FRDC People Development Programme: International Travel Bursary Development Award

Attendance at the 4th International Otolith Symposium in Monterey, California 2009, including a presentation at the conference and meetings with professionals concerned with the implementation of marine protected areas. OUTCOMES ACHIEVED TO DATE My attendance at the 4th International Otolith Symposium and presentation of innovative methods that were developed as part of an FRDC research project (FRDC Project 2006/044) to assess the effects of interannual variations in environmental characteristics on the growth of fish generated a great deal of discussion and debate on an international level. This Development Award thus brought appreciable international attention to the work of staff at Murdoch University’s Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research and the involvement of the FRDC in world-class cutting edge research. This feedback on the methods that we developed are invaluable for fine-tuning their application and will greatly assist in their uptake by the international and thus, also, the Australian, scientific community. My interaction with many international leaders in various fields concerned with fisheries biology and otolith research has resulted in a number of professional associations that are likely to lead to future collaborations and has expanded the breadth and scope of the types of projects that I will develop in the future. Such increased knowledge and the potential of collaborative partnerships with international leaders in otolith research have thus broadly expanded my professional capacity. Moreover, the dissemination of the recent trends in otolith research to fisheries researchers at Western Australia’s peak fisheries research training centre, Murdoch University’s Centre for Fish and Fisheries Research, will contribute to the on-going high quality and contemporary delivery of fisheries research training in Western Australia.