5 minutes with 2022 ACARP Research Excellence Award winner, Michael Cole

Driven by a deep interest in plants, Michael Cole’s (Bsc '85) career as a scientist began after more than 10-years working in traffic planning and engineering. After relocating from London to Sydney, his natural curiosity for plant physiology prompted him to pursue a science degree as a mature-age student. After completing his studies, Michael continued his research and teaching at the University of Sydney, specialising in mangrove physiology.

He later joined the University of Newcastle where he established the 'Centre for Sustainable Ecosystem Restoration'. In 2013, he retired from academia and established CSER Research Pty Ltd, a consultancy dedicated to restoring ecosystem function, including on tailings dams. His innovative approach recently gained industry recognition, culminating in the prestigious ACARP Research Excellence Award in 2022.

In some ways, I am doing what I did as a child, but today I use very expensive scientific equipment. My path to becoming a scientist was somewhat unconventional. My parents were poor working-class people and I left school at 15. I got a job as a clerk in a construction company and as a young person, I aspired to be an architect.

I later moved into traffic and transport planning and after some time, I decided to migrate to Australia and got a job as a traffic engineer. 18 months later I began my own practice with a local architect-planner who was a University of Sydney graduate, and we developed ‘The Planning and Design Team’.

As young planning enthusiasts, we used published scientific data for landscape evaluation, and this heightened my interest in plants and why they live in some places and not in others. When the recession happened in the 1990s, it became difficult for our small group to survive, and my partners moved on.

I decided to return to study as a mature-aged student and applied to the University of Sydney. I wanted to focus on my original ‘great interest in plants.’ In my second-year botany course, I was introduced to mangrove physiology and that's where my interest was born.

I became involved in Bill Allaway’s Mangrove Research Group and at the end of my bachelor's degree I continued to assist with research and became a tutor in the laboratory for the second-year mangrove physiology course and in other subjects.

My favourite memories of being at Sydney are many. Studying and teaching plant biology led not only to personal achievements but helping young people achieve excellence was a special part of teaching for me.

My research into mangrove physiology allowed me to interact with other scientists including Bill Allaway, Mark Curran and Penny Goulter. This was an important formative phase of my development as a scientist. 

If a path is open for you to follow your passion and you are willing to pay the price, do it. I often say that I am lucky, I don’t ‘have to go to work’, I go because ‘I enjoy it’. Few people, in my opinion, get the chance to say that. That’s why at 75, I’m still doing it. It is part of the driving force in science that it’s not about dollars it’s about learning and advancement of knowledge.

Some of the challenges I faced in the transition from academia to consultancy were the regulatory reporting requirements, losing recognition as a member of a university and increased difficulty in gaining research funding. A key learning for funding applications is to find the right support from members of the industry that will ‘champion’ funding applications.

Following many failed applications for my research on tailings dams, when a major dam failure in Brazil killed over 200 people after an earth tremor, interest in my approach for rehabilitation was strengthened. I got lucky and found a senior member of the coal industry who understood my approach. They were able to guide us on the engineering issues related to the artificial dams, and the grant application.

We finally gained funding from the industry, which led us to be awarded the ACARP Research Excellence Award in 2022. Since then, we have been supported to develop the method towards the incorporation of these dams into rehabilitation areas to diversify habitat at the mines, and the work continues.

Although I never doubted myself, as a working-class kid, to get into university, the University of Sydney, was special. Also, seeing young people achieve is special and I still remember when my first PhD candidate received her degree.

Finally, as one of my Professors at Sydney used to say to me “I’ve got to give you one thing – you are persistent”.