R. Quentin Grafton is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University and the Chairholder, the Australian National University-UNESCO Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance.

He previously served as the inaugural Chief Economist and Executive Director of the Australian Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (2011-2013) and as the President of the Australasian Agricultural and Resources Economics Society in 2017 and 2018. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Policy Forum.net, Editor of Global Water Forum, the Director of the Food, Energy, Environment and Water (FE2W) Network, which he helped establish, and is also the Convener of the Geneva Actions on Human Water Security.

He has published more than 150 scholarly articles in some of the world's leading journals in economics and the life sciences (such as Science three times), more than 40 chapters in books, 10 edited books and seven authored books including Risks, Rewards and Regulation of Unconventional Gas (2017, Cambridge University Press), Water Resources Planning and Management (2011, Cambridge University Press) and Handbook of Marine Fisheries Conservation and Management (2010, Oxford University Press).

He has served in numerous advisory roles and expert panels in Australia and overseas, and his is the recipient of several distinguished research prizes, including a Eureka Science Prize. He served as Chair of the Marine Estate Expert Knowledge Panel for New South Wales (2014-2018), Chair of the International Expert Group on Geothermal Energy (2013-2014) and Chair of the Social and Economics Reference Panel of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission (2008-2009).