Professor Ivan Kennedy

Research interests

I’m interested in understanding and enhancing biological nitrogen fixation and finding out the environmental fate of pesticides.

My main area of research and teaching can be summarised as rural environmental chemistry with a strong microbiological emphasis such as in the SUNFix Centre for Nitrogen Fixation. Currently my main interest is the study of action in ecosystems, as a fundamental thermodynamic theory that transcends disciplines, with strong implications for sustaining the earth's biosphere. I have many collaborators in the Asian region, such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia, working on IDP, ACIAR, FAO, AusAID and DIFD-funded projects. I aim to continue productive collaboration with this region, with a view to encouraging all kinds of sustainable environmental action, in the planetary interest.

My research interests have been achieved in a number of collaborative enterprises, with more than $5 million of personal competitive funding since 1990. I’ve published four sole author books and edited five others with an international profile, covering topics such as biological nitrogen fixation, acidification of ecosystems, freeing agricultural produce and the environment of pesticide residues, inoculant biofertilisers and action in ecosystems.

Background

Ivan Kennedy graduated from the University of Western Australia in the 1960s and has been employed by the University of Sydney since 1968. He has also worked at the Universities of Leicester, Purdue, Nice, Leiden, Oxford (Pembroke College), Paris (Institut Pasteur), Shandong, Utrecht, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on fellowships, sabbatical leave or collaborative research projects. He has held a Personal Chair in Agricultural & Environmental Chemistry at the University of Sydney since 1995, where he has supervised 35 PhD and MSc postgraduate students, including 30 completed PhDs and masters degrees. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, was appointed as Visiting Professor in the University of Paris (Institut Pasteur) in 1993 and organised the 8th International Symposium on Nitrogen Fixation with Non-Legumes in 2000.

Recent publications

• Cong, P.T., Dung, T.D., Hien, T.M., Hien, N.T., Choudhury, A.T.M.A., Kecskés, M.L., Kennedy, I.R.
  Inoculant plant growth-promoting microorganisms enhance utilisation of urea-N and grain yield of paddy rice in southern Vietnam (2009) European Journal of Soil Biology, 45 (1), pp. 52-61.
• Crossan, A.N., Kennedy, I.R. Calculation of pesticide degradation in decaying cotton gin trash
  (2008) Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 81 (4), pp. 355-359.
• Burns, M., Crossan, A.N., Kennedy, I.R., Rose, M.T. Sorption and desorption of endosulfan sulfate and diuron to composted cotton gin trash (2008) Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 56 (13), pp. 5260-5265.
• Rose, M.T., Crossan, A.N., Kennedy, I.R. The effect of vegetation on pesticide dissipation from ponded treatment wetlands: Quantification using a simple model (2008) Chemosphere, 72 (7), pp. 999-1005.
• Ahmed, M.F., Kennedy, I.R., Choudhury, A.T.M.A., Kecskés, M.L., Deaker, R. Phosphorus adsorption in some australian soils and influence of bacteria on the desorption of phosphorus (2008) Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, 39 (9-10), pp. 1269-1294.
• Crossan, A.N., Rose, M.T., Kennedy, I.R. Pesticide risk reduction by management practices: An environmental case study of the Australian cotton industry (2007) ACS Symposium Series, 966, pp. 320-337.
• Li, C., Tyler, T., Van Zwieten, L., Lee, N.A., Kennedy, I.R. Optimisation of analytical method for estrogen in surface water and primary risk assessment in South Creek (2007) International Journal of Water, 3 (4), pp. 334-346.
• Choudhury, A.T.M.A., Kennedy, I.R., Ahmed, M.F., Kecskés, M.L. Phosphorus fertilization for rice and control of environmental pollution problems (2007) Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences, 10 (13), pp. 2098-2105.

Contact

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