After finishing a science degree in zoology and ecology and a PHD focusing on ants, Professor Lesley Hughes switched her focus onto researching climate change and the climate crisis full time.
“Once I started reading about it, I got more and more interested in it and have stayed in it ever since,” Lesley says.
After growing up in Normanhurst and now residing on Sydney’s North Shore, Lesley is a woman of many hats, its almost difficult to keep count.
Not only is Lesley a Professor of Biology at Macquarie University, she is also the executive Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, she is a former federal Climate Commissioner, a Director for WWF Australia, a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and a founding Councillor with the Clime Council of Australia.
Lesley’s impressive career is driven by her passion and advocacy for tackling the climate crisis. Lesley is continually striving for a positive change on an environmental, political, and social level.
Lesley says that back in 2011 a body called The Climate Commission was set up as the government thought there needed to be more communication about climate change science.
“I was appointed as one of the six climate commissioners by the government, and we spent the next two and a half years giving talks in regional centres, cities and towns everywhere,” she explains.
“When Tony Abbot became Prime Minister, he abolished the Climate Commission. We knew that was coming, so we already had a plan to keep going. So, we started the Climate Council, which is publicly funded.”
After starting with five climate councillors and a staff of one, they now have 15 councillors and staff of more than 50 people.
“We started the Climate Media Centre, the Emergency Leaders of Climate Action, we started another organisation called the City’s Power Partnership which supports local government action, and we are still going.”
Lesley tells North Shore Living that people often ask her ‘what can I do?’ to which she responds, ‘well if you’re over 18, you’ve got a vote’.
“If people are feeling helpless and a bit hopeless and depressed, the best thing to do is to take action collectively, to join together with like-minded people,” she states.
Lesley says that her main research focus has been around the impacts of climate change on species and ecosystems.
“Australia’s got such wonderful wildlife and such interesting ecosystems, there’s more than enough to research on here and we know that our species and ecosystems are in grave danger from the impacts of climate change,” Lesley says.
When asked about some of her biggest achievements, Lesley gave an unsurprising modest response that ‘not any one individual, scientist or communicator can achieve anything substantive on their own’.
“I think what I’m most proud of is being part of a group, like the Climate Council, which is full of very diverse people with very diverse expertise,” Lesley says.