Interview with Dr Andrew O’Neill

Position: Chief Scientist 

Organisation: Healthy Land and Water  

One-liner: If it’s going to improve the environment or liveability of South East Queensland, Dr Andrew O’Neill is likely to be part of it. 

The community provides such a valuable resource to our knowledge about what is happening in the natural world, particularly in our cities and towns.

The Interview

What does your role of a Chief Scientist at Health Land and Water entail?

Grace, Moranbah SHS

I work with scientists and engineers at Queensland’s major universities (and also others around Australia and the world) to support research into environmental problems. We provide universities with projects to put their research into action. We connect their students to real-world problems through our internship program and also by giving lectures to students. It’s an amazing job for a scientist because it’s a nice balance of research and practice.

Why did you choose a career in STEM?

Grace, Kirwan SHS, Townsville

I think to be honest it chose me! When I was younger (about 10 years old), I used to write to local councilors as I was concerned about trees being cut down in my local area. I was told by people at council that I was too young to understand why this was needed, so I started to read environmental books to get a better understanding. When I was 14 I read Anita Gordon and David Suzuki’s It’s a Matter of Survival, and that changed my life. I became increasingly concerned about the degradation of our planet and how little was being done to fix it. Getting good at science and mathematics seemed like a good way to not only find solutions to problems but also get involved in teaching the next generation (yours!) to come along and save the day.

What did you study in school and university to get to where you are now?

Grace, Moranbah SHS

At school, I studied maths and science, but I also studied modern history and design and technology. At university, I majored in microbiology and biochemistry, with minors (less emphasis) in psychology and philosophy. I believe it’s really important to balance hard science with knowledge about how our world and society works. I did my doctorate (this is just an intense research project of about 3-5 years) in biogeochemistry (which is the study of how microbes cause chemical changes in the environment). I then travelled around the world doing research projects to understand how human activities are affecting groundwater, lakes, rivers and hot springs.

How did you find out about the position that you are in?

Grace, Moranbah SHS

When I came back to Australia, I was lucky enough to work for a great company learning about better ways to manage water (you can google: water sensitive urban design). I got really good at this and designed and built wetlands and other water systems to make suburbs better for people and to protect our waterways. I was then employed by Healthy Land and Water which has turned out to be my dream job (I’ve been here for 10 years!).

If everyone in the world could do one thing to help protect the planet, what would it be?

Grace, Kirwan SHS, Townsville

Oh, just one? My answer is kind of obvious but really hard at the same time. I think the best thing that we can all do is to arm ourselves with knowledge of our natural environment that supports and sustains our lives and our happiness too. We can then combine that knowledge with our understanding of what our community wants and needs to influence others (in a really positive friendly way!) so that they also take action.

How important are the partnerships you have with citizen science groups, governments and local industries?

STEM Girl Power

The community provides such a valuable resource to our knowledge about what is happening in the natural world, particularly in our cities and towns. Likewise, local governments have great connections to what is happening in their local area. It’s this local knowledge that puts the science into action – without it, we’d be guessing about what is going on, and we might make the environment worse, or make no difference and waste money. Local industries are also really good to work with because they need to know what they can do, not only to abide by our laws but to do better because often their customers want this. We not only work with all of these sectors, but also bring them together to understand what our shared responsibilities are, and what things we can do together to solve the problems.

How do you get councils and homeowners to incorporate water sensitive urban design to protect the environment? What are the challenges?

STEM Girl Power

That’s a great question and there are a few parts to this. Firstly, for any initiative to work in a market where companies are competing for customers, and local governments are competing to have new residents and to keep rates low, there has to be regulation. This means that there needs to be a law or legal requirement for water sensitive urban design to be included. This means that the competition is fair because everyone has to do it. Secondly, each project has to have clear objectives that articulate how it will protect waterways AND make the place better for people. Sometimes designers forget the last part and it’s just so important – because if people in the local community want it, they will want to see more of it (another snowball effect!).

What are the timelines of your projects – how long can it take before you know your efforts are working?

STEM Girl Power

Ecological systems are notoriously slow to respond to improvements and also, at times, terribly fast to respond to negative impacts. For example, if we cut down trees that koalas need to live, replacing them (if we can at all) can take 30 years or more. A waterway can become polluted with massive fish kills overnight, and fixing it can take many years. In South East Queensland, we have been monitoring the health of Moreton Bay for over 20 years. We used to have very serious algal blooms and seagrass was disappearing. After we built the scientific case (also a social and economic one) for investment in improving sewage treatment plants, we started to notice improvements – but it took about 15 years to really notice the seagrass coming back. This is an amazing result, but quite slow. The only way we know about the results that have been achieved is because we have conducted very detailed monitoring throughout this time. So in short, while breaking the environment can be done in a day, fixing it takes a long time – so the best thing for us to do is to fiercely protect what we have and carefully bring back other parts.

Are you driven to make our land and water healthy for us (humans), or for the environmental ecosystem?

STEM Girl Power

For me, it has to be both. People both depend on our natural environment and have the capacity to damage it. So our fate is tied together with our natural environment. It depends on us to treat it with respect. Our happiness, wellbeing and prosperity depend on it functioning and delivering us water, food and enjoyment. Think about it this way: Australia’s First Nations people consider that they are part of the land. They do not own it, but listen carefully to its signals and set up systems to ensure that everything is in harmony. The only way we can achieve similar levels of harmony into the future is by relentlessly pursuing our understanding of the world through science, and at the same time connecting with people and the land.

Bio

Dr Andrew O’Neill is Healthy Land and Water’s Chief Operating Officer. He is responsible for driving innovation and guiding Healthy Land and Water’s talented scientists and engineers as they work to improve South East Queensland’s environment. Andrew is an expert in sustainable urban water management and water sensitive urban design and is recognised globally for his innovative work in building leadership and technical skills in professionals and students.  

Andrew has a proven track record of designing and delivering award-winning integrated water policy and water sensitive urban design projects and has researched and delivered projects in many countries around the world. Andrew is passionate about collaboration and utilising science to improve education, policy and services in the community.