Tom Kompas

Tom Kompas

Director, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU; Director, Australian Centre for Biosecurity and Environmental Economics (ACBEE); Editor-in-Chief, Asia and the Pacific Policy Journal

Professor Tom Kompas is the Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Biosecurity and Environmental Economics (ACBEE) and one of three Chief Investigators in the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA) at the University of Melbourne. where he is a Professor of Environmental Economics and Biosecurity in the School of Biosciences and the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences.

He has dedicated much of his recent time and work to public policy in Australia and the region. Until recently, he was a part-time Senior Economist at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), a Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) project leader on biosecurity and Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

In 2010, Tom was appointed to the Eminent Scientists Group (ESG) in the Department of Agriculture. The ESG provides independent advice to the Minister and the Secretary of the Department on matters of biosecurity and risk analysis. In 2012, Tom became Editor-in-Chief of Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, President of the newly-formed Asia and Pacific Policy Society and Publisher of Policy Forum (http://www.policyforum.net/).

Tom’s research specialises in large-dimensional modelling, cost-benefit analysis and natural resource and environmental economics. His bioeconomic modelling and biosecurity research has been published in the world’s leading international journals (including ScienceNature Climate Change, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesLand EconomicsEnvironmental Modelling and Software and Conservation Biology), and his current work focuses on the major biosecurity and climate issues in Australia and internationally.

In 2009, Tom received the ‘CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement’, in 2004, the ‘Crawford Award for Research Excellence’ from ABARE, and in 2011 the ‘Eureka Prize for Water Research and Innovation’. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and was Director of the Crawford School of Public Policy from 2009 to 2015.

In 2009, Tom was a recipient of the University’s highest award for teaching, the ‘Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching’. In 2008, Tom also received the ‘Award for Teaching Excellence’ from the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU, and in 2010 he received a national teaching award, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council ‘Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning’.