AIMS WA has established a new home in the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce building at 16 Phillimore Street. The scientist in charge of the Institute’s WA operations, Dr Andrew Heyward, leads a team comprising two experimental scientists, Max Rees and Luke Smith, as well as support officer Rachel Waugh. The staff have only a two-minute walk from their new office to laboratory space leased at the Fremantle Maritime Centre attached to Murdoch University.

AIMS has been at the forefront of expeditionary marine research in WA waters since 1994, producing insights into the north-west’s tropical reef systems and developing new technologies for reef rehabilitation and surveys of the deep ocean floor. Much of this research has resulted from co-investment with the petroleum industry and government marine management agencies. While a research facility at Dampier closed last year, AIMS maintains a very active presence in WA and expects over the next five years to use its new base in Fremantle to build on scientific expertise in early life-histories of corals and surveys of tropical marine ecosystems. Collaboration is vital to this research and AIMS WA will work hard to strengthen linkages with industry and government, as well as scientists at universities and other science organisations.