Elise Pendall

Professor Elise Pendall is a distinguished soil and ecosystem ecologist at Western Sydney University's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE). She specializes in biogeochemical cycling responses to climate change and ecological disturbances, leading the Soil Biology and Genomics theme and teaching in the Master's program. Her research uses eddy covariance and stable isotopes to study carbon cycling in Australian ecosystems, including Eucalyptus woodlands. Key interests include linkages between above- and belowground ecosystem components, soil microbial processes, and climate change feedbacks. Pendall has authored nearly 200 journal articles, including six in Nature, and holds leadership roles in organizations like AGU and OzFlux.

Grants & Projects: Current initiatives include investigating soil greenhouse gas fluxes under climate change, bushfire recovery in endangered woodlands, and pasture resilience to climate extremes. Major funders include the Australian Research Council and Meat & Livestock Australia. Past projects span topics like bark beetle impacts on water yield, nitrogen turnover in grasslands, and global wetland decomposition dynamics.

Awards & Recognition: Notable achievements include serving as AGU Biogeosciences Section President (2018–2020), leading the Cumberland Plain TERN-OzFlux Supersite, and receiving a NOAA Climate and Global Change Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1998–2000). She has contributed editorially to journals like Biogeosciences and Global Change Biology.

Research Focus: Pendall’s work emphasizes carbon sequestration, microbial mechanisms in greenhouse gas emissions, and ecosystem resilience. Recent studies highlight trade-offs between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO2 and the role of mycorrhizal fungi in nutrient limitations.

Labs & Teams: She directs the Pendall Lab, collaborating with postdocs and students on global projects. Research integrates field observations (e.g., OzFlux networks) with modeling to address climate-ecosystem interactions at local and planetary scales.