Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Sandra Diminic is a Principal Research Fellow at Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR) and leads the Mental Health Services Research stream. She has qualifications in psychology and public health and her PhD focused on understanding the service needs of carers and families of people with mental illness. Before joining QCMHR Sandra worked on the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank and interned in Mental Health Policy and Service Development at the World Health Organization; she has also been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto.
Sandra's research aims to reduce the population burden of mental illness through understanding demand for and utilisation of mental health services, identifying and evaluating evidence-based mental health service models, and applying these findings to improve mental health systems and services. This research program involves close collaboration with health system partners such as national and state governments, Primary Health Networks, and community organisations to provide evidence and advice to support integrated regional and national mental health service planning. Current major projects include development and application of the National Mental Health Service Planning Framework (NMHSPF) and Australian Suicide Prevention Planning Model (AuSPPM), needs-based planning tools which model population needs and required care to produce resource targets for optimal mental health and suicide prevention service delivery in Australia. Sandra also leads projects drawing on population surveys and health service administrative data to understand current mental health service delivery and identify service gaps for specific regions and populations.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Chelsea Dobbins is an Associate Professor within the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Queensland. Before relocating to Australia, Dr Dobbins was a full-time continuing Senior Lecturer within the Department of Computer Science at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in the UK (2013-2018). She has a background in Software Engineering and expertise in Digital Signal Processing, Applied Machine Learning and Human-Computer Interaction. Her research focuses on the detection of emotion using smartphones/wearable sensors and personal informatics. This includes areas such as lifelogging, affective computing, pervasive computing, digital health, human computer interaction, machine learning, mobile computing, mobile/wearable sensors, human digital memories, signal processing, and physiological computing. Her research has been supported by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for work related to developing a mobile lifelogging platform to detect negative emotions during real-life driving. In 2016 she received an ACM Computing Review Notable Article award for work related to mining multivariate temporal smart mobile data.
Affiliate of Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Conjoint Senior Research Fellow
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Emmah is an experienced occupational therapist and researcher in the field of brain injury rehabilitation. Emmah's PhD, completed in 2010, compared the effectiveness of an outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program in home and hospital settings.
Research Interests
Emmah has conducted collaborative research in the field of neurorehabilitation, partnering with consumers and clinicians to develop and trial rehabilitation approaches to enhance person-centred care, goal setting and cognitive rehabilitation. Other research interest areas include metacognitive and occupation-based treatment approaches, the use of technology in rehabilitation, outcome measurement, and community-based rehabilitation.
Research Expertise
Emmah has conducted research using quantitative and qualitative methodologies including randomised controlled trials and single case experimental design. Emmah has an interest in knowledge translation, has conducted implementation research using a range of implementation frameworks, and codesigned with end-users including consumers and clinicians.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Carmel Fleming is a mental health professional with the Queensland Eating Disorder Service (QuEDS) and conjoint Clinical Lecturer with Queensland Health and the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Queensland where she teaches in Advanced Practice in Health. At QuEDS Carmel is senior social worker, clinical educator, and clinical supervisor providing consultation and service development across Queensland as well as coordination of QuEDS family and carer services. Prior to this she developed and led the QuEDS statewide education and training program for ten years. Carmel has specialised in mental health and eating disorders since 1992 with a focus on low intensity and specialist interventions such as self help and cognitive behavioural programs as well as family work. Carmel completed her PhD into the effectiveness of services for families of adults affected by eating disorders and maintains a special interest in the clinical support and supervision of other health professionals.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Kitty is an Occupational Therapist and Senior Research Fellow in the Queensland Centre of Excellence in Autism and Intellectual Disability Health. Kitty is leading the Health Services Development team in the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health.
Her research program is focused on improving the health and wellbeing of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She completed her PhD at The Kids Institute in Perth, WA. Following this, she undertook a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at UNSW Sydney which involved co-leading the development of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Autism in Adults (ALSAA). Kitty is passionate about conducting research which is co-developed and co-produced. This includes working with people with intellecutal disability and autistic people in research development and implementation.
Affiliate of Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation
Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Research Fellow
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Kathryn Fortnum is a Research Fellow at the Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation, a collaboration between the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Queensland, and Health and Wellbeing Queensland. Her research speciality is on the role of physical activity in the management of chronic health conditions. Dr Fortnum is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and has a particular interest in children and youth, and mental health. Dr Fortnum has worked clinically in inpatient and community settings for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service WA, and supported children impacted by neurological disorders including spina bifida and cerebral palsy to engage in community-based physical programs.
Affiliate of UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health
UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Lecturer
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Carl (Saibai Koedal `awgadhalayg) is a PhD Candidate (thesis under examination) investigating the epidemiology of rheumatic heart disease in Queensland using linked hospital and administrative data. He is a Lecturer in Physiotherapy within the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland. Carl’s interests span health education, research, data, and workforce development to strengthen communities.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Cathy Franklin is Director of the Queensland Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability and Autism Health. As a psychiatrist and researcher, she has spent two decades improving health and mental health outcomes for people with intellectual disability and those on the autism spectrum through clinical care, service innovation, education and applied research.
Cathy is recognised as an Australian expert in her field, serving on the RANZCP Committee for the Section of Psychiatry of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, and the Executive Committee of the Australian Association of Developmental Disability Medicine.
As an ardent advocate, Dr Franklin’s submission to the Queensland Parliament Mental Health Select Committee in 2022 helped raise the profile of this area of need. The Committee subsequently made a recommendation that was accepted, leading to a Queensland Government $51.5M investment over four years to establish a Centre of Excellence and 12 intellectual and developmental disability mental health teams statewide.
Cathy's research centres on improving health outcomes for people with intellectual disability and those on the autism spectrum. She has expertise in Down syndrome and is an international expert in Down syndrome regression disorder.
Cathy has successfully led successful applications to secure over $11M in competitive research and project funding in the last seven years. She also led her centre's partnership in the University of New South Wales consortium that secured $23.9M (2022-2026) to establish the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health.
Key projects Dr Franklin has led include the co-designed EASY Health project ($3.2M 2020-2026), which introduced Australia's first online education for mainstream clinicians featuring actors with disabilities. Now available across Queensland Health and mandated in national Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, this education is transforming clinician perspectives and improving equitable access to healthcare.
Cathy is also Chief Investigator on the Bridge to Better Health project, a $1.4M NHMRC-funded initiative building primary care nurses' capacity to deliver healthcare and improve outcomes for people with intellectual disability.
Cathy helped establish the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group-Australia and co-chairs the Regression and Mental Health workgroup of the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group-USA. She leads her centre's contribution to the international Down syndrome consortium led by Massachusetts General Hospital.
In 2020 she was awarded the Mater Research Sister Regis Dunne award for Outstanding Contribution to research relative to opportunity and in 2025, the Women in Technology "Lifting Communities" award.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Health Services Research
Centre for Health Services Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Teaching and Learning Support Officer
Centre for Health Services Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Online Health
Centre for Online Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Victor is a Postdoctoral researcher at The University of Queensland, with a clinical and academic background in rehabilitation medicine, public health, and digital health equity. His research focuses on enhancing healthcare access for culturally and linguistically diverse communities, particularly through the development of telehealth innovations and inclusive service design. He has experience teaching public health and epidemiology to medical students and mentoring postgraduate researchers. Victor has co-authored peer-reviewed publications, contributed to national surveys, and helped develop validated tools, including the Digital Health Acceptability Questionnaire.
He completed his Medical Doctor degree in Peru, followed by a specialisation in Rehabilitation Medicine, and later earned a Master of Public Health and a PhD from UQ. His doctoral research explored equity in telehealth access and was supported by multiple competitive scholarships and grants. Victor has also held leadership roles in Peru’s national health system and sports medicine programs, including the PanAmerican Games Lima 2019. His work has been recognised through awards for research excellence, equity, and inclusion.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of University of Queensland Centre for Hearing Research (CHEAR)
Centre for Hearing Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Professor
School of Economics
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Media expert
Professor Brenda Gannon is an international interdisciplinary leader providing evidence and solutions for health and social care systems, spanning across economics, medicine and social science, in collaboration with academia and industry. She brings extensive experience and expertise in program and policy development related to health and ageing, social inclusion, and citizen science, fostering and advancing excellence at the intersection of many disciplines.
Working at the interface of health service delivery, strategic planning and practice influence, and health economics more broadly, across many sectors, enables her research to inform optimisation of health care and workforce organisation. The models are translatable and transferrable across many sectors, including ageing, mental health, child and the working populations.
She is a Professor in the School of Economics and an Affiliate Professor at the Mater Research Institute, The University of Queensland. She is also an affiliate member of CEPAR (ARC Centre for Research Excellence in Population Ageing Research). Since 2022, she is Honorary Adjunct Professor at University of Galway, Ireland. She was Director of Research in the School of Economics from 2018-2023. . She has developed a range of projects on topics of dementia, physical activity and cognition, health and health care utilization, and consumer directed care and home care. She has led and worked extensively on interdisciplinary research with gerontologists,several clinicians and methodologists. Her work has been influential in the development of programs for falls preventions and informing policy on disability and social inclusion, and has positively impacted on the health of many older people across the world. Her work also spans across the lifecyle from birth, and she has worked with clinicians on trials for newborns with breathing difficulities. She is the Health Economics and Epidemiology lead for the Queensland Family Cohort (QFC) Study, the pilot led by Mater Research, and is on the QFC Governance Committee, focusing on maternal mental health, inequalities of opportunity, alcohol use and related health care use and costs.
Professor Gannon’s research carries a dual role, (1) as an applied health economist using big and complex data, utilising health economics theory and concepts to test the validity of causal hypotheses, (2) collaborator across all Faculties leading critical economic evaluations. Her research is funded by her position as chief investigator on projects from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, MRFF, EU H2020, Health Research Board, Ireland and the National Institute for Health Research, UK. She is the lead economist on projects in dementia, emergency care and paediatric care. All studies incorporate methodological innovations and applied research. She has provided advice to government at senior levels, and had a Ministerial appointment, on the Medical Services Advisory Committee Evaluation Sub-Committee 2017-2021. She sits regularly as a panel member of various NHMRC and MRFF grant review committees and has also previously appointed to the EU Commission grant panels. She has been invited to give several talks at international fora, including a key note talk on ageing and longevity at the National Academy of Medicine, Global Roadmap to Healthy Longevity, in Washington DC. Professor Gannon was an elected Professorial member of the Academic Board at UQ 2018-2022. In 2023, Professor Gannon was elected a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been elected as a Council Member of Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2024. In 2023, she led a symposium on Economics of Dementia Care, with international colleagues, in collaboration with Dementia Australia.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of ARC COE for Indigenous Futures
ARC COE for Indigenous Futures
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Availability:
Available for supervision
Professor Gail Garvey is a proud Kamilaroi woman, a NHMRC Research Leadership Fellow, and Professor of Indigenous Health Research in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland.
Professor Garvey has established an extensive and targeted research program focused on cancer and the wellbeing of Australia’s First Nations people.
Gail was among the first researchers to recognise the substantial impact of cancer on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and her work has contributed greatly to key policy and practice changes to improve their cancer outcomes. Professor Garvey currently leads a Centre of Research Excellence – Targeted Approaches to Improve Cancer Services (TACTICS) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians (NHMRC #1153027 2019-2023). The TACTICS CRE focuses on emerging priorities in cancer-related health services research and actively promotes the translation of research knowledge into Australian public health policy and practice. The CRE also focuses on building research capacity through training the next generation of researchers in cancer control.
Gail leads work in psychosocial aspects of cancer care for First Nations Australians. Her research into the psychosocial aspects of cancer care for First Nations cancer patients, is a critical component to improving their cancer outcomes. Professor Garvey and her team developed and validated a new tool to measure the unmet support needs of Indigenous cancer patients, which is now a recommendation in the Optimal Care Pathway guidelines.
Professor Garvey's research program also focuses on understanding and measuring the dimensions of wellbeing important to and valued by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the life course, which is important for developing/evaluating health interventions.
Originally trained as a teacher, Gail began her research career at the University of Newcastle in the 1990s where she was one of the first researchers to examine issues around the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical students. Since then she has been involved in a wide array of research collaborations both within Australia and overseas spanning three decades.
Along with her research expertise, Gail's strengths lie in her leadership and her collaborative approach to bringing key stakeholders - Indigenous consumers, researchers, and clinicians - together to achieve common goals. Career highlights include conducting the first Roundtable to identify research priorities in cancer for Indigenous Australians (2010); establishing the National Indigenous Cancer Network (2013) in collaboration with Cancer Council Australia, the Lowitja Institute, the Indigenous Health InfoNet and Menzies School of Health Research; instigating and convening the inaugural World Indigenous Cancer Conference in 2016 (Brisbane); and co-hosting the 2nd conference in 2019 (Canada).
Since 2011 Gail has received over $50 million in grant and government funding, including a NHMRC Investigator Leadership Grant (NHMRC #1176651 2020-2024). Over the same period Gail has published more than 180 papers in peer-reviewed.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Professor Christian Gericke is Clinical Dean and Professor of Medicine at the University of Newcastle, Director of Research and Neurologist at Calvary Mater Newcastle, Honorary Neurologist at the John Hunter Hospital, and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Fiji National University. He is the Convener of the Specialist Medical Review Council (SMRC), Australian Government, a Member of the Queensland Neurology/Neurosurgery Medical Assessment Tribunal, and regularly acts as an Independent Medical Expert for the Supreme Courts of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, and the Queensland Coroners Court. He consults privately in Brisbane.
Before this, he was the Clinical Director of Neurology at The Prince Charles Hospital, Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland, Executive Director of Medical Services, Director of Research and Consultant Neurologist at Cairns Hospital and Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Public Health at James Cook University. He also chaired the Far North Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).
From 2013 to 2016, he led the Wesley Research Institute, a non-profit medical research institute based at the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane, as its CEO and Director of Research. In 2016/2017, he spent a sabbatical as Consultant Neurologist with a special interest in Epilepsy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Since 2013, he has been an Honorary Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland.
From 2010 to 2012, he was Professor of Public Health and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and Deputy Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care for the English South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC).
From 2006 to 2010, he was Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Centre for Health Services Research at the University of Adelaide. He also held various roles for the Australian Commonwealth and State Governments, including as Medical Director for Safety and Quality for the State of Tasmania.
From 2003 to 2006, he was Senior Research Fellow /Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Systems Research and Management at Berlin University of Technology, one of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies hubs. He has experience working as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company and as an advisor to the European Commission, WHO, GIZ and the World Bank. His expertise and research interests are in health systems research and health policy, health services research, and the economic evaluation of health interventions. He initiated and directed a new Master's programme in Health Economics and Policy at the University of Adelaide. He is an Editorial Board Member of Frontiers in Neurology, Australian Health Review, Internal Medicine Journal and PLOS ONE.
Prof Gericke studied medicine at the Free University of Berlin and spent one year as a DAAD scholar at Tufts and Harvard Medical Schools in Boston, Massachusetts. He was awarded an M.D. research doctorate (magna cum laude) in cognitive neurology from the Free University of Berlin. After completing clinical specialist training in neurology, epileptology and clinical neurophysiology at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin and the University Hospitals of Strasbourg and Geneva, he studied tropical medicine at the University of Aix-Marseille, obtained an M.P.H. from the University of Cambridge, an M.Sc. in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, an MBA from Deakin University, and a higher doctorate (Habilitation) in health systems research from Berlin University of Technology. He also holds an Advanced Diploma in Medical Law from King's Inns School of Law in Dublin and is a Certified Independent Medical Examiner (CIME) with the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners (ABIME).
He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in Neurology, the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (FAFPHM), the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP Edin), the European Academy of Neurology (FEAN), the American Neurological Association (FANA), the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) and Associate Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (AFRACMA).
He is the Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists (ANZAN) Therapeutics Committee, Chair of the Ethics Section of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) Research Committee and a Member of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Standards and Best Practice Council. He also serves on the Federal Council of the Australian Medical Association (AMA).
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHeR)
Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
ATH - Senior Lecturer
Centre for Health Services Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Frederick Graham (BNurs, PhD) is a Clinical Nurse Consultant and a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Health Services Research at the University of Queensland. As an academic-nurse, Fred is clinical lead of a hospital-wide Dementia and Delirium Nursing Service at Princess Alexandra Hospital where he has worked as clinical expert in the care of people with dementia and delirium for more than 15 years. As a senior research fellow under the mentorship of Professor Ruth Hubbard, his research focuses on reorganising care environments and building workforce capacity to provide therapeutic care to this vulnerable cohort with a specific focus on accelerating knowledge translation in managing symptoms of agitation through innovative experiential learning, models of care, environmental design, leisure activity, and recognition of pain-related symptomology.
Fred qualified as registered nurse from The Queensland University of Technology and has worked in acute-care wards at Princess Alexandra Hospital. He has clinically led multiple quality initiatives focussed on improving acute-care for patients with cognitive impairment including education and change champion initiatives, models of specialised care, resource development to facilitate person-centred care and development of a chart for evaluating analgesic trials through monitoring pain-related behaviour. These initiatives led Fred to undertake his PhD with Professor Elizabeth Beattie at QUT, titled “Do hospital nurses recognise pain in older agitated patients with cognitive impairment. A descriptive correlational study using virtual simulation.”, which was awarded QUT Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award 2021. He has subsequently published his PhD results in the top gerontological and nursing journals in the world. Fred currently holds a Queensland Health Early Career Nursing Fellowship under the mentorship Professor Amanda Henderson, Nursing practice Development Unit PAH. He also has three Metro South Research Support Grant schemes including the Metro South Health Future Research Leader Fellowship under the mentorship of Professor Ruth Hubbard which will investigate pain-related phenotypes through a longitudinal response to treatment study.
As an emerging research leader and early career researcher, Fred is passionate teacher and encourages nurses to consider higher degree by research pathways in the clinical careers. He is currently supervising two higher research nursing students and a mentoring nurse practitioner student at UQ.
I bring industry and academic experience in working on quantum error mitigation, quantum error correction, and quantum control theory to enable quantum computing demonstrations on near-term hardware. I am currently investigating the feasibility of combining error mitigation and error correction techniques with quantum machine learning algorithms at the University of Queensland. With Sally Shrapnel and partnering with the Queensland Digital Health Center (QDHeC), we are analysing the operational robustness of quantum machine learning, with an eye to digital health use-case discovery and testing. Prior to this, I worked on execution of dynamic circuits for error mitigation and quantum error correction applications at IBM Quantum (US) for three years. My work resulted in 3 patents and being recognised as one of IBM Research’s Top Technical Contributors in 2023 globally. I have also designed classical algorithms for noise filtering and prediction for trapped ions at the Quantum Control Laboratory in the University of Sydney, winning ARC EQUS inaugural Director’s Medal in Australia in 2019.
Affiliate of Australian Women's and Girls' Health Research Centre
Australian Women and Girls' Health Research Centre
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Senior Research Fellow
UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Stephen Harfield is a Narungga and Ngarrindjeri man from South Australia. He is a public health researcher and epidemiologist. His research focuses on centring the health and wellbeing needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and their communities through Indigenous-led research.
Stephen’s research employs mixed methods that combine both quantitative and qualitative approaches, grounded in Indigenous methodologies. His research privileges the knowledges of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and adopts a strength-based approach to ensure that the research positively impacts and benefits Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.
Stephen has more than 10 years of experience conducting research in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and health services. His work focuses on the health and wellbeing of adolescents and young people, sexual health, men’s health, health services research, and enhancing research quality.
In March 2025, Stephen submitted his PhD thesis, titled "Strengthening Primary Health Care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Young People Living in Urban Southeast Queensland”. In recognition of his PhD work, he was awarded the Lowitja Institute’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student Award at the 4th International Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Conference 2025.
Stephen holds a Master of Philosophy in Applied Epidemiology from The Australian National University (2019), a Master of Public Health from Flinders University (2013), a Graduate Certificate in Health Services Research and Development from The University of Wollongong (2012), and a Bachelor of Health Sciences (Public Health) from The University of Adelaide (2008).
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of ARC COE for Children and Families Over the Lifecourse
ARC COE for Children and Families Over the Lifecourse
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Mehedi is a public health researcher with strong expertise in quantitative data analytics. He has over eight years of professional experience in developing and developed countries. He has built a distinguished career in public health research, focusing on critical areas such as reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH), nutrition, non-communicable diseases, mental health, sleep health, social determinants of health and health inequalities.
Mehedi completed his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2022. In his doctoral thesis titled “Future direction of maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries”, he utilized data of over 4.3 million participants extracted from 284 national surveys conducted in 75 low- and middle-income countries to understand the future projections of maternal and child health-related indicators and gaps in progress, with geographical variations across countries. His doctoral research resulted six publications in reputed international journals and provided valuable insights for global and country leaders in their pursuit of achieving health-related Sustainable Development Goals.
Mehedi has a charming engagement with research community. He has reviewed manuscripts for eight international journals and published 45 peer-reviewed articles, many of which appear in high-impact journals. His work has gained media attention, with coverage of more than 15 research stories.
In addition to his research and professional activities, Mehedi is an active member of several professional international collaborative groups, including Global Burden of Diseases, the American Society for Nutrition, the International Health Economics Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, and Health Systems Global, where he collaborates with fellow experts and stays at the forefront of developments in his field.
Mehedi is a Global Change Scholar (2018 cohort) of the University of Queensland and a recipient of several prestigious scholarships and awards. He recently honoured with a national award in the Pregnancy Monitoring Innovation Challenge 2022 funded by the Aspire to Innovate (a2i), Bangladesh, recognizing his innovative contributions to maternal and neonatal health.
Mehedi’s current research focuses on unveiling environmental exposures in pregnancy and risk in adverse birth outcomes in Queensland, Australia.
Affiliate of Centre for the Business and Economics of Health
Centre for the Business and Economics of Health
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Senior Research Fellow
Centre for the Business and Economics of Health
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Affiliate of Centre for Health Services Research
Centre for Health Services Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Online Health
Centre for Online Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Helen Haydon is a Senior Research Fellow and Registered Psychologist at the University of Queensland. She has national standing, and an emerging international reputation, as a digital health researcher with a focus on aged and palliative care, psycho-oncology and carer wellbeing. She leads 3 applied nationwide digital health research programs: 1/ Palliative Care ECHO, a Federally funded National Palliative Care Project that connects services and upskills health professionals across Australia in palliative care; 2/ Elder ECHO, a telementoring program to support the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation’s (NACCHO) Elder Care Support workforce in the delivery of Culturally safe aged care and; 3/ Caring for the Carer, an online intervention for carers of people with brain tumour. http://caringforthecarer.org.au/
Other research includes: evaluation of telepalliative care services (e.g. patient/ carer outcomes and perceptions and staff perceptions); voluntary assisted dying; technology supported grief and bereavement support and; digital mental health.
She is a Registered Psychologist with clinical experience working with a range of issues and diverse populations and has over ten years’ experience teaching and facilitating workshops on psychology and health communication.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Research on Exercise, Physical Activity and Health
Centre for Research on Exercise, Physical Activity and Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
A/Prof Ingrid Hickman is a Principal Research Fellow in Implementation Science with the UQ ULTRA team (Clinical Trial Capability) located within the Centre for Clinical Research in Herston. A/Prof Ingrid Hickman is an implementation scientist and has over 20 years experience in health services clinical research. Her career has focused on research excellence, strategic leadership and translating scientific evidence into improved clinical care for people with complex chronic conditions. From randomised controlled trials and mechanisms of disease progression through to patient centred co-design of health services, her collaborative approach to research aims to find solutions to health care problems. Prior to taking up the role with the ULTRA team, A/Prof Hickman led the Metabolic Obesity Research Group and the Nutrition Research Program at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane for over 12 years. Within this role she has been a passionate advocate for embedding implementation science and methodologies into clinical trials and health services research and has been recognised internationally for her investment in implementation science and clinical workforce capacity building in research translation.