Dr Rebecca Harris

Awarded for service to education; science and research; environment

1 August 1969 – 24 December 2021

Entered on roll: 2023

"Improving the understanding of life on Earth under global heating"

Dr Rebecca (Bec) Harris was a prestigious climate scientist who helped put Tasmania on the map for climate change research.

Dr Harris was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Senior Lecturer in Climatology at the University of Tasmania. She authored 66 publications, won numerous research contracts and consultancy projects, and was awarded a prestigious Humboldt Fellowship in 2016.

In 2018, Dr Harris was appointed Director of the University’s Climate Futures Program. Under Dr Harris’ leadership, Climate Futures achieved global recognition. The Climate Futures work that Dr Harris contributed to is foundational to climate- related planning and decision-making for Tasmanian State and Local Governments. Climate Futures has also led to a better understanding of climate change threats to Tasmanian agriculture and provided insights about the bushfire implications for people.

Dr Harris gained national recognition for leading a multidisciplinary team of 15 researchers who launched Australia’s Wine Future: A Climate Atlas in 2020.

One of Dr Harris’ most impactful research papers illustrates why ecosystems collapse suddenly under the pressures of slow climate change, and extreme weather events. “Biological responses to the press and pulse of climate trends and extreme events” was published in the journal, Nature Climate Change.

In 2019, Dr Harris was selected for the Working Group II report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 6. Every one of the 195 United Nations governments makes use of these reports. For many developing countries, the reports are their only resource for climate- related decision making. Dr Harris was a lead author for “Chapter 2, Terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and their services” and the Cross Chapter paper “Deserts, semi-arid areas and desertification” released on 28 February 2022.

Dr Harris supervised many postgraduate students. In 2020 she led the development of two new undergraduate units in the Diploma of Sustainability at the University of Tasmania. Both climate change units have been extremely popular.

Dr Harris died on Christmas Eve 2021, after a battle with cancer.

Dr Harris is survived by her husband John Harkin and their two adult children, Theodore and Francesca.