Dr Andrew Thornhill

Dr Andrew Thornhill is one of the botanical lecturers at UNE as well as responsible for the running of the UNE N.C.W. Beadle Herbarium. Andrew was first attracted to botany through collecting carnivorous plants which led to a Masters project at Monash University studying pitcher plants. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University working on the plant family Myrtaceae and continued his research through postdoctoral research on plant evolution with an emphasis on Australian plants (eucalypts and Acacia) and large phylogenetic studies across a broad botanical and geographical range. Andrew has worked in various herbaria over his career including the Australian National Herbarium at CSIRO in Canberra, the Australian Tropical Herbarium at James Cook University in Cairns, the University and Jepson Herbaria at the University of California, Berkeley, and the State Herbarium of South Australia in Adelaide.

Andrew has worked on developing spatial phylogenetics – a "big data" field that combines large-scale molecular phylogenetics, geospatial information obtained from collection data, and randomisation tests to identify unique areas of diversity and endemism to enable evolutionary, ecological, and biogeographic interpretations of these patterns.

Andrew has published on a wide range of botanical subjects including palynology, phylogenetics, systematics, the biogeography of Myrtaceae. He has published large species level phylogenies of eucalypts and Australian Acacia, and made phylogenetic analyses of the flora of California and Chile. He has utilised plant fossils as calibrations in molecular dating analyses as well as studied bryophyte (moss, liverwort, and hornwort) phylogenetics.

BOTY203 – Plant Diversity (Coordinator)

BOTY390 – Field Botany (Coordinator)

BOTY370 – Mushrooms and Mosses – The Cryptogams (Coordinator)

EVOL211 - Evolution and Biogeography (Teaching)

EVOL301 – Biological Systematics (Teaching)