Patrick O'Connor, Adam James Loch and John Maclean

Patrick O'Connor is the Director of the Centre for Global Food and Resources at the University of Adelaide. He has a background in research and consulting in natural resource management science and program evaluation. Patrick’s consulting and research focusses on the design, creation, implementation and evaluation of markets for ecosystem services. Patrick works on projects aimed at overcoming negative environmental externalities from agricultural production systems and has created markets for the conservation of soil and biodiversity and for carbon sequestration. Patrick undertakes research on the design of novel contracts for land management, and toward understanding of price-setting behaviors of landholders supplying ecosystem services. Patrick also works in program evaluation, designing and implementing evaluations to improve program decisions or demonstrate policy and program impact. Adam James Loch is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Global Food and Resources. Prior to moving to South Australia, Adam spent 10 years as a cotton grower and advocate for irrigators in Queensland. He currently researches topics such as irrigator decision-making, water markets and institutional reform, transaction costs, and reallocation policy/program effectiveness. Adam holds a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com) from Bond University, a Master of Marketing (M.Mkt) from Griffith University, a Master of Business (M.Bus) from Central Queensland University and a Ph.D from UniSA. He is the immediate past President of the South Australian branch of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society (AARES-SA), and a member of several professional associations including the American Agricultural and Applied Economics Society (AAEA), the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EERE) and the Economics Society of Australia (EcoSoc). John Maclean uses Bayesian methods to solve object tracking and inference problems. In these problems, a system evolves over time: for example, clouds form, move and dissipate in the sky. We use data that gives a partial picture of the present, for example satellite photos, to learn as much as possible about the current system state, and then use mathematical models to make accurate forecasts into the future.