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I’m an Associate Professor of Psychology driven by the goal of safeguarding humanity’s future through effective AI governance. My career began with a strong focus on evidence synthesis, meta-analysis, and knowledge translation in health, education, and leadership settings. This background honed my ability to tackle large, complex problems by integrating insights from multiple research disciplines, and by designing interventions that reach people at scale.

I now channel these skills into understanding and mitigating the risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence. Drawing on my experience leading large, multi-stakeholder projects, I use rigorous methods—from systematic reviews to agile-based project management—to generate robust, transparent evidence for policymakers and practitioners. Through roles such as Director at Effective Altruism Australia, I also contribute to shaping philanthropic and public policy strategies around AI risk.

Ultimately, my work aims to merge best-practice research with real-world solutions, ensuring that advanced AI is developed and governed responsibly for the long-term benefit of society.

Javad Pool is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland. He completed his PhD in Business Information Systems at UQ Business School in 2022, with a focus on data privacy and the effective use of information systems, specifically in the digital health context. By employing a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, Javad has conducted studies in a wide range of organizational and technological contexts, including healthcare, artificial intelligence, digital health, and social media. His work includes the development of inductive and theory-driven models, contributing to the existing body of knowledge on the effective use of information systems and health informatics research. Passionate about collaboration, Javad seeks to engage with diverse stakeholders, encompassing multidisciplinary researchers, industry professionals, and government partners, to advance research on information resilience and data protection practices. His research endeavors to better understand and address socio-technical challenges within information systems use, including data governance, privacy risks, cybersecurity, data breaches, data protection, misinformation, and responsible use of data.

Research interest: Monitoring ecosystem health of coral reefs and seagrass habitats, integrating field and remote sensing image datasets, and the developing applied cost-effective mapping and monitoring approaches. Developed approaches have been adopted as standard practice globally, making a difference in conservation of these valuable habitats. The long term monitoring studies at Heron and Moreton Bay formed the basis for the development of mapping and monitoring over time and space at local to global scale. See here major research impact

Major projects:

• Long term monitoring of benthic composition at Heron Reef (2002-ongoing).
• Long term monitoring of seagrass composition and abundance in Moreton bay Marine Park (2000-ongoing).
• Smart Sat CRC Hyperspectral Remote Sensing of Seagrass and Coral Reefs 2023-2027.
• Developement of Underwater Field Spectrometry and Benthic Photo Collection and Analysis
• 3D GBR Habitat Mapping Project 2015 - ongoing:
• Global habitat mapping project 2019-2023 Allen Coral Atlas .

Current position: Associate Professior in Marine Remote Sensing leading the Marine Ecosystem Monitoring Lab. . Academic Director Heron Island Research Station and affiliated researchers with Centre for Marine Science and Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science

Capacity Building and Citizen Science: Capacity: under/post graduate courses; Msc/PhD supervision, workshops/courses; Remote Sensing Educational Toolkit, and online courses (e.g. TNC).Strong supporter of citizen science based projects, as trainer, organiser and advisor for Reef Check Australia, CoralWatch, Great Reef Census and UniDive.

Professor Gemma Sharp Gemma leads the Body Image & Eating Disorders Research Program at the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland. She also holds an adjunct position at Monash University where she and her research program were based from 2018 to 2024.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology (University of Adelaide), Bachelor of Science Honours degree in Microbiology and Immunology (University of Adelaide), a Masters degree in Oncology (University of Cambridge), a Diploma in Languages in Japanese (University of Adelaide), a Graduate Diploma in Psychology (University of Adelaide), a Bachelor of Behavioural Sciences Honours degree in Psychology (Flinders University) and a PhD in Clinical Psychology (Flinders University). Her research career in both Medical Science and Mental Health has seen her study and work in Australia, Japan and the UK.

Professor Sharp was awarded a PhD from Flinders University in Adelaide in 2017 which investigated the psychological predictors and outcomes of female genital body image concerns and cosmetic genital surgery. She worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate and Academic at Curtin University in Perth and extended this genital self-image research to other genders. She continues this genital self-image research program across the gender spectrum.

Professor Sharp then commenced an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship at Monash University (2018-2022) and more recently an NHMRC Emerging Leadership 2 Fellowship at Monash University (2023-2024) and The University of Queensland (2024-2027). See full grant/project listing here.

Professor Sharp and the program she heads investigate the factors leading to body image concerns, eating disorders and related issues and novel therapeutic interventions to address these concerns, including digital technologies such as chatbots like JEM(TM) and mobile apps. She has led collaborative technical and commercial projects with national eating disorder support organisations across the globe (e.g., JEM(TM) in North America with NEDIC). She also led the development of a world-first online educational resource to explain the intersection of eating disorders and menopause.

Professor Sharp is the lead of the international Consortium for Research in Eating Disorders (CoRe-ED) which brings together all key voices in eating disorder and related research on a global scale to improve eating disorder and related care. The consortium was officially launched on 25th September 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. The University of Queensland is a key partner of CoRe-ED. Everyone is welcome to join CoRe-ED free of charge by registering here to access to the already extensive network and resources on offer.

Professor Sharp's research has received extensive coverage on mainstream media and she makes very regular appearances on television, radio and in print. She was named one of ABC Radio National's Top 5 Under 40 Scientists and also was invited to deliver a TED talk in Brisbane. See full media listing here.

Professor Sharp has already received more than 80 award/honours in her tertiary career (see full listing here). Most recently, she won the Association for Psychological Science Janet Taylor Spence Award (2025), Australian Psychological Society's College of Clinical Psychologists Ian M Campbell Memorial Prize (2024), Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS) Mentee Honour (2024), an international finalist for the Robert Greenblatt International Menopause Society Award (2024), Australian Psychological Society Media Award for Public Engagement with Psychological Science (2023), Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research (2022), Rising Star for the Association for Psychological Science (2021), two time national finalist for the Bupa Health Foundation Emerging Researcher Award (2021, 2019), Flinders Universiry Early Career Alumni Awardee (2021), one of The Educator's Rising Stars (2020), Australian Psychological Society Early Career Researcher Awardee (2020), and a national finalist for a Eureka Prize (2020).

In addition, Professor Sharp is a registered clinical psychologist and has had clinical experience in the public and private sectors in Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne and now Brisbane. She has and continues to lead her own private practice since 2019. She is a Credentialed Eating Disorder Clinician (CEDC) and a Board Approved Supervisor with the Psychology Board of Australia.

Professor Sharp and her research played key roles in the the National and Victorian State Eating Disorder strategies (2023/2024). Furthermore, she was the lead expert for the national clinical practice guidelines for the psychological evaluation of patients undergoing cosmetic procedures in 2018 and 2023. She launched a health professional online short course addressing psychological assessments for cosmetic patients in 2024. Please email Professor Sharp for more details about this course.

I am a passionate researcher with a background in computer science and a strong commitment to leveraging technology for the betterment of society. I hold a PhD in Image Forensics and have had the privilege of conducting postdoctoral research at prestigious institutions such as SUNY Albany and Dartmouth College, where I had the opportunity to collaborate closely with Prof. Hany Farid.

During my postdoc at Dartmouth College, I focused my research efforts on addressing a critical societal issue - real-time child pornography detection. This research not only garnered recognition within the academic community but also earned praise from luminaries like Prof. Ramesh Raskar at MIT, who invited me to share my insights through a talk at MIT.

I primarily works in the area of Cyber Security, Digital Forensics, Privacy and Security Aspects, Homomorphic Encryption and Cloud Computing.

As I continue my research journey, I remain committed to making a positive impact through innovation and collaboration. I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and the potential for technology to create a safer and more inclusive world.

Associate Professor Mark Utting's research interests include software verification, model-based testing, theorem proving and automated reasoning, programming language design and implementation. He received his PhD from UNSW on the semantics of object-oriented languages, and since then has worked as an academic at several Queensland universities, as well as Waikato University in NZ and the University of Franche-Comte in France. He is passionate about designing and engineering good software that solves real-world problems, has extensive experience with managing software development projects and teams both in academia and industry, and has worked in industry, developing next generation genomics software and manufacturing software. He is author of the book ‘Practical Model-Based Testing: A Tools Approach’, as well as more than 80 publications on model-based testing, software verification, and language design and implementation. His current research focus is on using software verification to give strong guarantees about the correctness of compilers, correctness of blockchain smart contracts, freedom from information leaks of ARM64 binary programs, and the correctness of AI-generated code.

Dr T. Thang Vo-Doan is a Lecturer of the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Biology I, University of Freiburg, Germany (2019-2023). He was also a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore (2016-2018). He was awarded his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, NTU in 2016. He received his M.Eng. degree in Manufacturing Engineering and B.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam in 2010 and 2008 respectively. He was awarded the prestigious Human Frontier Science Program Cross-disciplinary Fellowship (2019-2022).

He directs the UQ Biorobotics lab after joining in the University of Queensland. Current research activities of the lab focus on insect-machine hybrid robots, bio-inspired robotics, insect structures and functions, biomechanics, fast lock-on tracking, and brain imaging in untethered insects.