close to roads or in their favourite places." However the gaps need to be filled. So Dr Elith uses the available data to make statistical models based on the patterns and known relationships hidden within the data. She also takes into account weaknesses in the data and works to find a more robust model. Honours and professional contributions Elith is one of the most highly cited ecologists in Australia and internationally, despite only graduating in 2002. Over the past decade she has become the 11th most-cited author in the field of environment and ecology. In 2012, she was recognised by Thomson Reuters as a highly cited researcher, putting her in the top 1% of researchers globally. She presented her work to the National Press Club (Australia) on May 30, 2012. Only two people from the University of Melbourne were honoured with this award. Elith was also named in the 2014 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers in the Environment/Ecology category, awarded to researchers for having an exceptional impact by ranking in the top 1% most cited researchers in their field of study. In 2015 Elith was awarded the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in the Prime Minister's Prizes for Science, and in 2016 was awarded the Australian Ecology Research Award. She was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2017. Her 2006 paper on novel methods to improve prediction of species' distributions from occurrence data, by mid-2014, had been cited about 3,000 times (Google Scholar citations July 31, 2014). Other highly cited work includes her papers on boosted regression trees, her review of methods for spatial predictions, and her work on maximum entropy modeling. Elith has been a Subject Editor for Ecology (2009-), Diversity and Distributions (2013-), Biological Invasions (2011-2014) and Ecography (2007-2010). She has provided scientific advice to the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, the Australian Biosecurity System for Primary Production and the Environment, the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, and the Atlas of Living Australia. She has won numerous research grants and she routinely teaches specialist courses in spatial modeling. Selected publications Elith, J., Graham, C.H., Anderson, R.P., Dudík, M., Ferrier, S., Guisan, A., Hijmans, R.J., Huettmann, F., Leathwick, J.R., Lehmann, A., Li, J., Lohmann, L.G., Loiselle, B.A., Manion, G., Moritz, C., Nakamura, M., Nakazawa, Y., Overton, J.M., Peterson, A.T., Phillips, S.J., Richardson, K.S., Scachetti-Pereira, R., Schapire, R.E., Soberón, J.,