Jerry is Professor for Sustainable Forestry, and Head of the School of Environmental Science and Management. Before joining SCU, he was Principal Scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research, and Professor of Tropical Forestry at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jerry received a higher doctorate (D.Sc.For.) from the University of Queensland in 1992, and was awarded the prestigious Queen's Award for Forestry in 1997.

Jerry leads SCU's research program in decision support systems for forest management (including growth modelling and yield prediction) and teaches the undergraduate subjects FOR00109 Forest Land Use and Management and FOR00110 Natural Resources Policy. His research interests focus on information systems and conflict resolution for forestry and land use management.

Jerry chaired the Expert Independent Advisory Panel to the Minister for the Environment in Victoria (2003-09), is a member of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication, and is a director of the Water and Carbon Group.

Jerry has written over 300 publications, more than 130 of which appear in refereed journals. He wrote the definitive text on forest growth modelling, Modelling Forest Growth and Yield. His latest book, published by Earthscan in 2006, is Realizing Community Futures, a guide to the use of participatory modelling for better environmental outcomes. He has written several myth-busting papers on private native forestry, on faunal richness, and on timber harvesting. Recent research includes mixed species plantings, competition indices, rainforest dynamics and participatory modelling.

His former PhD students include
William Smart, Information system success: evaluation of a carbon accounting and sequestration system
Mila Bristow, Growth of Eucalyptus pellita in mixed species and monoculture plantations
Maina Kariuki, Modelling dynamics including recruitment, growth and mortality for sustainable management in uneven-aged mixed-species rainforests
Gustav Nebel, Seven Amazonian floodplain trees: ecology and management in forestry and agroforestry
Thorsten Treue, Politics and Economics of Tropical High Forest Management
Søren Gram, Natural forest management among indigenous people in Latin America