Associate ProfessorThomas Newsome

Courses

 

• Ecological Principles - ENVI5705
• Wildlife Management - WILD4001
• Terrestrial Field Ecology - BIOL3009

 

Current Postdoctoral Research Fellows

 

• Patrick Finnerty (2024-Current)

 

Current Students (Primary Supervisor)

 

• Patrick Bragato (PhD: University of Sydney): Investigating eastern quoll reintroductions – improving success beyond the fence.
• Eliane McCarthy (PhD: University of Sydney): Using movement and genetic studies to understand how invasive deer in Kosciuszko National Park respond to management actions
• Evan Curtis (PhD: University of Sydney): Optimising mangement strategies for four large macropods in New South Wales.
• Rhys Cairncross (PhD: University of Sydney): Carrion and scavenging as an ecological indicator.
• Mareshell Wauchope (PhD: University of Sydney): Opportunities for urban rewilding in Northern Sydney.
• Valentina-Miriam Cittati (PhD: University of Sydney): Urban rewilding: supporting biodiversity restoration and conservation through social research.
• Zali Jestrimski (PhD: University of Sydney): Do dingoes influence riparian vegetation dynamics in the semi-arid rangelands of Western Australia?

 

Current Students (Co-Supervisor)

 

• Niraj Meisuria (PhD; University of Sydney): Defining the wild-domestic animal interface and microbial spillover risk.
• Lauren Satterfield (PhD; University of Washington): Effects of wolf recolonization on mountain lion resource selection in Washington State, USA.
• Bonita Mendel (PhD: University of Sydney): Translocation planning to conserve population genetic health.

 

Past PhD Students (Primary and Co-Supervisor)

 

• Angela Rana (PhD 2024: University of Sydney): Resilience in the face of natural disturbances: conservation management and wildlife responses
• Stefanie Bonat (PhD 2023; University of Sydney): The effects of animal mass mortality events on an Australian scavenging food webs.
• Emma Spencer (PhD 2022; University of Sydney): The web of death: scavenger communities and interactions on carrion in Australian landscapes.
• Lily Van Eeden (PhD 2019; University of Sydney): Learning to live with dingoes: improving wildlife management by understanding social constraints on coexistence with carnivores.
• James Vandersteen (MSc 2022; University of Sydney): Scavenging dynamics of the Australian Alps.
• Chris Fust (MSc 2022; University of Sydney): Scavenging ecology in the Australian Alps: the bottom-side to the circle of life.

 

Past Honours and Masters Students (Primary and Co-Supervisor)

 

• Zoe Wells (Honours 2025: University of Sydney):  Habitat and body size, but not fire, affect Varanus varius scavenging and aggressive interactions at carrion.
• Anastasia McGill (Honours 2025: University of Sydney): Secret lives of lesser-known scavengers.
• Hannah Christensen (Honours 2025: University of Sydney): Who's top dog? Individual identification and network analysis reveal female dominance in apex predator sociality around a shared food resource. 
• Jack Downey (Honours 2025: University of Sydney): Vertebrate scavenger use of feral horse carcasses following a mass culling event. 
• Ashlyn Robb (Honours 2025: University of Sydney): From City to Scrub: The effect of urbanisation on scavenger ecology and carrion removal 
• Cait Callow (Honours 2025: University of Sydney): Life and death in the Australian alps – exploring scavenging patterns across elevation, season, and snow depth
• Katie Barton (Honours 2025: University of Sydney): 'Who goes there?' Quantifying scavenger-carcass contacts at mass mortality events.
• Nicholas Kennedy (Honours 2024: University of Sydney): Understanding species assemblages in northern Sydney to inform future rewilding efforts.
• Daniel Antoniak (Honours 2024: University of Sydney): Using modelling to predict the optimal management actions for urban reintroductions.
• Sam Johnson (Honours 2024: University of Sydney): Bolstering what’s left: how landscape factors influence Northern Sydney’s urban bushland mammal assemblages.
• Martin Boer-Cueva (Honours 2023: University of Sydney): Life in the big smoke: terrestrial vertebrate assemblages and their drivers in Sydney, Australia.
• Niraj Meisuria (Honours 2023: University of Sydney): Scavenging and social interaction of an apex avian scavenger is governed by bioregional and seasonal variation [University Medal].
• Kate Townsend (Honours 2023: University of Sydney): Lower abundance of carrion associated flies (Diptera) at mass mortality events than at single carcasses.
• Rhys Cairncross (Honours 2021: University of Sydney): Cut carrion: scavenging dynamics around experimentally split open carcasses in the Australian Alps.
• Cleo Tischler (Honours 2022: University of Sydney): Around the table: the feeding behaviours of two native apex scavengers and an invasive mesoscavenger around carrion.
• Emily Fang-ling Hsu (Honours 2021: University of Sydney): Foraging behaviours of herbivores around carcasses reflect their habitat preferences and feeding niche
• Rebecca Stone (Honours 2021: Federation University): Responses of necrophilous beetles to animal mass mortality in the Australian Alps.
• Molly Kane (Honours 2019: University of Sydney): Feral pigs in Kosciuszko National Park: participation of an introduced scavenger in a subalpine ecosystem.
• Patrick Bragato (Honours 2019: University of Sydney): Corvids consuming carrion: the scavenging dynamics and behaviour of corvids around carcasses in the Simpson Desert, Australia.
• Zyna Krige (Honours 2019: University of Sydney): Deluge and drought: scavenger dynamics in a hyper-variable arid environment.
• Aiden Wright (Honours 2019: University of Sydney): Population genetics of Australian bush rats following their reintroduction into North Head, Manly.
• Sarah Campbell (MRes 2018: Macquarie University): Antibiotic resistance, gene diversity and expression in wild foxes across urban, peri-urban and rural landscapes.
• Will Ashley (MRes 2018: Macquarie University): Dispersal pathways, connectivity and gene flow between red fox populations across the Greater Sydney region.
• Dara Albrecht (Summer Intern from Yale University 2019): Assisted with field and lab studies and science communication of ProjectOzScav.
• Margarita Gil-Fernandez (MRes 2018: Macquarie University). Visitation rates of red fox and other species to M44 ejectors in peri-urban and urban areas of Sydney.
• Gavin Trewella (Honours 2016: Deakin University): Do dingoes (Canis dingo) facilitate behaviourally-mediated trophic cascades in mallee ecosystems?
• Evie Jones (Honours 2016: Deakin University): Factors influencing feral cat density and distribution in a mallee ecosystem.