and she keeps the office at APPF running smoothly. When her energetic kids allow, she spends her time sewing, singing in a choir, or reading on the sofa.
Belinda is a science communicator and educator, facilitator and MC with experience in a host of technical, corporate and not-for-profit organisations.
APPF Central location
University of Adelaide, Waite Campus
School of Agriculture, Food & Wine
Building WT81
Hartley Grove, Urrbrae
SA 5064 Australia
Phone: + 61 8 8313 0793
Email: appf@plantphenomics.org.au
Central Data Team
Passionate about data and how it helps us build a better world, Donald wants to contribute to the sustainable agriculture of the future – while making room for the insects that occupy his free time.
Rakesh works on the design and implementation of APPF’s data architecture to support data reuse and integration of complex agriculture datasets. While not being a master-of-the-data, he enjoys gravel cycling or hiking with his dog.
Lili is passionate about development and maintenance of controlled vocabularies to facilitate data sharing and interoperability in the agricultural domain. Beyond managing metadata, you can find her at the botanic gardens, running in the park or at the gym.
Joseph has experience with many types of data and is particularly interested in spatial information. Outside traditional work, he is a semi-professional card player.
Alisha is a passionate software engineer who likes learning about and developing complex software solutions. When she’s not coding up a storm, catch her road-tripping to new places or chilling with a good movie.
Hoang is passionate about anything technology related. In his free time, he enjoys playing video games, going on road trips, and fishing.
With a strong interest in data and digital creativity, Bailey is adept at leveraging data and structured thinking to solve complex problems.
Adelaide
The Plant Accelerator® at the University of Adelaide
A central component of The Plant Accelerator® (TPA) is the first automated high-throughput phenotyping system in Australia, which remains unique in both scale and open-access policy, attracting researchers from Australia and overseas. The system boasts a range of imaging technologies (RGB, infrared, fluorescence and hyperspectral imaging) to facilitate innovative high-quality research into plant performance in different environments. Watch more here.
Researchers from the public and private sector benefit from the expertise in design, management, operation and analysis of large scale phenotyping experiments offered by TPA, which has resulted in many high-impact publications. The facility’s phenotyping capacity has expanded in recent years to incorporate DroughtSpotter platforms to support precision heat and drought screenings and field phenotyping services, offered in partnership with the Unmanned Research Aircraft Facility (URAF) at the University of Adelaide. Plans to offer aerial phenotyping via Airborne Research Australia (ARA) and ground-based phenotyping are being developed with input from potential users to align with grant applications.
TPA is located at the University of Adelaide’s renowned Waite Research Precinct, the largest agricultural research, education and commercialisation precinct in the Southern Hemisphere. Established in 1924, ‘The Waite’ is a co-located partnership of 15 complementary organisations and centres engaged in world-class research and development in plant science, agriculture, food, wine and natural resources.
The Plant Accelerator®
Building WT40
University of Adelaide
Waite Campus
Hartley Grove, Urrbrae
SA 5064 Australia
Phone: +61 8 8313 6432
Email: info@plantaccelerator.org.au
Our Adelaide team
A farmer’s daughter and one-time agronomist, making a difference for farmers is a matter close to Kerry’s heart. She keeps us running in ship-shape order, taking care of operations, finance and reporting.
An experienced agronomist, Reddy combines cropping knowledge with amazing abilities in remote sensing, precision ag, AI algorithms and mathematical and spatial modelling.
Lifelong gamer, keen volleyballer and recent dad, George takes care of our IT and data across hardware, software, storage and data analysis. The digital side of our cutting-edge infrastructure is critical, and George keeps it running smoothly.
You’ll need some serious imaging equipment to capture this tennis ace. Guntur keeps a watchful eye on our phenotyping systems and analyses the images collected.
With a head for numbers and an encyclopedic memory for facts, Nathaniel will help you obtain the data and graphs you need to interpret your research results.
Liam is an experienced facilities manager who keeps our equipment up-to-date and our controlled environments running on spec – because a smooth-running facility frees him up for family time and camping.
Mia analyses the 3D structures of plant materials using the X-ray CT scanner, to extract the morphological traits from a spatial view without damaging the samples. While not looking at plants from inside out, she pops on her scuba diving gear and enjoys the world under the sea from upside down!
M +61 432 297 838
Sweet as a rose, there is nothing plant whisperer Lidia can’t grow. She keeps a watchful eye over the plants in our greenhouses and provides support and wisdom to the humans growing them.
Our princess of bling, Fiona brings her own form of sunshine to the greenhouses as she checks on plants and provides a helping hand to the experiments.
Canberra (ANU)
The Plant Phenomics Group at ANU
Our node at the Australian National University (ANU), the Plant Phenomics Group, has unique expertise in phenomics, bioinformatics, hardware and software development and data visualisation. This provides essential research support to APPF customers, linking phenomics data to underlying genomic variation. The node offers modern PC2 facilities and provides the only quarantine certified plant growth facilities in the ACT region. With a strong history of supporting ground-breaking plant research, including the development of open source, high throughput phenomics infrastructure and visualisation tools, the node creates open data sets for plant science researchers nationally and internationally.
Strategically placed in the Plant Science Division at the ANU, the node benefits directly from the diverse expertise locally available as well as supporting research and technology development at the Research School of Biology. This includes two Centres of Excellence (CoE): the ARC CoE in Plant Energy Biology (PEB) and the ARC CoE for Translational Photosynthesis (TP). Additional collaborations are in place with the ANU-CSIRO Centre for Biodiversity Analysis, the CoE for Robotic Vision and the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), which offers high-performance supercomputing, cloud and data repository.
Plant Phenomics Group
Australian National University
Bldg 134, RSBS, Acton
ACT 0200 Australia
Phone: + 61 2 6125 3741
Email: appf@anu.edu.au
Our Canberra (ANU) team
Dani is a world leader on the impact of rising temperatures and CO2 concentrations on plants, with a focus on photosynthesis, respiration, water fluxes and growth.
Someone who can certainly ‘see the forest for the trees’ is Tim. His love of forests and the cutting edge technology that allows us to ‘virtually’ see them from the sky down to the molecule, knows no bounds. When not attached to a VR headset, Tim focuses on our technological development and research collaborations.
Jesusa looks after the financial management and administration of our facility. She enjoys 4WD adventures and exploring the outdoors from the coast to the countryside and mountains.
Passionate about travel and rock climbing, Saswat develops advanced 3D and hyperspectral systems using AI and computer vision.
Ming supports our team providing technical support, 3D modelling and scanning, VR, AR and general statistical support using R.
Penny manages our growth cabinet facility, supporting users with advice, planning and compliance. When she isn’t nurturing plants in our facility you’ll find her enjoying the great outdoors.
Delving into the underground, Manny is a visiting plant scientist who studies roots and their peculiar habits. Away from the lab he keeps out of trouble by running and pointing a telescope at the cosmos.