Dr Adrienne Burns
Senior Lecturer in Biological and Environmental Science - Faculty of Science, Agriculture, Business and Law; School of Environmental and Rural Science
Phone: +61 02 6773 3957
Email: aburns@une.edu.au
Biography
Adrienne is an aquatic ecologist with specialities in both riverine basal foodwebs and tertiary science education research, and is a nationally recognised educational leader in biological sciences. Her recent success is driven through scholarship-driven initiatives in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), as an educational innovator in transition pathways to university particularly in online learning, and, the development of learning communities of practice to enable both students and colleagues to succeed in their educational activities. She secured 2019 HEPPP funding as the principal investigator for a project that led to a Learn-X Award: Learning & Development Platinum prize (2020), as Best Social Program in the ‘Boosting Science Program’, which assisted students with limited science background to transition to a range of science and applied science courses at UNE. Her contribution to online advances in blended learning has received national recognition through a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning as part of the Australian Awards for University Teaching.
Adrienne’s mission as a university educator and researcher in scholarship of teaching and learning and ecology, is to enable future graduates to make meaningful contributions to global challenges by ensuring quality student learning outcomes. Through a diversity of teaching roles, including unit delivery, designing transitional programs, and course-level curriculum development, she fosters an ethos of quality student learning outcomes through sharing teaching and learning experiences with colleagues, to build contemporary networks for learning excellence. Adrienne is the Coordinator for the undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Environmental Science and Management, and led the redesign of these programs with new industry directed majors and units available in 2022, and 2023. Major successes in the recent course renewal includes effectively advocating for the inclusion of UNE’s first Indigenous science unit, as core to the program of undergraduate study. Adrienne was appointed Leader of Learning in the Faculty (Science Agriculture Business & Law), Science Learning Hub in June 2022), establishing both on-campus and online modes of tutoring to improve student retention and engagement across UNE’s STEM programs.
Adrienne holds a PhD, Bachelors, and a first class Honours degree in science (Zoology & Botany) from the University of Adelaide, and a Masters of Education (Honours 1) from UNE. In her research field of aquatic ecology, she is an experienced research student supervisor with Honours and PhD completions dating back to 2009 in aquatic foodwebs, riverine, biogeochemistry and conservation. She looks to create a postgraduate group for scholarship of STEM teaching and learning; developing best practice for university transition through blended learning, and providing supportive pathways for students from diverse backgrounds into STEM and STEM related fields.
