Jodi J. L. Rowley is an Australian herpetologist and conservationist.

Life and research

Rowley received her bachelor's degree in environmental science at

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, and her PhD from

James Cook University James Cook University (JCU) is a public university in North Queensland, Australia. The second oldest university in Queensland, JCU is a teaching and research institution. The university's main campuses are located in the tropical cities of Cairn ...

. Her doctoral thesis was on the topic of

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

decline caused by chytridiomycosis. After finishing her PhD, in 2006 she moved to

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

to work for

Conservation International Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. CI's work focuses on science, policy and partnership with businesses, governments and communities. The organ ...

as a wildlife biologist. She returned to Australia in 2008, and began working at the Australian Museum. In 2016, she was appointed curator of Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology at the Australian Museum. Her current work concerns a mixture of

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

and

conservation biology Conservation biology is the study of the conservation of nature and of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic interactions. It is an int ...

. One of her on-going projects is to search for the

Peppered tree frog The peppered tree frog (''Ranoidea piperata'') is a species of frog in the subfamily Pelodryadinae. It has a green back speckled with black, a cream-coloured belly and a dark stripe running from the shoulder. It is endemic to a very small area of ...

. She has run numerous research expeditions in Australia and South-East Asia. Rowley is a member of the New-South Wales Threatened Species Scientific Committee, the IUCN Amphibian Red List Authority, and the Steering Committee of AmphibiaWeb. She is also chair of the Mainland Southeast Asia, IUCN Species Survival Commission Amphibian Specialist Group. Rowley was one of the co-founders of the FrogID app and is its chief scientist. The app uses

citizen science Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes re ...

to gather data on the distribution and activity of Australian frogs, to inform both research and conservation. Rowley is an editor for Amphibia for

Zootaxa ''Zootaxa'' is a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists. It is published by Magnolia Press (Auckland, New Zealand). The journal was established by Zhi-Qiang Zhang in 2001 and new issues are published multiple times a week. ...

Matronyms

Rowley has had three species named in her honour, one Vietnamese snake, '' Cylindrophis jodiae,'' named in 2015; and two Vietnamese frogs, '' Leptorachella rowleyae'' named in 2018, and '' Zhangixalus jodiae'' named in 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowley, Jodi Women herpetologists 21st-century Australian women scientists Living people Australian herpetologists Year of birth missing (living people) James Cook University alumni University of New South Wales alumni Australian conservationists Women conservationists Australian women biologists