Carden Wallace

Carden C. Wallace graduated with a first class degree in Science from the University of Queensland in 1970.[1] She gave birth to two sons in the 1970s.[2] From 1970 to 1976, she was the curator of lower vertebrates at the Queensland Museum. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1979 at the University of Queensland.[1] Wallace spent a brief period researching at the Australian Institute of Marine Science before researching Marine Biology from 1980 as a fellow at the James Cook University of North Queensland.[1]

In 1984, Wallace and six others first reported that corals took part in mass spawning which they observed on the Great Barrier Reef in October/November.[3][4] Since they first observed reproductive synchrony in coral in Australia, it has been observed in other countries but at different times of the year.[5] As a result, the team from James Cook University were awarded the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research in 1992.[6] This example of creatures synchronising their reproduction was novel, and it was reported widely.[7]

In 1987, the North Queensland Branch of the Queensland Museum was under the direction of 'Curator-in-Charge' Carden Wallace.[6] Whilst still at the museum, she was credited with first describing a number of corals including Acropora hoeksemai[8] and Acropora batunai in 1997.[9]

Wallace was named Director of the Museum of Tropical Queensland in 1997.[1] Its new building was opened in June 2000 by the Queensland Premier Peter Beattie.[10] In 1999, Wallace published an important work on corals titled "Staghorn Corals of the World: A Revision of the Genus Acropora". This was the first study in over a century of the genus Acropora, and it included a full description of each sub-species.[11]

Sally Lewis took over as director of the Queensland Tropical Museum in 2003.[12] In 2008, Wallace and others reported on the recovery of bio-diversity following the atomic explosion at Bikini Atoll. The team reported that there had been some recovery, but 28 types of coral were extinct.[13] In 2014, she described several new species including Acropora macrocalyx.[14] Wallace is a member of the board of OceanNEnvironment. When the Ocean Geographic Society ran a photographic competition in 2014, the award for seascapes was called the Carden Wallace Award.[15]