Rate My Professor Renee Firman

Renee Firman is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Western Australia, where she earned her BSc and PhD. Her academic career at UWA began with postdoctoral positions, including a Centre for Evolutionary Biology Postdoctoral Researcher role in 2009 and an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship from 2010 to 2012. She progressed through an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from 2014 to 2018 and an ARC Future Fellowship from 2019 to 2024, culminating in her tenured Senior Lecturer position from April 2024. In 2013, she received the Fortescue Metals Group Pty. Ltd. Research Contribution. Firman has also served on the UWA Animal Ethics Committee from 2015 to 2021 as a category B member, represented UWA on the Perth Zoo Research Committee during the same period, and was elected Vice President Elect of the Australasian Evolution Society in 2023.

Firmman's research centers on evolutionary and behavioural ecology, exploring theories of sex allocation, sociality, and sexual selection. She studies rodents and marsupials in both field and laboratory settings, with a strong emphasis on conservation outcomes, such as how rising ambient temperatures affect sex allocation and population dynamics, and behavioural adaptations of native rodents to Australia's changing climate. She also supervises projects on birds and reptiles. Her influential publications include 'Intergenerational response to sperm competition risk in an invasive mammal' (2023), 'Male and female Brandt's voles have higher reproductive success when they have more mating partners regardless of population density' (2023), 'The spatial and temporal distribution of females influence the evolution of testes size in Australian rodents' (2022), 'The effect of baculum shape and mating behavior on mating-induced prolactin release in female house mice' (2021), and 'Postmating Female Control: 20 Years of Cryptic Female Choice' (2017), among others. With an h-index of 23 and over 2,000 citations, her work has made significant contributions to understanding post-copulatory sexual selection and reproductive strategies. Firman coordinates and lectures in units such as ANIM5110 Biology of Australian Marsupials, ANIM3353 Wildlife Conservation and Management, ANIM3365 Behavioural Ecology, and ANIM5502 Evolutionary Ecology.