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Dr. Debashish Dev is an applied social researcher whose work spans energy transitions, agricultural development, and communication for social change. His research explores how policy, technology, and knowledge systems are received, contested, or reshaped through social systems, particularly when transitions are complex, uneven, or resisted. He is particularly interested in how learning from implementation challenges, social risk, and overlooked or discontinued ideas can inform more inclusive, adaptive, and context-aware planning.

At the University of Queensland’s Gas and Energy Transition Research Centre, Dr. Dev contributes to research on local benefit-sharing, public discourses on energy policies, social risk assessments, and community engagement strategies in key energy transition regions. He also works on participatory approaches to community-based monitoring and social impact assessment in strategic regional development.

His academic background bridges development sociology, agricultural extension, and communication studies. He has designed and taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in research methods, data and society, and communication for social change, including COMU2030: Communication Research Methods, COMU1130: Data & Society, HHSS6000: Research Design, and COMU7102: Communication for Social Change—Foundations at UQ. He has also contributed to course development at QUT (QUT You 003: Real Action for Real Change), creating content on systemic responses to global challenges, including food security, public health, and environmental risk.

Before his work in Australia, Dr. Dev taught and researched at Bangladesh Agricultural University and FAO Bangladesh, focusing on agricultural extension, climate change adaptation, and technology transfer.

Dr Mahshid Firouzi is an Honorary Associate Professor at UQ Gas & Energy Transition Research Centreand an Associate Professor at the College of Engineering, Science and Environment at the University of Newcastle (Australia).

Dr Firouzi has a strong interest in both fundamental and practical research, collaborating with industry and various disciplines across a broad range of areas with a focus on Energy and Resources. Her research projects are centered on the experimental investigation and mathematical modeling of interfacial interactions in multiphase flows (foams/emulsions, bubble coalescence, thin liquid films) and process optimisation of engineering processes. She particularly focuses on the application of bio-inspired reagents in eco-efficient beneficiation of minerals and clean energy production as well recycling vaulable minerals from EoL PVs.

Her research achievements have been recognised through multiple awards including the 2018 UQ Engineering Faculty Early Career Researcher Award and being one of two Australian female scientists profiled by the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia.

More information about A/Prof Firouzi's research can be found here.

Sebastian is an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow at The University of Queensland's Centre for Natural Gas. Sebastian has a Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate in Environmental Engineering through the University of Stuttgart. His research interests include geostatistics, stochastic modelling, and copula-based non-linear geostatistics.

Ray is currently Professor of Well Engineering & Production Technology in the School of Chemical Engineering and Energi Simulation Co-chair in the Centre for Natural Gas. There he is researching projects related to low permeability, unconventional reservoirs (i.e., tight gas, coal seam gas, shale gas reservoir). In addition, he is an instructor and course coordinator in several courses in the ME Petroleum Engineering program at the University of Queensland.

Outside of teaching and research, Prof Johnson is the Principal at Unconventional Reservoir Solutions, a provider of reservoir engineering, stimulation consulting, and training services to the petroleum and mining industry, focusing on unconventional resources such as gas or oil from coal, shale, or naturally fractured reservoirs.

From 2014 to 2020 Ray was an Adjunct Associate Professor at the ASP, University of Adelaide.

Hamish MacDonald is a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland School of Law. His research interests include intellectual property law, international law, and law and technology. His recent work focuses on the international regulation of genetic resources, the technical and digital infrastructures underlying legal systems, and the use of standardisation and abstraction in the operation of regulatory regimes.

Julie’s research is mainly focussed on gas-water-rock core reactivity at reservoir conditions using experimental, field, and geochemical modelling techniques. Recent projects have been in the application of carbon dioxide geological storage in which CO2 is captured and stored in formations generally contained by low permeability cap-rock. The safe containment of the injected CO2 and the potential changes to rock porosity, permeability, and water quality should be determined. Recent and current projects with a focus on a demonstration site in the Surat Basin (Precipice Sandstone) include the impacts of impurity or acid gases present in industrial CO2 streams (collaboration with D. Kirste, SFU), inducing carbonate precipitation (in collaboration with S. Golding), and understanding dissolved metal sources and fate. Julie has also worked closely with the CO2CRC, CTSCo, Glencore, SEAL, the NSW government, CI-NSW, and ANLEC R&D, and provided expert opinion to the Queensland Government, and input to Environmental Impacts Assessments.

Julie is currently working with landholders, the QLD regional government, RDMW, councils and industry to understand the sources of methane in aquifers of the Great Artesian Basin, especailly those overlying coal seam gas reservoirs (CSG) (with Arrow Energy, SANTOS, APLNG, H. Hoffman, K, Baublys).

Other projects include gas-water-rock or acid-rock reactivity that modify nano-porosity and gas flow in gas or oil bearing shales.

Julie Pearce graduated with an MCHEM (Hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of York, UK. She then moved to the University of Bristol to complete a Ph.D. in 2007 focusing on laser spectroscopic studies to understand the detailed reaction dynamics of atmospheric processes. From 2007 – 2009 she accepted a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, hosted at Nagoya University, Japan. There she measured delta 13C and delta 18O isotopic signatures of CO2 simultaneously in real time in the atmosphere using a laser spectroscopic technique to understand anthropogenic and biogenic sources of CO2. After taking a career break to travel in 15 countries in Asia, she moved to Brisbane in 2010 where she is enjoying the surrounding natural beauty of Queensland.

Dr Kathy Witt is an internationally-recognised senior social science researcher and currently an Advance Queensland Fellow at the UQ Centre for Natural Gas. Previously working in the areas of environmental and community change for the Queensland Government, Kathy went on to receive her PhD in 2013 before joining UQ-CNG’s Social Performance research team in 2014. Kathy specialises in the social dimensions of land use, natural resource management and energy technologies and transition, particularly in relation to sustainable regional development.

With degrees in Environmental Management (Natural and Rural Systems Management)/ Sociology from UQ's Gatton and St Lucia campuses, she is an inter-disciplinary researcher fluent in both environmental and social sciences. She applies ‘socio-ecological systems’ approaches to her research.

Leading the UQ-CNG Social Performance team, Kathy currently studies the cumulative social and economic effects of energy development for local communities, and non-technical risks. Her recent work focusses on social acceptance and ‘social licence’ across a range of industries and technologies, including the cattle industries, future fuels, hydrogen, carbon capture, use & storage and utility-scale renewable energy. Through her work Kathy has fostered mutually trusting and enduring relationships with different stakeholders including in the agricultural and energy sectors. She has collated and analysed longitudinal data on town and regional social and economic indicators alongside community members’ own interpretations of lived experience.

While currently in a research-focussed position, Kathy has previously lectured in Effective Stakeholder Engagement, Environment and Community, Global Challenges in Agriculture, Non-Technical Risks and Sustainable Energy.

Kathy’s excellent understanding of participatory research methods and ability to apply approaches from different academic specialisations, is combined with an ability to engage with diverse stakeholder groups.