Prof. Steven J. B. Cooper is a Principal Researcher at the South Australian Museum and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Adelaide, where he is part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology discipline in the School of Biological Sciences. His research focuses on the diversity, evolution, and molecular ecology of Australian fauna, with a particular emphasis on subterranean and groundwater invertebrates from Australia's arid zones. In 2003, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for his work on subterranean fauna and was a visiting Conviron Fellow at the University of Sheffield, UK, in 2008. Prof. Cooper is also an editor of the Australian Journal of Zoology and a member of several professional societies, including the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists, Evolution Society, and Genetics Society of Australasia.
Dr. Remko Leijs arrived in Adelaide from the Netherlands in 1996 with a postdoctoral research scholarship from Flinders University to pursue a PhD on the "Evolution of Carpenter Bees". Between 2007 and 2011, he collaborated with Jim Mitchell on the ecology and biodiversity of stygofauna (groundwater invertebrates) in South Australian aquifers, supported by an ARC Linkage grant. Currently, he is working on a new ARC Linkage funded project with Jim Mitchell, focusing on groundwater ecosystem health. Since 1996, Dr. Leijs has been affiliated with the Evolutionary Biology Unit and the Terrestrial Invertebrates Section of the South Australian Museum, initially as a student and later as a research fellow and associate on various ARC-funded projects related to stygofauna. His research spans evolutionary biology, phylogenetics, historical biogeography, conservation, taxonomy, the evolution of groundwater fauna (stygobiology), groundwater ecology, native bee taxonomy and systematics, and fire ecology.
