Gaia Resources is a consultancy that responsibly delivers sustainable technology solutions to companies that work with the environment. We have been operating since 2004, and have developed a strong reputation for providing quality services and ensuring the best for our clients.

Our Values

Gaia Resources operates under a simple set of values.

• We minimise the environmental impact of everything that we do,
• We deliver the best holistic solution for our clients,
• We are responsible for our work, and
• We support open software and open data.

You can also see our Quality Policy and our Information Security and Management System Policy, which enshrine these values into our processes.  In addition to this we are also a Carbon Neutral company, as we announced in November 2020.

Our Team

Our people come from a diverse range of backgrounds which means we can deliver a wide range of solutions to our clients.  We have staff based in Perth (our main office), Brisbane, Darwin and other occasional locations around Australia.

	Sarah Aldrich Junior Support Engineer Sarah joined the Gaia support team in 2020. After working in archives and museums, she has moved to a technical role and enjoys supporting the systems she once relied upon. Posts
	Sean Anderson Software Engineer Sean joined us in 2017 with a Bachelor of Computer Science and now works across a variety of projects, with a particular focus on collections and archives management. He has a passion for gardening with native flora, and hasn’t killed any plants that didn’t deserve it.
	Sara Cave Junior Support Engineer Sara has joined the Brisbane office to provide technical support on a wide range of projects. Sara has a Bachelor of Engineering and Diploma of Information Technology. In her spare time she likes creating art and playing tennis.
	Alex Chapman Consulting Scientist Formerly from the Western Australian Herbarium, Alex is a taxonomist and biodiversity informatics specialist with a wealth of experience in this field. Alex has a Bachelor of Science (Botany and Biochemistry), a Masters prelim. (Botany) and a Postgrad Diploma in Computer Science. Alex works across a range of areas including collections, citizen science and business development. Posts | Publications
	Voon-Li Chung Software Engineer Voon-Li previously worked with Gaia Resources on contract, assisting us in the development of a number of mobile development projects. He joined us in January 2018 in a full-time role, and is constantly trying to get us to convert from Star Wars to Star Trek.
	Jordan Connell DevOps Engineer Jordan joined our team as a DevOps Engineer and also took over from Sean as the tallest person in the office. Jordan has a range of skills in devops, software development and cloud architecture and also brings the memes whenever we need them.
	Tracey Cousens Business Developer Tracey has a Bachelor of Environmental Science, specialising in invertebrates as ecological indicators. She holds the mantle of shortest person at Gaia Resources (but cannot hold it very high). 2021 will see Tracey join the business development team, as well as continuing to run our spatial training courses. In her spare time she likes to aggressively hit her house with a sledge hammer. Posts
	Sophie Darnell Project Manager Sophie is in our Brisbane office as one of our project managers helping us to deliver larger projects across the east coast of Australia. Sophie has a degree in Business and Commerce (majoring in Information Technology Management) from the University of Southern Queensland and has previously worked as a Technical Support Team Leader at Virgin Airlines, and a Business Analyst and Project Coordinator at the CSIRO.
	Andrew Dennison Chief Operations Officer Andrew has a background in geography and data management with considerable Geographical Information Systems experience. His previous roles include GIS Consultant, GIS Manager, Spatial Database Administrator and Account Manager. Andrew has worked in the public and private sectors in Australia and New Zealand. Posts
	Megan Edward Business Analyst Megan joined the Brisbane office in late 2018, having worked on projects in the energy, resources and environmental sectors. Megan has a Bachelor of Environmental Science and whilst at Gaia Resources has taken on various roles, including project manager, scrum master and business analyst.
	Marion Garin Senior Project Manager Marion has been working in the Software industry since 2006, after enjoying being a Consultant for many years she evolved towards management-based roles such as Project Manager and PMO Lead. She has a Bachelor in Social & Economics, a postgraduate degree in Information System and a Master in Marketing. Today at Gaia Resources, as a Senior PM and Unit Lead, she applies her broad range of expertise and energy to take the project delivery to the next level.
	Jake Geddes Senior Spatial Analyst Jake Geddes joined Gaia Resources with a Bachelor of Science (Cartography and GIS) and takes on the wide range of work we do in the spatial arena. Posts
	Jason Grzywna Junior Support Engineer Jason joined Gaia Resources with a Bachelor of Computer Science, and works as part of our Support Team to ensure changes to our client’s software and systems continue to function and adapt to new IT environments.
	Kehan Harman Technical Architect Kehan is a Software Engineer at Gaia Resources working on collection management and biodiversity informatics projects among others. He comes from a background in natural history (collection management and taxonomy at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the British Natural History Museum) and specialises in building major applications for scientific communities. He has an MSc. in Biodiversity Informatics and undergraduate qualifications in Botany (Honours) and Microbiology. Publications
	Piers Higgs Chief Executive Officer Piers is the founder and Director of Gaia Resources, and apart from being the CEO he also leads our business development efforts. He has worked with the environmental industry for most of his career, and has a range of experience in GIS, ecology and data management. He has a Bachelor of Science (Geography), a Diploma in Journalism, a Masters in Business Administration, and has finally upgraded to a new motorbike. Posts
	Serge Le Breton Technical Architect Serge has just joined the team at Gaia Resources as a software engineer.  Serge has been working on a range of projects using our systems and products with a number of clients, and hails from a diverse background of software engineering in France, New Zealand and Australia .  Serge has a Masters in Engineering and a Masters in Quantum Mechanics.
	Gus Mackay Support Coordinator Joining the Gaia Resources crew in 2020, Gus has moved from PM/BD to assist in the support side of the company. Leveraging 20+ years of support in all facets from helping single traders and retail, to Enterprise and Government. When not supporting, Gus can be found tinkering with cars, video games or smoking out the neighbours with his BBQ cooking. Posts
	Sushma Narayan DevOps Engineer Sushma joined us in 2020, having worked in a range of DevOps and release management roles here in Australia and before that in the UK and India.
	Tawanda Nyakudjga Software Engineer Tawanda joined Gaia Resosurces in 2020, holds a Bachelor of Computer Science and works across a variety of projects in the company with a particular focus on archives and collections. He also has a passion for soccer, follows the premier league and plays social soccer.
	George Petrinovich Technical Tester George fulfils the specialist position of technical tester and is involved across the company in a range of projects improving the quality of our deliverables.
	Tony Prior Technical Architect Tony is a technical lead at Gaia Resources, working on a range of GIS, biodiversity and other projects. Since joining Gaia, he has worked on numerous Django related projects, including GRID, Corals of the World and Hydra. More recently, Tony has specialised in Angular front-end development as well as spent considerable time on Drupal projects. Tony comes with a varied background in the field of software development, including radiology medical systems and game development. Tony has a PhD in Computer Science – his thesis investigated haptics and virtual environments, as well as a Bachelor degree in Computer and Mathematical Science.
	Chris Roach Project Manager Chris joined us in late 2016 with a strong background in geography, GIS consultancy, environmental science and information technology, and works across a range of projects involving environmental technology and analytics. Chris started his career as a Geologist and then moved into the technical GIS arena before taking on team co-ordination and project delivery roles. Even as the manager of our Darwin office, Chris still manages to get his Canadian skates on for ice hockey! Posts
	Drew Robinson Software Engineer Drew joined us in December 2018, after many years working in the WA state government. His background is in content management systems and web application development, with a strong focus on Drupal in recent years. He also enjoys venturing into DevOps territory when required.
	Tania Ryan Support Coordinator Tania joined us as our East Coast Support Coordinator after a lengthy career in the Travel Industry. Tania’s wealth of customer support knowledge, Help Desk leadership and Global Distribution system support, assisted Tania in her first Support Coordinator role for the Queensland State Archives. In Tania’s spare time she is a mad keen sailor. Posts
	Jeff Schneider Business Analyst Jeff is a Collections Analyst with over 15 years experience in web and database development on a variety of projects. He has a Masters of Information Management from Curtin University and lives in beautiful Hobart.
	Dr Mieke Strong Consulting Scientist Mieke’s background is in taxonomy and data management, having a PhD from the University of Queensland in parasites of marine fish. She works on a range of projects at Gaia Resources, mainly focused on collections data management, environmental science, and data science. Posts | Publications
	Shay Telfer Senior DevOps Engineer Shay joined us as a software engineer with a focus on sysops infrastructure and deployment areas, while continuing to work on development of a number of our systems and projects.
	Billy Thornton Senior Support Engineer As a Senior Support Engineer, Unit Lead and ISO Security officer, Billy wears many hats. In his leisure hours he is a very successful international man of mystery.
	Meg Travers Business Analyst Meg has worked in IT and digital services management roles for collecting organisations for over 15 years. She has post graduate degrees in music, and has particular interests in digital preservation, and the preservation of complex objects. Outside of work, she attempts to keep her goat out of her neighbours gardens, and plays drums and trautonium. Publications
	Gill White Project Manager Gill is a Technical Project Manager with a background in project management, environmental science and spatial analysis, including managing an extensive program of river condition assessment across the southern half of Western Australia. Shortly after joining the team in 2019, Gill also took on the role of Quality Manager and is passionate about continually improving the quality of our products and services for our clients. Posts | Publications
	Simon Wicha Technical Architect Simon is a senior software engineer that has taken on the role of leading our mobile application development. Simon has a range of experience and has already been heavily involved in our various mobile projects.
	Brianna Williams Senior Software Engineer Brianna (Bri) joined the team to provide us with additional software engineering skills in our growing Brisbane office – and we get to see her cat on our team meeting videoconferences.
	Barbara Zakrzewska Spatial Analyst Barbara is one of our Spatial Analysts. With a background in geology, Barbara has worked in a range of spatial roles within the resources community, both in Perth and South Africa, and joins our spatial team to support a range of our clients. Posts