James is a Senior Lecturer in Freshwater and Marine Ecology, in the School of Life Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. Working in Freshwater and Estuarine Research Group his research focuses on food webs, water quality and environmental management in freshwater and coastal environments. His main interest is understanding how management approaches can be used to restore and maintain ecosystems and their functions. He has expertise in food web ecology and modelling, environmental flows, fish and invertebrate ecology, plastic pollution, and carbon biogeochemistry. James has led multiple large-scale projects in collaboration with government and university partners. He has experience implementing environmental reforms and engaging with a diversity of stakeholders from industry and the public sector. James has experience teaching and coordinating units on ecology, aquatic science and environmental management, with specialised skills in interdisciplinary and project unit curriculum development. He is the coordinator for 91121 Aquatic Ecosystems.

James has held previous positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Applied Water Sciences, University of Canberra, and Lecturer at the University of Sydney. His PhD in Environmental Science was completed at UTS, and completed a Graduate Certificate in Education Studies (Higher Education) at the University of Sydney in 2019. He was awarded the 2010 Peter Cullen Scholarship and 2016 Tony Roach Award for best paper by an early career researcher in Estuarine and Marine Science. James is the former founder and co-host of Third Degree - Environmental Justice Show on 2SER 107.3 and winner of the 2010 UTS Human Rights Award for Creative Media. James is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.