Brendan Malone

Agriculture and Food Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Bruce E Butler Laboratory Clunies Ross Street Black Mountain, ACT 2601. Australia.
Phone: (+61) 2 6218 3654
Email: brendan.malone@csiro.au; malone.brendan1001@gmail.com
Website: http://www.smartdigiag.com

Research Interests

  • My research focus is in using quantitative methods to precisely understand how soils function and change- spatially, and through time.

  • I research methods for comprehensive digital soil mapping aiming to characterize soil both in the lateral and vertical dimensions.

  • I research methods for quantifying (and validating) measures of uncertainty for these comprehensive soil information systems.

  • I investigate innovative systems for soil measurement, which includes that associated with remote and proximal and soil sensing instrumentation. I have particular interest in infrared and x-ray spectroscopy.

Education

University of Sydney, Australia, 2009 - 2012 Ph.D. in Digital Soil Mapping, Dec, 2012 Disertation: Practicable methodologies for delivering comprehensive spatial soil information Advisor: Prof. Alex McBratney and Prof. Budiman Minasny

University of Sydney, Australia, 2005 - 2008 Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (hons), Nov, 2008 Thesis: The identification and characterisation of loessic soils and their spatial distribution around Mt Canobolas in the New South Wales Central Tablelands Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Stephen Cattle

Research Experience

Senior Research Scientist, 2018 - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

  • Soil spatio-temporal modelling

Research Fellow, 2017 - 2018 University of Sydney, Sydney Institute of Agriculture

  • Quantifying soil security

Research Fellow, 2014 - 2017 University of Sydney, Soil Security Laboratory

  • Farm-scale soil carbon auditing.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2012 - 2014 University of Sydney, Soil Security Laboratory

  • Digital soil assessments for expansion of irrigated agriculture across Tasmania, Australia

Visiting Research Fellow, 2013 (3 months) Texas A & M Univerisity, Soil and Crop Department

  • Precision Agriculture
  • Multiple point statistics

Ph.D. Candidate, 2009 - 2012 University of Sydney, Soil Security Laboratory

  • Developed methodologies for comprehensive digital soil mapping

Undergraduate Student, 2005 - 2008 University of Sydney, Faculty of Agriculture

  • Majored in soil science

Research Grants

  • Optimised field delineation of contaminated soils; McBratney A, Minasny B, Malone B, Bishop T, Horta A, Mulvey P; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP). (2016-2019).

  • Securing soils for posterity. An international research and training collaboration to investigate efficient approaches to assessing and improving global soil carbon sequestration.; Malone B, Stockmann U, Chen Z; DVC International/IPDF Grant. (2015).

  • A general soil spatial scaling theory; McBratney A, Minasny B, Malone B; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP). (2014-2017).

  • Farm scale assessment of SOC from disaggregated national/regional scale models; McBratney A, Minasny B, Malone B; Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (Federal)/Carbon Farming Futures - Filling the Research Gap Program. (2013-2016).

Professional Memberships and Activities

  • Member, Soil Science Australia (2008 - present)

  • Member, Soil Science Society of America (2010 - present)

  • Editorial Board, Geoderma (2015 - present)

  • Editorial Board, ASA, CSSA, SSSA Books (2016 - present)

  • Associate Editor, Soil Research (2019- present)

  • Associate Editor Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration (2017-)

  • Advisory board member of the Pedometrics Commission of the International Union of Soil Sciences (2013- present)

  • Chair of the data fusion session at Pedometrics 2017, Wageningen, The Netherlands

  • Sydney representative of the NSW Branch of Soil Science Australia (professional soil science society of Australia) (2015 - 2017)

  • Secretary of the NSW Branch of Soil Science Australia (2017 - present)

Honors and Awards

  • 2018 Australia-China Young Scientists Exchange Program scholar

  • The Australian Society of Soil Science CJ Stephens Award in 2013 for the best soil science PhD Thesis in the calendar year.

  • Deans Award for Outstanding Post-Graduate Research in 2011: Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, University of Sydney

Computational Experience

  • Programming: R.

  • Working experience with C/C++, Python, Matlab, Fortran, HTML/CSS, armadillo, numpy, scipy, matplotlib.

Publications

Please visit my publication list.

Teaching and Extension

I have co-developed training materials and conducted training workshops that cover topics related to digital soil mapping and soil spectral inference.

  • 30 August - 3 September 2010, Ispra, Italy: The first DSM workshop at European Union Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy attended by 15 staff. We designed the curriculum which used our latest research findings, and the course was designed as an active learning using authentic problems. Funded by JRC-EU.

  • 21-23 February 2011, Sydney. Digital Soil Mapping Training for ACLEP, 19 agency representatives from states and territories and Geosciences Australia and the CSIRO.

  • 2 April 2012, Sydney. Digital soil mapping training, 1-day workshop prior to the 5th Global Workshop on Digital Soil Mapping.

  • 7-15 March 2013, Sydney. Digital soil mapping training for soil scientists from the Indonesian Agency for Agricultural Research and Development (9 participants). Funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Indonesia.

  • 4-5 April 2013, Sydney. Soil Spectral Inference workshop, 26 participants including researchers and scientists from government agencies and PhD students from Australia and overseas.

  • 18-20 June 2013, Sydney: Digital soil mapping training for soil scientists from Australian State and Federal soil agencies, Australian Collaborative Land Evaluation Program (ACLEP).

  • 22-24 April 2014, Sydney. Digital Soil Mapping Training Workshop. 20 participants, researchers and scientists from government agencies and PhD students.

  • 26-28 May, 2014, Soil Spectral Inference workshop, 5 participants including technical officers from Tasmanian Govt and researchers from University of Tasmania. Funded by ARC Linkage project.

  • 15-19 June, 2015, Intensive Digital Soil Mapping Training Workshop for researchers and post-graduate students of National Taiwan University (NTU). 25 participants (additionally included 5 Taiwan Govt researchers). Funded by International Program Development Fund (IPDF USYD).

  • 23-26 November, 2015, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Digital Soil Mapping for Soil Carbon Auditing Short Course at Landcare Research. 16 Participants from NZ government institutions. Part of the DAFF-NZ research program.

  • 27 November - 2 December 2015, Moscow. Digital soil mapping for Russian postgraduate students and young scientists. 25 participants. Requested and funded by the Dokuchaev Institute.

  • 30 March-1 April 2016, Sydney. Soil Spectral Inference workshop, 22 participants including researchers and scientists from government agencies and PhD students from Australia and overseas, and private consultants.

  • 24-28 August 2016, Moscow. Digital soil mapping for Russian postgraduate students and young scientists. 25 participants. Requested and funded by the Dokuchaev Institute.

  • 30 January- 3 February 2017. Vancouver, Canada. Digital soil mapping for Canadian Provincial scientists, University faculty and post-graduate students. 27 participants. Requested and funded by the Agri-Food Canada.

  • 17-19 October, 2017. Jeonju, Korea. Digital soil mapping for Korean scientists. 20 participants. Requested and funded by the Korean Rural Development Administration.

I have provided guest lecturing and technical assistance in the following units of study offered at the University of Sydney:

  • SOIL2004 (The Soil Resource)
  • SOIL3009 (Contemporary Field and Lab Soil Science)
  • ENVX3001 (Environmental GIS)


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