Ben D’Antonio has successfully confirmed his PhD candidature!

15-June-2022 (written by Ben D’Antonio)

Ben D’Antonio has recently completed one of the major milestones towards his PhD candidature at The University of Western Australia: the presentation of his PhD defence in front of a panel of experts to confirm his candidature! This is a key step on Ben’s PhD journey and was the perfect opportunity for Ben to receive feedback and improve on the research he is planning to undertake over the next couple of years. 

Ben’s PhD research is embedded in the Gathaagudu Animal Tracking (GAT) and focuses on understanding the drivers of vertical and horizontal movements of sharks at World Heritage sites in Australia. Despite high resolution data records emerging for many shark species, knowledge gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between the biophysical drivers behind large scale migratory movements and its association with fine scale behavioural patterns within localised environments. Ben’s PhD  will address these knowledge gaps under the co-supervision of key researchers from the Australian National University,  University of Western Australia (UWA) Oceans Institute and the Australian Institute of Marine Science through the AIMS@UWA initiative. The overall aim of Ben’s PhD is to investigate the influence of environmental and biological features on the horizontal and vertical movements, habitat use and foraging behaviours of sharks. Congratulations to Ben for achieving this milestone and best the remainder of his PhD!

The opening slide of Ben’s defence presentation, showing his thesis title and supervisory team.