Dr Leslie Roberson
Research Fellow
School of the Environment
Researcher biography
I grew up in Seattle in the Pacific Northwest of the US, and spent my childhood in on and around the water. I have a Bachelors in Environmental Studies from Yale University (on the Long Island Sound, not the most beautiful body of water) and a Masters in Applied Marine Science from the University of Cape Town (surrounded by stunning vibrant incredible ocean!). I've been lucky to work on a wide variety of conservation and management projects around the world, including Latin America, Africa, and more recently Oceania and Southeast Asia. As a marine scientist, I'm passionate about all things fisheries, except actually doing the fishing (which I am very bad at). I'm also one of the few surfers who wants to see more sharks in the water. My research straddles the marine conservation and fisheries management fields, including work with fisher behaviour and bycatch reduction (see here for some featured projects), fishing impacts on threatened marine species, and seafood trade dynamics. Ultimately, my interest is improving the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability of fishing and seafood in Australia and globally.
Here at UQ I am a member of the UQ Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science and the Ocean Conservation Team led by A/Prof Carissa Klein.
Publications
Journal Articles
Roberson, Leslie A., Brown, Christopher J., Klein, Carissa J., Game, Edward T. and Wilcox, Chris (2025). Opportunity to leverage tactics used by skilled fishers to address persistent bycatch challenges. Fish and Fisheries, 26 (2), 193-202. doi: 10.1111/faf.12873
Roberson, Leslie, Hosch, Gilles, Wilcox, Chris, Domiguez-Martinez, Rosa Mar, Sant, Glenn and Klein, Carissa (2025). A new seafood import policy for nations to combat illegal fishing. Conservation Letters, 18 (1) e13091. doi: 10.1111/conl.13091
Dominguez-Martinez, Rosa Mar, Roberson, Leslie, Gephart, Jessica, Wilcox, Chris, Sant, Glenn and Klein, Carissa (2024). Environmental law reform needed to manage trade of Australia’s threatened marine species. npj Ocean Sustainability, 3 (1) 45. doi: 10.1038/s44183-024-00085-3
Vella, Tia, Roberson, Leslie, Kuempel, Caitie and Klein, Carissa (2023). Quantifying the accessibility of sustainable seafood in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. Marine and Freshwater Research, 74 (15), 1340-1354. doi: 10.1071/mf23054
Roberson, L. A., Beyer, H. L., O'Hara, C., Watson, J. E. M., Dunn, D. C., Halpern, B. S., Klein, C. J., Frazier, M. R., Kuempel, C. D., Williams, B., Grantham, H. S., Montgomery, J. C., Kark, S. and Runting, R. K. (2022). Multinational coordination required for conservation of over 90% of marine species (vol 27, pg 6206, 2021). Global Change Biology, 28 (22), 6834-6834. doi: 10.1111/gcb.16401
Roberson, Leslie, Wilcox, Chris, Boussarie, Germain, Dugan, Emma, Garilao, Cristina, Gonzalez, Kristofer, Green, Madeline, Kark, Salit, Kaschner, Kristin, Klein, Carissa J., Rousseau, Yannick, Vallentyne, Dan, Watson, James E. M. and Kiszka, Jeremy J. (2022). Spatially explicit risk assessment of marine megafauna vulnerability to Indian Ocean tuna fisheries. Fish and Fisheries, 23 (5), 1180-1201. doi: 10.1111/faf.12676
Roberson, Leslie A., Beyer, Hawthorne L., O’Hara, Casey, Watson, James E. M., Dunn, Daniel C., Halpern, Benjamin S., Klein, Carissa J., Frazier, Melanie R., Kuempel, Caitlin D., Williams, Brooke, Grantham, Hedley S., Montgomery, Jamie C., Kark, Salit and Runting, Rebecca K. (2022). Multinational coordination required for conservation of over 90% of marine species. Global Change Biology, 27 (23), 6206-6216. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15844
Williams, Brooke A., Watson, James E. M., Beyer, Hawthorne L., Klein, Carissa J., Montgomery, Jamie, Runting, Rebecca K., Roberson, Leslie A., Halpern, Benjamin S, Grantham, Hedley S., Kuempel, Caitlin D., Frazier, Melanie, Venter, Oscar and Wenger, Amelia (2022). The global rarity of intact coastal regions. Conservation Biology, 36 (4) e13874, 1-12. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13874
Roberson, Leslie A. and Wilcox, Chris (2022). Bycatch rates in fisheries largely driven by variation in individual vessel behaviour. Nature Sustainability, 1-9. doi: 10.1038/s41893-022-00865-0
López‐Cubillos, Sofía, Muñoz‐Ávila, Lina, Roberson, Leslie A., Suárez‐Castro, Andrés F., Ochoa‐Quintero, Jose Manuel, Crouzeilles, Renato, Gallo‐Cajiao, Eduardo, Rhodes, Jonathan, Dressler, Wolfram, Martinez‐Harms, María José and Runting, Rebecca K. (2021). The landmark Escazú Agreement: an opportunity to integrate democracy, human rights, and transboundary conservation. Conservation Letters, 15 (1) e12838. doi: 10.1111/conl.12838
Roberson, Leslie A., Watson, Reg A. and Klein, Carissa J. (2020). Over 90 endangered fish and invertebrates are caught in industrial fisheries. Nature Communications, 11 (1) 4764, 1-8. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18505-6
Roberson, Leslie A., Kiszka, Jeremy J. and Watson, James E. M. (2019). Need to address gaps in global fisheries observation. Conservation Biology, 33 (4) cobi.13265, 966-968. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13265
Tulloch, Ayesha I. T., Auerbach, Nancy, Avery-Gomm, Stephanie, Dickman, Chris R., Fisher, Diana O., Grantham, Hedley, Holden, Matthew H., Lavery, Tyrone H., Leseberg, Nicholas P., O’Connor, James, Roberson, Leslie, Smyth, Anita K., Stone, Zoe, Tulloch, Vivitskaia, Turak, Eren, Watson, James E. M. and Wardle, Glenda M. (2019). Reply to ‘Consider species specialism when publishing datasets’ and ‘Decision trees for data publishing may exacerbate conservation conflict’. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 3 (3), 320-321. doi: 10.1038/s41559-019-0805-6
Tulloch, Ayesha I. T., Auerbach, Nancy, Avery-Gomm, Stephanie, Bayraktarov, Elisa, Butt, Nathalie, Dickman, Chris R., Ehmke, Glenn, Fisher, Diana O., Grantham, Hedley, Holden, Matthew H., Lavery, Tyrone H., Leseberg, Nicholas P., Nicholls, Miles, O'Connor, James, Roberson, Leslie, Smyth, Anita K., Stone, Zoe, Tulloch, Vivitskaia, Turak, Eren, Wardle, Glenda M. and Watson, James E. M. (2018). A decision tree for assessing the risks and benefits of publishing biodiversity data. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2 (8), 1209-1217. doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0608-1
Roberson, Leslie A., Lagabrielle, Erwann, Lombard, Amanda T., Sink, Kerry, Livingstone, Tamsyn, Grantham, Hedley and Harris, Jean M. (2017). Pelagic bioregionalisation using open-access data for better planning of marine protected area networks. Ocean & Coastal Management, 148, 214-230. doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2017.08.017
Roberson, L. A., Attwood, C. G., Winker, H., Cockroft, A. C. and Van Zyl, D. L. (2017). Potential application of baited remote underwater video to survey abundance of west coast rock lobster Jasus lalandii. Fisheries Management and Ecology, 24 (1), 49-61. doi: 10.1111/fme.12201
Roberson, L., Winker, H., Attwood, C., De Vos, L., Sanguinetti, C. and Götz, A. (2015). First survey of fishes in the Betty's Bay Marine Protected Area along South Africa's temperate south-west coast. African Journal of Marine Science, 37 (4), 543-556. doi: 10.2989/1814232x.2015.1110045
Preprint
Roberson, Leslie, Hosch, Gilles, Wilcox, Chris, Dominguez Martinez, Rosa Mar, Sant, Glenn and Klein, Carissa (2024). A new seafood import policy for nations to combat illegal fishing. doi: 10.20944/preprints202401.1003.v2
Thesis
Roberson, Leslie Amlwch (2021). Reducing fishing impacts on species of conservation concern at multiple scales. PhD Thesis, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/b57face
Research Reports
Kiszka, Jeremy J., Marchant, Katrina and Roberson, Leslie (2023). Ecological risk assessment of cetaceans to Indian Ocean tuna fisheries. Technical Report Victoria Mahé, Seychelles: Indian Ocean Tuna Commission.
Hosch, Gilles, Roberson, Leslie, Cottrell, Richard, Harrison, Emily, Klein, Carissa, Domiguez-Martinez, Rosa Mar, Sant, Glenn and Wilcox, Chris (2023). Measures to prevent the importation of illegal, unreported and unregulated seafood: Discussion paper. Brisbane, Australia: The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/0fd4e88
Roberson, Leslie, Reside, April and Rutherford, Caitlin (2022). Submission on burning native forest timber (biomass burning) for energy production. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water .
Roberson, Leslie, Tibbetts, Ian and Davey, Madeline (2021). Submission to Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Newspaper Articles
Roberson, Leslie and Wilcox, Chris (2022, 04 05). Dolphins, turtles and birds don’t have to die in fishing gear – skilled fishers can avoid it The Conversation
Roberson, Leslie and Klein, Carissa (2020, 10 07). What are you really eating? How threatened ‘seafood’ species slip through the law and onto your plate The Conversation