Marine Discovery Series (MDS)

Daniel Harrison holds engineering and oceanography degrees from the University of Sydney, where he also began his postdoctoral work. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California, developing tools for ecosystem-based fisheries management. He has held research roles at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and received a Myer Innovation Fellowship in 2017 to explore coral bleaching interventions. Since 2019, he has been a Senior Lecturer at Southern Cross University, leading the Cooling and Shading sub-program in the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program.

Research

Daniel's research seeks to evaluate how engineering intervention in marine systems can be used to improve ecological, environmental, or societal outcomes. His work spans topics from estuarine and ocean biogeochemistry, fisheries management and habitat modelling, hydrodynamic and biogeochemical modelling, through to ecoengineering and geoengineering.

In his research he strives to undertake empirical field measurements and experimentation in order to understand natural system functioning, then extend this knowledge through computational modelling. By co-designing data collection around modelling needs, and the modelling approaches around insights from linked empirical study a robust platform is created on which to evaluate multiple scenarios and seek answers to the pressing 'what if' questions around our human interactions with the natural world.