First Person

KERRY GIBBONS

KERRY CAME TO BOTANICAL RESEARCH LATER IN HER CAREER AND IS NOW LOVING HER ROLE AS A FLORA BOTANIST AT THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN SYDNEY

When I was seven, we moved to a bush block bordering Ku-ring-gai National Park, Sydney. My mother, a biochemist, could no longer grow exotics, so she joined the Society for Growing Australian Plants (now Australian Plants Society). Among the eucalypts, banksias and Xanthorrhoea native to the block, we soon had Boronia, Prostanthera, Pultenaea and Telopea growing in my playground. That’s probably where my love of Australian plants began.

Botany is not my first career, though. For 23 years I worked as a midwife, specialising in high-risk pregnancy. I looked after mums-to-be hospitalised with complicated pregnancies, or other risk factors such as drug and alcohol dependence, mental illness or family violence. I was passionate about what I did, but eventually I needed a change from this emotionally demanding work and the stresses of shift work.

After a year studying horticulture part-time at TAFE, I studied Biology and Plant Science at the University of Sydney. After my first semester I was invited to join the advanced program, giving me the opportunity to work with academics on small, undergraduate research projects. In my second year, I did a project with Associate Professor Murray Henwood, using morphological characters to construct an evolutionary tree of the Australian genus Platysace. I was ‘hooked’ on phylogenetics (the study of the evolutionary relationships between organisms). Murray then invited me to do a PhD with him.

Fieldwork in Nitmiluk (Katherine George) National Park

“My PhD took me to the Top End of the Northern Territory”

For my PhD, I also worked with Dr Barry Conn (then at the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust). My PhD (on Mitrasacme and other Australian representatives of the family Loganiaceae) took me to the Top End of the Northern Territory and to Far North Queensland for fieldwork. The savanna in northern Australia is still quite pristine and very biodiverse, but not well studied compared with other habitats. Barry suggested we apply for a research grant from the Australian Biological Research Study to fund a post-doctoral project for me (together with Marco Duretto). The idea for our project fell through, so I suggested the Rubiaceae group of plants (the coffee family). Our application was successful, so I started at the Royal Botanic Garden straight after handing in my PhD.

I later became the Garden’s Flora Botanist, and now look after PlantNET and NSW Flora Online. I find it very rewarding that NSW Flora Online provides a service that lots of people (in other areas of government, ecological consultancies, universities etc.) rely on to do their jobs, and many others use simply because they love plants.