WAMSI Board
Dr Peter Rogers, WAMSI Chairman
Mr Peter Millington
Mr Keiran McNamara
Dr Ian Poiner BSc (Hons) PhD
Mr Stuart Smith
Dr Tom Hatton
Professor Alistar Robertson PhD
Mr Charles Thorn
Dr Steve Blake WAMSI CEO
Dr Peter Rogers DSc., B.Sc (Hons), MBA, FAICD
Independent Chairman 2007-2009
Board Member 2006-2007
Dr Peter Rogers joined WAMSI after a career in the WA Department of Fisheries, where he spent 15 years as Executive Director. In that position he was responsible for a dramatic transformation of the Department into an organisation which based its operations on creating ecologically sustainable developments.
Fisheries management was more strongly implemented across and between sectors, along with a cost recovery system to enable the Department to retrieve many of its expenses.
Dr Rogers is a former chairman (and now a member) of the WA Rock Lobster industry Advisory Committee which oversees the nation’s most valuable single species fishery, and which is regarded as one of the best managed in Australia.
He is a member of the WA Pearling Industry Advisory Committee and the Australian Fisheries Management Forum. He has a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Science (Agric) Honours from the University of WA and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He holds an Honorary Doctorate in Science from Murdoch University.
Mr Peter Millington B.Sc(Hons);M.Env.St.; FAICD
Peter Millington is the Chief Executive Officer of the Western Australian Government statutory authority, ChemCentre.
ChemCentre has core responsibilities to the community in areas of public and environmental health, forensic science and emergency response. As CEO, Peter is responsible for ensuring the provision of high quality scientific services and information to clients from both government and the private sector. A significant component of ChemCentre’s output is the delivery of collaborative and contract research services.
Before taking up the ChemCentre appointment in 2009, Peter was the acting Chief Executive Officer at the Department of Fisheries. In that role, and in his preceeding Director roles in that department from 1992, he was responsible for new directions in policy and operations including implementing a series of State Government reforms to take WA’s fisheries into the future. He introduced management arrangements for most of WA’s commercial fisheries, implemented a framework for recreational fishing and increased the focus on habitat protection in the estuarine and marine environments.
During his time at the Department of Fisheries Peter was involved in policy development, monitoring and management of Commonwealth fisheries, and foreign fisheries operating in the Australian Fishing Zone. He also convened two international conferences and chaired many national fisheries and marine environment committees.
Peter obtained a biological science degree at Flinders University and pursued his marine interests by undertaking an Honours degree in marine science at James Cook University. He obtained a Masters Degree in Environmental Studies at Adelaide University before obtaining an overseas study scholarship to undertake a Masters Degree in Marine Science at the University of British Columbia, specialising in fish population dynamics. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mr Keiran McNamara
Director General, Department of Environment and Conservation
WAMSI Board Member 2006-2007
Keiran McNamara is the Director General of the WA Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) which was established in July 2006. He was previously the CEO of the WA Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) from July 2001. The Department is responsible for environmental protection, the management of terrestrial and marine conservation reserves and for the conservation of biodiversity in Western Australia.
Mr McNamara has an Honours degree in Natural Resources from the University of New England. He was employed in the Commonwealth Government’s nature conservation agency from 1978 to mid 1985, and has since been with CALM and DEC.
Mr McNamara has served on a wide range of State, national and international committees and boards concerned with conservation, including the national Biological Diversity Advisory Committee and membership of the World Conservation Union’s Commission on Protected Areas and Species Survival Commission, and standing committees of CEOs serving national Ministerial Councils.
Dr Ian Poiner BSc(Hons) PhD
CEO, Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS)
WAMSI Board Member 2006-2007
Dr Poiner has significant experience in strategic development and planning of science both as a practicing scientist and at the organisational level. This is reflected in successful large-scale, multi-disciplinary research projects and the establishment of national and international research programs to support the sustainable use, conservation and management of marine ecosystems.
Dr Poiner's scientific background is research into tropical fisheries and ecological systems including Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Torres Strait and the Gulf of Carpentaria. He has also worked abroad in Canada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea and Southeast Asia. His key research interests lie in benthic ecology, traditional fisheries, seagrass ecology, environmental risk assessments of commercial fishing and mining, and environmental standards in industry certification.
Dr Poiner serves on a number national and international committees and boards. He is currently Vice Chair of the International Scientific Steering Committee of the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year international research program to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of marine organisms throughout the world's oceans and explain how it changes over time.
Stuart Smith
Chief Executive Officer Department of Fisheries (Western Australia)
WAMSI Board Member 2008-
Stuart Smith has a long career in State Government.
Before his appointment as Chief Executive officer at the Department of Fisheries in 2008 he spent six years as Deputy Director General and Acting Director General of the former WA Department of Industry and Resources (DoIR).
Stuart’s responsibilities at DoIR covered a diverse range of natural resource management and industry development issues during a period of unprecedented expansion in the resources sector.
As Deputy Director General for State Development Stuart was responsible for major project facilitation, investment attraction, trade promotion and economic expansion opportunities in WA.
He also led the regulatory functions of DoIR for several years as a Deputy Director General with responsibilities for promoting resource sector exploration, facilitating aboriginal economic development and regulating activity relating to mining tenements, petroleum acreage, royalties, native title, aboriginal heritage, mine health and safety, dangerous goods and environmental management.
Before joining DoIR in 2003, Stuart spent 14 years with the Australian Public Service in Canberra, Melbourne and Perth where he held regulatory and industry development roles at the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Department of Primary Industries and Energy and a secondment to the Office of a Federal Cabinet Minister.
Stuart holds a bachelor of economics degree from The University of Western Australia and post graduate qualifications in economics from studies at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne.
Dr Tom Hatton PSM BSc MSc PhD
Director, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship
WAMSI Board Member 2010-
Tom leads a national team of multidisciplinary researchers delivering science to help Australia access the full potential of economic, environmental and social wealth derived from understanding and using our oceans.
His research portfolio includes:
ocean-land-climate interaction, including ocean and climate modelling and forecasting; subsea oil and gas exploration and recovery; sustainable fisheries; integrated management of competing uses of marine and coastal environments; development of novel marine industries; and marine biodiversity and conservation.
Tom has over 25 years of research experience, nationally and internationally, in a broad range of land and water related disciplines including forest productivity, ecology,bushfire science, ecohydrology, water allocation, salinity and catchment hydrology. He has significant expertise in building and managing teams with diverse skills to solvere source management issues.
Tom chairs the Australian Government's State of Environment Committee and the National Centre for Groundwater Research & Training Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Northern Australia Indigenous Land & Sea Alliance's Indigenous Water Policy Group, Western Australia's Water Forever Panel, and CSIRO's Indigenous Engagement Strategy
Steering Committee. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Range Science) and a Master of Science (Natural Resources) from Humboldt State University, United States, and a Doctorate in Range Science from Utah State University, United States.
Professor Alistar Robertson PhD
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) The University of Western Australia
WAMSI Board member 2007 - 2009 and 2011 -
Alistar was born in western Victoria and grew up on a mixed sheep and grain farm.
He completed his BSc and PhD at the University of Melbourne. His research discipline is the ecology of natural and agricultural systems with a particular emphasis on food chains and biogeochemistry.
He has held research positions with Dalhousie University in Canada, the CSIRO, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and Charles Sturt University. He was the Dean, of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at UWA between 2003 and early 2008. His current role focusses on strategic environmental research initiatives with government agencies and industry.
He has served on national and international committees responsible for resource management, training and research. These include the Torres Strait Baseline Study Management Advisory Committee, the Water Quality Technical Advisory Panel for the Great Barrier Reef, the Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Committee, the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s Environmental Engineering/Science Task Force, the Australian Research Council’s Biological Sciences Discipline Panel and Expert Advisory Committee on Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, and as a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Centres of Research Excellence Fund. He is currently a Director on the Board of the Bushfire CRC and a member of the Boards of the Western Australian Marine Science Institution, the International Water Centre and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research.
Mr Charles Thorn
Director, Australian Sustainable Development Institute, Curtin University of Technology
WAMSI Board member 2007 - 2009 and 2011 -
Mr Charles Thorn is the Director, Australian Sustainable Development Institute at Curtin University of Technology. Mr Thorn has 25 years experience in the Public and Higher education sectors where he has held positions of Associate Director Research and Development at Curtin University of Technology, Director, Office of Research and Innovation at Edith Cowan University (ECU) and Executive Director, Animal Industries in the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food.
He has been a board member of the Pastoral Lands Board, Agriculture Protection Board, Tropical Savannah CRC and Centre of Excellence for the Management of Arid Environments. He has also represented the Deputy Vice Chancellor at ECU on the Alzheimer’s Disease Research and Care Centre of Excellence.
Mr Thorn brings to the Board experience in research management, commercialisation of technology, knowledge transfer and grant and contract management in the higher education sector.
Dr Steve Blake
WAMSI Chief Executive Officer 2006 –
Professorial Fellow, The University of Western Australia, Foundation Member of the Spatial Sciences Institute
Steve undertook PhD (James Cook University) and postdoctoral research (Australian National University) on the Great Barrier Reef between 1988 and 1995 studying anthropogenic inputs and their ecological impacts on the inner shelf fringing reefs of the Central reef. From there he joined the Federal Environment Department as the Marine and Coasts Scientific Coordinator and then Team Leader for four years.
Steve has led paleo-climate research expeditions to the Pitcairn Islands and northern Indian Ocean regions. Other roles in the Federal Government involved map-based data and information management and on-line data delivery mechanisms (AUSLIG and BRS), followed by a five years with ANZLIC – the Spatial Information Council for Australia and New Zealand as the National Project Manager, and then as Executive Director.
Steve took up the position as WAMSI’s first Chief Executive Officer in May 2006.