Paul Irwin Forster obtained his doctorate in 2004 with his thesis: The pursuit of plants: studies on the systematics, ecology and chemistry of the vascular flora of Australia and related regions, from the University of Queensland.
He has worked at the Queensland Herbarium since 1991 as a plant taxonomist and has been editor of ‘'Austrobaileya’' since 2005. His research interests are the systematics of vascular plants and reproductive and conservation biology of cycads.
He has also published extensively on plant-insect interactions. See, e.g.,