Professor Peter Curson
Professor Peter Curson is a former Head of the School of Earth Sciences and Dean of the Division of Environmental and Life Sciences at Macquarie University. From 2001 until 2006 he was also Director of Macquarie University's Health Studies Program. A medical geographer with degrees from the Universities of Auckland and Tasmania, he has a background in population studies, demography, geography and public health.
The author/editor of seven books/monographs, including studies of plague, population and natural disasters, climate change and health, and health security, Professor Curson has a particular interest in population-health-environment interactions, epidemics of infectious disease and human behaviour, climate change and human health, and the population-health security linkage.
Professor Curson is a member of the National Consultative Group on Biosecurity Issues and the Egg Nutrition Advisory groups' Food Safety Task Force He is also a regular writer for the national media in Australia and New Zealand on population and health issues.
Recent Publications
Curson P 2009 ‘Permeable borders’, Online Opinion, 18 May. 
Curson P 2009 'Hysteria at fever pitch', The Australian, 29 April.
Curson P 2009 'When fantasy cruises run aground on reality', New Zealand Herald, 3 Feb.
Curson P 2009 'Modern life gives dengue its chance', The Australian, 31 January.
Curson P 2009 ‘The great land grab’, Online Opinion, 8 Jan.
Curson P 2008 'Health inequality', Online Opinion, 22 December.
Curson P 2008 ‘Smallpox Redux: An Australian Perspective’, Security Challenges, 4(3): 99-114
Curson P 2008 ‘To Hell in a rickshaw’, TGIF Edition, 28 November.
Curson P 2008 ‘Global uncertainty breeds trouble’, TGIF Edition, 21 November.
Curson P 2008 ‘Old age tension’, TGIF Edition, 14 November.
Curson P 2008 ‘End of the world?’, TGIF Edition, 21 October.
Curson P 2008 ‘The next epidemic’, TGIF Edition, 3 October.
Curson P 2008 ‘Fooling around with nature – at our peril’, TGIF Edition, 12 September.
Curson P and Herington J 2008 ‘The battle to secure our borders against a tiny, but lethal, enemy force’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August.
Curson P 2008 ‘In the footsteps of a colonist’, TGIF Edition, 15 August.
Curson P 2008 ‘Nice trees, shame about the traffic’, New Zealand Herald, 23 April.
Curson P 2008 'Costa geriatrica coming soon to a suburb near you', Online Opinion, 25 November.
Curson P 2008 ‘Biosecurity and infectious disease’, Online Opinion, 27 October.
Curson P 2008 'Populate or perish?', Online Opinion, 24 July.
Curson P 2008 'Contagion risk of huddled masses', Sydney Morning Herald, 21 July.
Curson P 2008 'Spurning vaccination invites epidemics', The Australian, 12-13 July.
Curson P 2008 'A political windfall', Online Opinion, 10 June.
Curson P 2007 'Only constant vigilance defends us from old and new diseases', The Australian, 3 November.
Curson P 2007 'When public health overrides private freedom', Sydney Morning Herald, 5 June.
Curson P 2007 'Dynamics of Population and our regional order', Online Opinion, 9 May.
Curson P 2007 'Bird flu has not gone away', Online Opinion, 27 February.
Curson P 2007 'We should be sick of these old infections', Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January.
Curson P and McCracken K 2006 'An Australian Perspective of the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic', NSW Public Health Bulletin, vol.17:7-8.
Curson P 2006 'The Geography of Pandemics', Geodate, vol.19:2.
Curson P 2006 'Pandemics, Panic, Bird Flu and the Globalisation of Fear', Keynote Address, IGU Commission on Health & the Environment Conference, Waiheke, NZ.
Curson P and Clarke L 2004 'Pathological Environments´' in Controversies in Environmental Sociology, ed. R.D. White, Cambridge University Press, pp. 238-56.
McCracken K and Curson P 2003 'Flu Downunder: A Demographic and Geographic Analysis of the 1919 Pandemic in Sydney' in The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19, ed. D. Killingray and H. Phillips, Routledge London, London.
Curson P 2003 'SARS, Australia and Global Health Security', What´s Next? Future Directions International, vol.June.
Curson P 2003 'Infectious Disease and National Security',Keynote Address, Military Health Conference, HMAS Penguin.