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Dr Giselle Newton (she/her) is a digital health sociologist at the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies and has worked at UQ since the completion of her PhD in 2022. Giselle is currently employed as a Research Fellow in the Australian Ad Observatory Project of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

Giselle's research program is organised around three themes: 1) Exploring how reproductive and genetic technologies reshape relationships, families and parenthood; 2) Examining processes of participation, representation and listening in policy and legislative contexts 3) Developing participatory, digital and creative methods for social research.

Giselle holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Lecturer at the Centre for Social Research in Health at UNSW, Sydney. Giselle is a co-convenor of the Australian Sociological Association Thematic Group on Families and Relationships. Giselle was awarded the Early Career International Visiting Fellowship, University of Sheffield for 2024-25.

Research

Current projects:

• Targeted digital advertising in fertility, reproduction and parenting
• Understanding stakeholders’ perspectives on public inquiries in sexual and reproductive health
• DNA datascapes: how individuals seek information about family via direct-to-consumer DNA testing

Past projects:

• How alcohol and gambling companies target people most at risk with marketing for addictive products on social media, using the Australian Mobile Ad Toolkit (contract research project commissioned by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education Limited, with A/Prof Nic Carah and Lauren Hayden)
• On target: Understanding advertising in the fertility sector with data from the Australian Ad Observatory, a winter research collaboration (with Romy Wilson Gray and Maria Proctor).
• Everyday belongings: how Australian donor-conceived adults’ use digital technologies to bond, sleuth, educate and strategise. Giselle's PhD study won Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD Theses in 2022.
• Understanding care endings: Sociological and educational approaches to support pathways out of caring

Research supervision

Current students:

• Lauren Hayden (PhD candidate, UQ) - Digital advertising and cultures of alcohol consumption on social media platforms (with A/Prof Nicholas Carah, Prof Daniel Angus)
• Simone Sanders (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Representations of breast cancer predisposition testing on TikTok: a qualitative content analysis
• Lina Choi (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Direct-to-consumer DNA testing content online

Past students:

• Cushla McKinney (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - The impact of direct-to-consumer DNA testing on genetic counselling practice (with Dr Lisa Dive, A/Prof Aideen McInerny-Leo, Dr Vaishnavi Nathan).
• Diya Dilip Porwal (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Experiences of carrier screening and genetic testing in gamete donors (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive).

Areas of supervision: Giselle welcomes research proposals focused on social research in digital identities and cultures; family relationships and practices; DNA and genetic testing/screening; reproductive health and donation.

Teaching

Giselle has coordinated and lectured across undergraduate and postgraduate programs in courses in humanities, social sciences and health. She was course coordinator for COMU2030 Communication Research Methods in 2023 and lecturer in HHSS6000 HASS Honours Research Design.

I’m a researcher and lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. My expertise is in critically evaluating how people and organisations use language to communicate about themselves and shape the world around them. I’m committed to doing research that promotes justice and equity, and helps government, the media, and industry communicate for the common good.

My recent research has explored sustainability in the arts and culture sector, news reporting on violence against women and girls, and COVID-19 crisis communication.

I’ve recently collaborated with various peak bodies in the Australian arts and culture sector such as Theatre Network Australia, and arts companies of various sizes (e.g., Queensland Ballet and La Boite Theatre) to develop a free peer coaching program known as “Creating out Loud.” This program builds networks of mutual support for artists and arts workers across all levels of the arts and culture sector.

Enriching the arts and culture sector is of high importance to me. In 2021, I was awarded an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to support arts workers recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

To find out how I can help your organisation, email me at k.power@business.uq.edu.au. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.

Sol's research interests include: (Critical) Discourse Analysis, Trauma and Memory Studies, Perceived Discrimination, Critical Translation Studies, Decolonial Thought.

Sol is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland in Australia. She teaches language, literature, and cultural studies courses. Sol’s research interests include memory and trauma studies, everyday discourses of discrimination, and Decolonial Thought. Sol has over 50 publications, including four books, one co-edited book, and five books as a translator. Her work has appeared in journals such as Social Semiotics, Critical Discourse Studies, Memory Studies, Journal of Pragmatics, Languages in Contrast, Babel, Delaware Review of Latin American Studies, and JILAR among others. Her co-authored historical Graphic Memoir Historias Clandestinas (2014) had a second edition in 2023 and is currently being made into a film. The English version of the graphic novel was published in 2023 in the U.S.

Ken Tann is an in-house linguist at the UQ Business School. He specializes in applying linguistic and semiotic techniques to interdisciplinary research, and helps industry professionals add value to their professions through effective communication. His analytical framework has been applied across media, forensic, education and workplace contexts. He is currently supervising PhD research in marketing, finance and aged care.

Graeme Turner is one of the founding figures in media and cultural studies in Australia, and a leading figure internationally. He has published 23 books with international publishers, his work has been translated into 9 languages, and many of his books have gone into multiple editions. A former ARC Federation Fellow, a past President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the founding Director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies (2000-2012), his most recent projects have been focused on television and new media, and the formation of national communities. His most recent publications include (with Anna Cristina Pertierra) Locating Television: Zones of Consumption (Routledge, 2013), What's Become of Cultural Studies? (Sage, 2012), Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn (S(Sage, 2010), and (with Jinna Tay) Television Studies after TV: Understanding television in the post-broadcast era (Routledge, 2009). He is an Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies..

Human-centred design of interactive systems

Stephen Viller is a researcher and educator in human-centred design methods, particularly applied to designing social, domestic and mobile computing technologies, and understanding how people's interactions in everyday settings inform the design of such technologies. He has over 20 years of experience in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Interaction Design, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, where he has focused on bridging disciplines and perspectives. He has concentrated on qualitative methods, particularly observational fieldwork, contextual interviews, diary studies and field trips, but also increasingly on more ‘designerly’ approaches such as cultural probes, low-fidelity prototypes, rapid prototyping and sketching.

Stephen is an Associate Professor and leader of the Human-Centred Computing discipline in the School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, and UQ's Theme Leader for the Digital Worlds and Disruptive Technologies theme in the QUEX Institute. From 2016-2019 he was the Director of Coursework Studies (Chair of T&L committee) and from 2011-2016 he was Program Director of the Bachelor of Multimedia Design and Master of Interaction Design. His publications span various interdisciplinary journals and conferences in HCI/CSCW and technology design. He has a BSc (Hons) Computation (UMIST), MSc Cognitive Science (Manchester) and PhD Computing (Lancaster).

Assoc. Prof. Dr. habil Franzisca Weder, Senior Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Brisbane (Australia), is researching, writing and teaching in the areas of Organizational Communication and Public Relations with a specific focus on Sustainability Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility.

She worked as Guest Professor at University of Alabama (USA), University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (GER), University of Waikato (NZ), RMIT (Melbourne, AUS) and University of Ilmenau (GER).

Franzisca Weder is Chair of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA) -> check this out (and become a member :-): https://www.theieca.org

Curious about her work? check…

• her eco-culture jamming
• her sustainability related conversations with artists and campaigners
• one of her papers on Sustainability and Storytelling
• one of her books
  • on Sustainability Communication: THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION READER
  • on integrated CSR Communication: INTEGRATED CSR COMMUNICATION
  • or (in case you speak German..) on Organizational Communication and PR
• or other recent papers:
  • on how (much) Covid made us more sustainable
  • on sustainability as cognitive friction https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00008/full
  • or on antagonistic framing and CSR Communication https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CCIJ-01-2018-0014/full/html
  • or (in case you speak German), her ideas on cultures of sustainability

Beck Wise teaches and researches in professional, technical and academic writing, with specialisations in the rhetoric of science, visual communication, writing in digital environments, and gender studies.

Current research projects include:

• Medical imaging, argumentation and public culture
• Reproductive health and access in Australia
• Writing instruction for diverse academic disciplines

Yunxia Zhu is an award-winning researcher and educator and has an international reputation in cross-cultural management and business negotiation. Yunxia’s PhD is from the Australian National University in the area of international business communication. She is a negotiation expert trained in Advanced Harvard negotiation programme and Oxford Programme on negotiation at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. She has taught Undergraduate, MBA, Doctoral and Executive Development programs at universities in Australia and abroad. She was a visiting academic to Imperial College London, University of Michigan and Lund University Sweden.

Yunxia has been a recipient of numerous prestigious awards. She is the winner of 2015 UQ Teaching and Learning Fellowship, 2014 Australian National Teaching Citation Awards, UQ Vice Chancellor’s 2013 Internationalisation award, UQ 2013 Outstanding Teaching Citation award, 2011 Best Researcher Award and 2006 Best Publication by Association for Business Communication, and 2008 UQ Business School Research Excellence award, just to name a few.

As an active researcher, Yunxia has written two scholarly books and has published extensively in prestigious international journals (e.g., top-tier of A* or A journals ABDC ranking). She serves on a number of editorial boards for prestigious journals including Academy of Management Discovery, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Journal of World Business, Discourse and Communication, and Public Relations Review. She also serves as an intercultural expert for the prestigious Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (PBNS), John Benjamins.

Yunxia serves as the Vice President of Association for Business Communication in the Asia Pacific Region and is holding adjunct and honorary professorial positions with a number of major Chinese universities with the most recent being awarded by the Top 500 Chinese Enterprises Research Centre, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. She has served on expert advisory board and panels for publicly listed companies, providing professional consulting and training in relation to internationalization and market development in the global business contexts.