Garry McDonald is one of the founding directors of M.E. He has a PhD in ecological economics and previously held a position within Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research. Garry’s research interests focus on the integration of environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability and resilience, and the use of systems and data-science tools and techniques to assist public and private decision making within these contexts.
Over the past two decades Garry has successfully founded the M.E Research team, a group that uniquely combines research and consulting in the development of decision-support tools, starting from initial conception in innovative science, through to real-world application in policy evaluation and project feasibility studies. Through his wide experience Garry has developed an extensive network of research colleagues and commercial and public sector clients.
Garry presently co-leads the ‘Multi-Hazard Risk Model’ programme within the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge and co-leads the MBIE Endeavour research programme ‘Transitioning Taranaki to Volcanic Futures’. He has been an invited professor at Universite de Versailles (France) and has held or currently holds adjunct professorship roles at University of Auckland, University of Canterbury and Massey University.