Thiele, Kevin R. (fl. 1980s - 2010s)

Kevin Thiele has a slightly odd history.

After training as a botanist in the 1980s – with a PhD studying the family relationships of Banksia and a stint working at the Australian National Herbarium – he moved to a small farm in far eastern Victoria with his family. There they lived in two converted 90-year-old railway carriages, raised alpacas, studied native violets, grew vegetables, grew children, invented a computer program and lived the good life for twelve years.

Then he got a real job. From 2006 - 2015 he was Curator of the Western Australian Herbarium.

His main claim to fame at that time was that just before taking up his position in Perth he wrote a paper merging together two of the most iconic Western Australian genera – Dryandra and Banksia, with considerable community backlash.

Since 2015 he has worked on some major botanical undertakings, including:
      KeyBase, Identifying Australia's Plants — A key to all flowering plants in Australia, and
      A Decadal Plan for taxonomy and systematics in Australia and New Zealand.

Career trajectory:

1983
Technical Assistant, National Herbarium of Victoria

1985
Graduate research assistant, Australian National Herbarium, CSIRO, Canberra
(systematics of Melaleuca)

1986-8
Casual Lecturer and Demonstrator, The University of Melbourne

1984-9
Botanical illustrator, The University of Melbourne and New South Wales National Herbarium

1988-98
Tutor, Council of Adult Education, Melbourne, plant identification and leading natural history tours in Victoria, Western Australia and Central and Northern Australia

1992
Contract Botanist, Australian National Botanic Gardens Herbarium, Endangered Species Unit, Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service

1993-5
Post - doctoral Fellow , Australian National Herbarium, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, preparing Flora of Australia treatment for the family Rhamnaceae

1995-2006
Botanical Consultant, Ecological Interactions, with Dr Suzanne Prober

1995-2000
Consultant, Centre for Pest Information Technology and Transfer, The University of Queensland

2000-11
Adjunct Associate Professor, Centre for Biological Information Technology, The University of Queensland

2006-15
Curator, Western Australian Herbarium, Department of Parks and Wildlife

2012 –
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia

2016 –
Consultant in systematics and biodiversity policy, Eubio Consulting.

Source: Pers Com 2007, CV for Eubio Consulting (2017)
Portrait Photo: 1999 M.Fagg

Herbarium specimen collecting sites for 'Thiele, K.R.' from AVH (20/2/2017)

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