Rate My Professor Essie Rodgers

Dr. Essie Rodgers is a Lecturer in the School of Environmental and Conservation Sciences at Murdoch University, where she serves as the Head of the Conservation Physiology and Aquaculture Lab within the Centre for Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystems. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Queensland. Prior to joining Murdoch, she was a Lecturer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand starting from 2020. Her academic interests encompass ecophysiology, global change biology, conservation physiology, particularly the physiological responses of aquatic ectotherms to environmental stressors like temperature variability, hypoxia, nitrate pollution, and exercise.

Rodgers has published extensively in high-impact journals. Her systematic review "The growth-promoting effects of exercise in finfish: A systematic review and meta-analysis" (Rodgers & Gomez Isaza, 2024, Reviews in Aquaculture) reveals how exercise enhances fish growth, with implications for aquaculture amid food insecurity. Another key paper, "Unresponsive to change: Ectotherms fail to adjust physiology to daily temperature variation" (2026, Philosophical Transactions B), underscores ectotherms' limited acclimation to fluctuating temperatures under climate change. She co-authored "The mechanistic basis and adaptive significance of cross-tolerance to heat and hypoxia in fish" (2023, Journal of Experimental Biology), "Deteriorating waterways: The effect of nitrate pollution on fish" (McLean et al., 2023, Aquatic Toxicology), and contributed to the book chapter "Using ecotoxicology for conservation: From biomarkers to modeling" (De Boeck et al., 2022). Rodgers was awarded the 2022 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship during her time at Canterbury. She teaches and coordinates Aquaculture (BIO380) and Foundations of the Environment (ENV102) at Murdoch, supervises PhD and Masters students on related topics, and has organized sessions at international conferences like the Society for Experimental Biology. Her research has been featured in Murdoch University news articles on climate threats to cold-blooded animals and fitter fish for sustainable food production.