Shelby Schumacher joined UniSC’s Forest Research Institute in August 2025. She is an environmental scientist who combines field ecology, AI, and social research to understand how community participation and technology can improve fuel-hazard assessment. Her current role focuses on NOBURN, a multidisciplinary citizen-science project that uses an app to document forest fuels and provides AI-derived insights into the probability, severity, and burnt area of potential bush fires.
Prior to joining the Forest Research Institute, Shelby completed a PhD with UniSC’s Seaweed Research Group on the human dimensions of restorative aquaculture and seaweed restoration. She is particularly interested in citizen science and how participation influences well-being, stewardship, and ecosystem outcomes. She believes effective science communication is essential for conservation and is active in outreach; she organised the Sunshine Coast’s first seaweed restoration festival, which was recognised with the Queensland Chief Scientist’s Award for Advancing Research (2023).
She holds a Bachelor of Environmental Science (Marine Biology) with Honours in social-ecological research from Deakin University and previously worked as a firefighter involved in planned burning and bush fire response.
YES Project (2023): Empowering Sunshine Coast youth to take climate action through social media and seaweed restoration, winning the Queensland Chief Scientist’s Award for Advancing Science.
- Seaweed Squad (Seaweed Research Group citizen science) - The SRG’s volunteer network supporting restoration and outreach; used for public engagement, event recruitment and community data collection.
- NOBURN - A multi-disciplinary citizen science project that involves the design and implementation of the NOBURN app used to capture evidence of forest fuels by citizen scientists and provides information to predict the probability, severity and burn area of potential bush fires using artificial intelligence.
Professional social media
Shelby is passionate about exploring cell diversity and engaging with the process of scientific discovery.
Teaching areas
- Cell Diversity
- Discovering Science