Dr. Judit Szabo with Greater Crested Tern chicks

Judit Szabo has been fascinated by birds since childhood, which she spend watching and ringing birds in the floodplains of the Danube River. She has a Master’s degree in Theoretical Ecology and completed her thesis studying nesting behaviour and migration of the Black Stork. She studied for a Doctoral degree in Environmental Toxicology at Texas Tech University in the United States of America and her research focussed on the effects of locust-control pesticides on Australian birds in remote parts of the continent. During her academic career she has studied optimal monitoring of birds, including threatened species, such as the Plains Wanderer. She also worked extensively with volunteer-collected datasets looking for patterns and trends in bird distributions. Recently she has contributed to the Red List assessment of all Australian bird species and subspecies and co-authored the Action Plan for Australian Birds. She has contributed to capturing and marking shorebirds in various parts of Australia and has studied disturbances to migratory shorebirds in northern Australia. She also has extensive experience working with storks, raptors and passerines, and a keen interest in training the next generation of bird researchers in methods of bird capture and handling. Judit has lived in Europe, the Middle East, the USA and Australia and has travelled widely to observe and study birds around the world.