My research tackles real environmental problems that are mired in complexity – numerous interacting species, lack of knowledge about how the system works, a changing climate, and competing demands for energy, food, water, health, money and nature. The foundation of my work is to maximise the effectiveness of scarce resources while dealing with deep uncertainties. I have pioneered new approaches to decision-making for key environmental questions: – deciding how to act under uncertainty about climate change; - evaluating the trade-offs in global land use planning to achieve sustainability goals; and - knowing when spending money to monitor or to learn about ecological systems is not helpful. My work is developed in close collaboration with governments, NGO’s and others who manage the environment. Practical problems I have helped, and am helping to, solve include: - securing endemic species on Christmas Island or threatened birds in Hawaii; - ensuring efficient use of pest management budgets across Queensland’s agricultural and protected lands; - remotely tracking land condition to inform sustainable use of rangelands, traversing half the world’s lands and supporting over 2.7 billion people; - a cutting-edge trade-off analysis to support the shift towards sustainable beef industries that reduces its 7% contribution to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions whilst protecting the globes and our nation’s largest agricultural industry. The novelty and applicability of my research led to numerous awards and industry recognitions including the 2021 Australian Academy of Science Fenner Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Biological Science.