The Ecological Society of Australia is pleased to announce Professor Sarah Legge as the winner of the 2025 Australian Ecology Research Award. 

Sarah is a part-time Professor at Charles Darwin University, an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, and also works as a private consultant. She worked originally on the evolution of sociality, mating systems, sex allocation, siblicide, and intra-tropical migration, before moving to wildlife conservation 20 years ago. Since then, she has paired targeted research with landscape-scale management trials to understand the mechanisms and impacts of threats like mismanaged fire and invasive species; with this information then used to inform conservation management. In these efforts, Sarah collaborates with on-ground managers from government, non-government, and Indigenous land management sectors, working in the overlaps between research, management and policy. She is committed to service, contributing to many government statutory committees and government and non-government advisory committees.

The AERA award conferred by the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) is not restricted to any particular sector, and aims to recognise outstanding ecological research. This year’s nominees included researchers from academia, as well as public and private sector agencies.

As the 2025 winner, Sarah will now join our ESA2025 presenters to deliver a plenary session and will also be invited to:

• contribute a forum/review article for publication in Austral Ecology and contribute to E-News articles, to feature their research.

Congratulations, Sarah! We look forward to your presentation at ESA2025 in November.