Little, Emma (née Pharo)   (fl. 2010s - )

Emma Pharo was born in Melbourne, Australia to a family very keen on being outdoors and camping.

She did a BSc at the University of Melbourne. Emma's interest in bryophytes came about after she joined Professor Andy Beattie's biodiversity research lab at Macquarie University. While most of the lab members were focused on invertebrates, Emma's interest has always been botanical.

A random conversation between Alison Downing and Professor Dale Vitt at a conference led to Emma gaining a post-doc with Dale at the University of Alberta, Canada.

At the University of Alberta, Emma and Dale worked with a team of foresters, economists, and social researchers on resilient forest ecosystems. Two years into the post-doc and three days after marrying a Canadian, Rich Little, Emma was offered a faculty position at the University of Tasmania. In a substantial leap of faith, Rich consented to moving to the other side of the world where they started a new life in Tasmania.

While she began her career as an ecologist, a series of opportunities have seen her morph into an environmental planner. She is now a teaching intensive academic delivering units into the Master of Environmental Geospatial Science and the Master of Planning.

She has become particularly interested in bryophyte diversity in Australian landscapes, often wuth an applied edge.

Most of her plant collections in Australian herbaria are under the name: Emma Pharo.

A more detailed biography is available at: https://bryology.org/emma-little-nee-pharo/

Source: Extracted from: Bryological Times 155 - Special Edition: Women in Bryology (2022)
Portrait Photo: Photo supplied by Little to Chris Cargill (ANBG)

Collecting localities for 'Pharo, E.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 97 specimens