Rate My Professor Julien Louys

Professor Julien Louys is a Professor in the School of Environment and Science at Griffith University and Deputy Director of the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Newcastle (2003), a Bachelor of Science with Honours from the University of New South Wales (2004), and a PhD from the University of New South Wales (2008). His career trajectory includes a three-year postdoctoral research assistant position at Liverpool John Moores University, UK (2008-2011), where he examined taxon-free variables in palaeoecological analyses; Curator of Geosciences at the Queensland Museum (2012); University of Queensland Postdoctoral Fellow (2012-2013) focusing on Australian marsupial palaeontology and Pleistocene-Holocene small mammal assemblages; and Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Australian National University (2013-2017). He joined Griffith University in 2017 as an ARC Future Fellow, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019, and to Professor in 2023.

Louys is a vertebrate palaeontologist and palaeoecologist specialising in the mammalian fossil record, developing and applying innovative methods to reconstruct deep-time environments. His research encompasses hominin and mammal palaeoecology across Australia, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste, addressing extinction processes, human impacts on island ecosystems, and megafauna dynamics. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, several book chapters, and edited volumes, including Quaternary Palaeontology and Archaeology of Sumatra (2022) and contributions to Paleontology in Ecology and Conservation. Notable papers include No evidence for widespread island extinctions after Pleistocene hominin arrival (PNAS, 2021) and Speleological and environmental history of Lida Ajer cave, Sumatra (2022). With more than 5,800 citations, his work informs conservation palaeoecology. Louys serves as Academic Editor for PLOS ONE (2019-present) and European Journal of Ecology (2015-present), and was Executive Editor of Palaeontologia Electronica (2014-2019). His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, Leakey Foundation, National Geographic, Ian Potter Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation.