Anjali Gopakumar is a postdoctoral research associate at Macquarie University where she is investigating the impacts and management of the invasive ascidian, Didemnum vexillum in Australian waters. Her PhD was focused on assessing the restoration response of lesser-known ecosystem function and service indicators such as microbial communities and biogeochemical fluxes in coastal saltmarshes in the Venice lagoon, Italy and in the estuaries of New South Wales, Australia.

Prior to her PhD, Anjali completed her Erasmus Mundus Joint Master degree in Marine Biology (IMBRSea) at Ghent University (Belgium), with a fully funded EMJMD scholarship. She also worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Oslo (Norway) for two months, continuing her Master Thesis studies on mercury accumulation in fish from the Northern Barents Sea in the Arctic. Anjali’s diverse research interests include marine taxonomic and functional biodiversity, trophic interactions in marine food webs, marine invasive ecology, biogeochemistry and marine conservation and restoration.