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On the 2nd week of February 2026, I attended the ‘Introductory Workshop on DNA (eDNA) Metabarcoding’ in Darwin — a unique and much-needed training initiative designed to address a critical skills gap in northern Australia. The workshop brought together an inspiring mix of students, researchers, government staff, and academics to explore the application of environmental DNA (eDNA) which would be useful for monitoring species composition in commercial fisheries and assessment of reef fish diversity trend in Greater Darwin Region. I’m grateful to the Northern Australia Biosecurity Strategy, the Northern Territory Government, Charles Darwin University, Macquarie University, and the Commonwealth Government for supporting this initiative.
Benthic Habitat Mapping
Year 2025 ended with my attendance in a specialised Benthic Habitat Mapping course delivered by Neil Smit, funded through the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) Marine Parks Project. The training provided a comprehensive overview of habitat concepts, such as recognising habitat as the full physical, chemical, and biological environment in which a species lives. We explored practical tools and methodologies used in modern seabed mapping, including CATAMI classification standards, multibeam and single-beam sonar systems, side-scan sonar, sediment sampling techniques, and visual platforms such as ROVs and BRUVs. The course also covered video analysis workflows, species identification, seabed and habitat description, GIS-based spatial mapping, and the application of ReefCloud for image annotation and data management. With around 15 participants — predominantly NT Fisheries scientists and technical staff — the workshop offered valuable, hands-on skills directly applicable to marine monitoring, habitat assessment, and fisheries management across NT.
RTMB course
On 4th week of August 2025, our team from NT Fisheries participated in the RTMB course that was delivered by Andre Punt at DPIRD of WA Fisheries. RTMB is an R package that facilitate running model in TMB aka Template Model Builder. The course content include tutorials for a range of examples estimating model parameters using automatic differentiation starting from growth equations, surplus production models, age structured models to hierarchial models.
ASFB 2025
On the 3rd week of August 2025, I delivered an oral presentation demonstrating how length based indicators (LBIs) can be useful in determining the sustainability status of fish stocks in a data-limited or data-poor context. Along with authors from other jurisdictions, we also presented the idea of establishing a Australian Stock Assessment 'Community of Practice' (CoP) to build stock assessment capacity and resources in Australia. I was also chairing the scientific committee running the conference for Australian Society of Fish Biology (ASFB).
Chair, ASFB 2025
As Chair of the Scientific Committee of 2025 Australian Society for Fish Biology (ASFB) Conference in Darwin (18th-21st August), I was privileged to help shape a diverse and thought-provoking program — and it was incredibly rewarding to see such strong engaged community of fisheries scientists, managers, and students from across the country and receive overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants.
Highlights from the program included:
🎣 Sustainable wild stock fisheries management
🐢 Mitigation strategies for threatened, endangered, and protected species
🌊 Exploring Indigenous knowledge - dedicated session
🌏 Addressing key challenges in Northern Australian fisheries
🤝 Australian Stock Assessment Community of Practice
Training on spatial stock asssessment
In August 2024, I attended a 'Spatial Stock Assessment' workshop delivered by André Punt at the CSIRO Brisbane office. The course focused on when and how spatial structure should be incorporated into assessment models, particularly in relation to key life-history stages of fish populations. We examined scenarios where movement among subpopulations may occur predominantly during larval dispersal, feeding migrations, or spawning aggregations, and discussed how these processes influence stock structure and connectivity. A major component of the training involved designing model structures that explicitly capture spatial dynamics and movement pathways, and understanding how such models can improve the detection of localised depletion within a broader stock. With participants representing fisheries agencies from across Australian jurisdictions, the workshop included hands-on exercises to configure custom spatial stock models, providing practical skills directly applicable to contemporary fisheries assessment and management.
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