Lily Ishak

Dr Lily Ishak’s leadership in her field is contributing significant outcomes to both Indonesia and Australia. After completing her PhD studies in 2017, she won a prestigious Australia Award Grant to lead a project educating Indonesian farmers to become more financially and environmentally sustainable.

Lily’s project is based on using the Beauty Leaf Tree (BLT), native to Indonesia, as a source of biofuel (biokerosine and biodiesel) to reduce dependency on fossil fuel energy, and retaining plantings to reduce soil erosion from windstorms, improve degraded mining land, and address the threat of BLT extinction through land clearing. The project empowers the local farming community and student volunteers with knowledge and skills to farm, harvest and utilise the BLT to improve agricultural returns, land and resource sustainability and provide an economic driver to maintain BLT stocks.

Lily has continued her engagement with CQUniversity, with her collaborative research contributing to international presentations in the horticultural field.

Thesis title: Soil microbial communities and disease suppression as affected by soil compaction resulting from different management strategies