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Dr Stephen Skinner |
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Dr Stephen Skinner Molonglo Waterwatch Coordinator I grew up in and out of the Hawkesbury River at Windsor and developed a fascination for the life of rivers. I’d met water rats and glass shrimp, river pipis and stoneworts well before I went near universities; and sheoaks were for holding ropes for swimming! As an undergraduate in Armidale I showed a strong interest in freshwater animals and plants and went on to study the algae in the water column of Lake Malpas. Later I discovered the beauty of the myriads of desmids in the waterways of the New England Tableland. I was drawn away from the freshwater algae by the chance to do a Ph.D. in Adelaide with the renowned Professor Brian Womersley, then the leading (marine) Phycologist in the country. I next spent three vintages in one of the wineries of the Barossa, looking after their yeast collection and following the progress of the batches. I finally succumbed to the need to have a responsible job and went school teaching for quite a number of years. Much of this teaching was in the Mallee and the South-East and I renewed my fascination with freshwater organisms. Then I spent two years as the Dean and Vice Rector of a residential University College, not a job I would recommend to anyone! In November 1999 I was offered a job at the National Herbarium of New South Wales as Dr Tim Entwisle’s amanuensis –a dream come true! I spent the next eight years ... as long as the grants lasted ... writing about all kinds of freshwater photosynthetic life from Snot (Nostoc commune) and its relatives to the elegance of the Oedogoniales. I also had the chance to travel along the big rivers and collect and report on the algae along the way
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I
arrived at the Southern ACT Catchment Group in February 2007 and found the work
fulfilling, with its mixture of science and school teaching. The school teaching
was now like looking after grandchildren, you could hand them back when you are
finished. I also found myself working for the Territory by the middle of the
year. I’ve now written up two ACT Annual Water Reports, and contributed to the
vegetation survey, following the 2003 wild-fire, of the Murrumbidgee and its
major tributaries. I moved to the Molonglo Catchment Group because it’s a
fascinating catchment, and as a Queanbeyan resident I can walk to work.