Position

PhD candidate at Macquarie University (MQ), researching the impacts of aerially deployed fire retardant and coal waste pollutants on freshwater ecosystems, focusing on frogs, fishes and invertebrates. His work investigates sublethal effects of chemicals on organisms in the laboratory and the ecosystem-level effects in the field. The project is guided by world-renowned biologists across multiple institutions: Professor Culum Brown (MQ), Professor Grant Hose (MQ), Professor Bob Wong (Monash University) and Associate Professor Owen Price (University of Wollongong). 

Achievements

A high achieving student, Shannon has been published four times prior to graduating from his Masters degree, twice as a lead author. His Master of Research degree investigated the impacts of fire on cane toads. His work is the first to discover that fire can remove internal parasites of any animal species. Also, he discovered that cane toads respond differently to fire based on sex and body size. Research findings have been published in high impact journals Biology Letters, Scientific Reports, and The Quarterly Review of Biology. View his Google Scholar profile and publications here.

An effective science communicator, he has won awards for much of his media: with an award-winning thesis talk at the Australasian Evolutionary Society conference (2022), and an award-winning poster against his Master of Research cohort of over 30 students, at Macquarie University (2021). Further, his work has been in the news on several occassions, in ABC News and 7 News, both online and on television. 

Teaching

Shannon is an experienced tutor, having taught uninterrupted at universities since his second year in a Bachelors degree.

Subjects he has taught/is teaching at Macquarie:

• Biol1310 - Organisms to Ecosystems [2022]
• Biol1320 - Biological Basis of Behaviour [2020, 2021, 2022]
• Biol2410 - Ecology [2022, 2023]
• Biol3510 - Vertebrate Evolution [2022, 2023]
• Chem1001 - Foundations of Chemical Sciences (PAL) [2020]

Academic history

Shannon came first in second year Biology at the University of Wollongong (UOW), and was a finalist in the Robert Hope Memorial Prize, UOW's most prestigious student degree. Prior, he achieved the maximum score for his High School Certificate (99.95 ATAR), which he completed at TAFE NSW as a mature aged student.