Lorna joined SMI-CMLR in 2017. At the beginning of her career at SMI, she focused mostly on the project regarding the restoration of Ranger Uranium Mine. As her career has progressed and the demands of Ranger’s project have decreased, she started to become involved in a wider range of projects mostly dealing with different aspects of environmental monitoring through remote sensing. Funding for projects at SMI has been provided by the government at state and federal levels, as well as research institutes, mining companies, and consortiums between industry and research organisations (e.g. SartSat-CRC, CRC-TiME). She has also continued to build on and expand her PhD research through collaborations and short projects.
Lorna looked into the ecology of the northern quoll (Dasyurus hallucatus) to assess potential aspects driving the range contraction of this endangered species. These aspects included top-down (predators) and bottom-up (habitat quality and prey availability) pressures, population dynamics of northern quolls –through live-trapping–, and interactions with other dasyurid species. This research was funded by ARC, scholarships awarded (CONACYT and UQ), grants (Holsworth, NESP), and in-kind funding (DPaW). Before graduating, Lorna held a research assistant position with the Quantitative Applied Spatial Ecology Group at QUT, where she worked with drone derived data over the course of three months.