Alison Peel
Senior Research Fellow at Griffith University
Living in Queensland, Australia
Working within the transdisciplinary field of planetary health, and as a mother to two young humans, Alison would like to contribute to a transformation in the way that modern human societies perceive their centrality on earth, towards a broader notion of a sustainable, healthy and thriving planet.
Alison grew up catching lizards and tadpoles and surrounded by nature. It was this love of animals and nature that led her to train as a veterinarian at the University of Sydney and then as a wildlife veterinarian in London. Rather than focussing just on individual animal health, she was drawn to wildlife health at a population level and completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK on viruses in African fruit bat populations.
Since 2013, Alison has been based at Griffith University, Brisbane, researching how human environmental impacts and climate cycles drive new viruses to emerge from bats. She is passionate about understanding the processes underlying these complex systems and identifying sustainable solutions that harness natural ecosystem processes to both prevent viral emergence and solve the environmental and public health crises we have created.
