Meet the Office

Jo Roberts, Managing Director 

Jo Roberts is our current Managing Director after having worked with us for over 2 years as Education Officer and as a Board Director. She has been working for not-for-profit organizations for the last 6 years and has a BSc (Hons) in Economics and French, and a Masters Degree from Murdoch University in Development Studies. Previously she worked in London researching and running financial literacy and entreprise projects for young people. Jo will be running Reef Check Australia focusing on strategic planning, funding and business development, and overall management.

Jennifer Loder, SEQ Co-ordinator

Jenn is our South-East Queensland Coordinator, based in Brisbane. Whilst managing the regional survey monitoring, she also works on partnership development, implementation of strategic marketing plans, data reporting and development of educational programs as well as supporting the expansion of programs in this area.

Jenn holds a GDipSci in Marine Biology from James Cook University and a MSc in Environmental Science from Florida International University. Her Master's research analysed the effectiveness of different communications techniques to increase public awareness about local marine conservation issues in South Florida and prompt participation in simple, concrete actions to limit personal impacts. Inspired by her first Indo-Pacific experience in Palau, Jenn moved to Australia to expand her marine biology knowledge and to pursue a career that blends science and education to protect coral reefs.

Paul Markey, Project Officer

Paul Markey has recently taken on the role of project officer for the 2010 survey season. Paul graduated from Colorado State University with a BSc in wildlife biology. When free from study he logged hours diving in the Denver aquarium whilst cleaning, feeding, and performing dive shows.  In 2007 Paul was involved in coral monitoring projects in the Seychelles collecting coral and invert data for the local MPA. Paul’s last position in the dive industry was working as a DM on Ningaloo reef and volunteering his spare time to help out with manta research. Paul is excited about the developing survey season and the opportunity to collaborate with RCA’s elite volunteers and work as part of the Reef Check Australia team.

Agnes Rouchon, Townsville Office Volunteer

Agnes holds a BSc in Marine Biology from Laval University, Canada and is currently doing a Master in Conservation Biology at James Cook University. Meanwhile she is volunteering some of her time to help us with office jobs such as survey reports and website management.

Corinna Byrne, SEQ Project Officer

Corinna joined Reef Check Australia as a volunteer in September last year, and has recently taken on the part-time position of project officer for the 2010 SEQ survey season. Corinna holds a BEnvSc with honours in Marine Botany from the University of Queensland, and currently works as an environmental planner within local government. Corinna is looking forward to the upcoming survey season and working with the Reef Check Australia team to help monitor and protect SEQ's coral reef communities.

Alex Lea, SEQ Project Officer

Alex graduated from the University of St Andrews, Scotland with a BSc Hons in Marine Biology, where her thesis was a literature review of coral reefs and the impact of climate change. She then moved to Australia to complete a Masters in Environmental Management at the University of Queensland. Alex has also been involved in several marine conservation projects in Fiji and is an active member of the University of Queensland Dive Club.

Jodi Salmond, SEQ Project Officer

Jodi Salmond is a marine biologist, completing her degree, with honours in Marine Parasitology, at James Cook University in Townsville. She started diving and helping with reef surveys on the Great Barrier Reef, before following her passion to a variety of new and exciting places. She spent three years at Underwater World on the Sunshine Coast in between two nesting seasons tagging turtles on Lady Musgrave Island, before moving to Christmas Island where she studied a myriad of amazing animals, and returned to reef surveys once more. She has recently returned from completing her DM whilst in Tofo, Mozambique, studying whale sharks and turtles, and helping with a new reef check program for the Mozambican coastline as part of a research team for All Out Africa. Jodi is looking forward to working with the Reef Check Australia team along her local coastline.

Annie Bauer, SEQ Project Officer

Annie is an international student from California finishing up her final year as an undergraduate at the University of Queensland, studying marine biology. She hopes to continue her education, eventually achieving a PhD in marine research, focusing on marine ecology. She started her diving career as a scientific diver for the University of California Santa Cruz where she also conducted local research. In addition to being a fulltime student she currently works as a DM for a local dive shop in Brisbane. She is very excited to start the Reef Check season, and hopes her experience will help broaden her knowledge of the underwater environment.

Daniel and Robbie Wisdom, Townsville Office Volunteers

Daniel is helping us with our photos database. He uses Lightroom to organize and improve survey photos so we can use this huge ressource more efficiently. While Robbie is of invaluable help by identifying which grants we can apply for.

Dave Henry,  Townsville Office Volunteer

Dave is a long-term recreational diver who retired to sunny Townsville some years ago.  He helps out in the office a day or so most weeks and occasionally gets involved in the local surveys.  You can catch him most days somewhere along the Strand or down at the Coast Guard - his other big interest. Dave's main task is to maintain the contact database and the volunteer certification database but he is also helping with many other tasks.

Louise Yates, Townsville Office Volunteer

Louise tracks lost members from the contact database for us. She also helps with Reef Check data quality control.

Wei Xian Yang, Townsville Office Volunteer

After gaining his Diploma of E-Commerce in China, his home country, Yang obtained his Bachelor and Master Degree both with major in Information System from Tasmania University in Australia. He joined the Reef Check Australia as an office volunteer at February 2010, his job for Reef Check Australia includes taking care of the survey databases, for example, data entry, sort and verify data, identify the data and graph errors etc. He also deals with any other IT matters at Reef Check Australia.