Prof Charles Warren
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0788-4713
“As a kid I was always pulling things apart to see how they operate. Now I get to “pull apart” plants and ecosystems and see what makes them tick.”
Charlie Warren has a bachelors degree from the University of Tasmania and a PhD from the University of Western Australia. After completing a PhD, Charlie jetted off to Canada to work as a postdoc for two years. In 2003 Charlie was lured back to Australia to take up a highly-competitive APD research fellowship at The University of Melbourne. In 2006 Charlie moved to The University of Sydney where he held competitive fellowships for a further nine years (QEII, then Future Fellowship). Charlie is a Professor of plant-soil interactions in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences.
He has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the limitations of photosynthesis and is currently working on a range of projects examining plant-soil interactions and biogeochemistry. For the past decade he has been actively contributing to the debate about limiting steps in the soil N cycle and the role of organic N in plant nutrition. Another branch of his research is examining soil carbon cycling, in particular the microbial response of soil to drying and rewetting. Most recently he has embarked on a challenging new project examining microbial P economics which is aiming to determine how soil microbes can thrive in some of the most P deficient soils on Earth.
Postdoctoral researchers
Dr Alessandro N Garritano
Former postdoctoral researchers
Dr Richard Harwood (now Data Scientist at Sydney Informatics Hub)
Dr Orpheus Butler (now ARC-DECRA at Griffith University)
Current postgraduate & honours students
Hao Cui (PhD): Roles of community composition and individual plasticity in shaping microbial P and C economics
Szczepan Glewicz (PhD): The formation and function of rhizosheaths
Grace Liang (PhD): Phosphorus economics of plants
Shota Matsumura (PhD): Pools and cycling of organic P in soil
Lab visitors (past and present)
David Israel (University of Helsinki): Mesophyll conductance of Arabidopsis
Prof Barbara Hawkins (visiting Prof from University of Victoria): organic N nutrition of plants
Prof Daniel Epron (visiting Prof from Université Henri Poincaré): Interaction between plants and soil
Mercedes Uscola (visiting PhD student from Universidad de Alcalá ): Uptake of amino acids by plants
Javier Cano (PhD student from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, & subsequently Postdoc at Western Sydney University): Ecophysiology of photosynthesis