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Robert is a Research Fellow who joined the RECOVER Injury Research Centre in 2024. He is part of the Technology-enabled rehabilitation team, which focuses on developing more effective and efficient health services supported by technology innovation.

Robert's previous research revolved around the application of Virtual Reality (VR) for burn injury rehabilitation. Using collaborative design with burn survivors and healthcare professionals, he has developed functional VR rehabilitation prototypes tailored for burn injuries.

Robert's research interests include the application of serious games in healthcare settings.

Dr Jonathan Davies is a chronic pain researcher working to improve how pain is understood, assessed and treated. His research focuses on pain phenotyping, precision pain care, and the psychological, physiological and contextual factors that shape pain and treatment response.

At UQ’s Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research, he contributes to DISCERN, an NHMRC Synergy-funded multidisciplinary research program developing and validating new approaches to pain assessment. A major focus of his work is DECIPHER PAIN, a standardised, multimodal tool designed to characterise the relative contributions of nociceptive, neuropathic and nociplastic pain and support more personalised care.

His research integrates clinical assessment, quantitative sensory testing, experimental pain methods, psychophysiology, digital health and population data. He is particularly interested in how physiological signals, behaviour, language, psychosocial context and real-world health data can be combined to better understand individual differences in pain and treatment outcomes.

His broader expertise includes placebo and nocebo effects, mindfulness, mental health, quality of life, health outcome measurement and population health. His work aims to support more precise, scalable and patient-centred approaches to pain research and care.

My research concerns i) understanding causes and impacts of hearing impairment, particularly in the context of multimorbidity in older age, ii) prevention and treatment of hearing impairment, and iii) hearing service development and evaluation. My research involves epidemiological modelling with population data sets, clinical trials and hearing health policy. I have authored over130 publications in peer reviewed journals and books, and I frequently present invited and keynote addresses at international conferences. I have received the British Society of Audiology’s TS Littler prize for services to audiology and a prestigious US-UK Fulbright award.

I have been awarded 10 grants as principal investigator in the last 5 years totalling >AUD$14.5 million from competitive sources including the NHMRC, the NIHR, the Alzheimer’s Society UK, the European Commission, industry and charity funders. This funding includes an EU Horizon 2020 grant of €6.2 million (as joint PI for “Ears, Eyes and Mind: The “SENSE-Cog Project” to improve mental well-being for elderly Europeans with sensory impairment”), and two NHMRC Medical Research Future Fund awards ($1.2 million as CI for “SENSEcog aged care: Hearing and vision support to improve quality of life for people living with dementia in residential aged care”; AUD$1.3 million for "Home hearing and vision care to improve quality of life for people with dementia and carers"; and an AUD$0.9 million NHMRC targetted hearing research award (as CI for "Improving access to the hearing services program for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds"). I have strong links with hearing industry partners and have received research funding (total >AUD$500,000) from major hearing aid companies Starkey, Oticon, Phonak and the hearing industry research consortium. I have a position at the University of Manchester with on-going involvement (as CI and co-I) in projects funded by the NIHR, the ESRC, the Alzheimer’s Society and the RNID.

I am an early career researcher with 5 years post-PhD and estimated research time relative to opportunity of 3 years. Currently, I am a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Queensland’s (UQ) Australian Frailty Network. I have years of study and work experience, including consumer and community involvement, in various healthcare settings in Brazil (2009-2019), the UK (2003-2008) and Australia (2019-present). I came to Australia in December 2019 for a 12-month PhD research placement at UQ after winning a highly competitive scholarship from the Brazilian Government. I have a Bachelor of Pharmacy, a Graduate Certificate in Project Management, a Master of Philosophy in Public Health, a Diploma of Higher Education in Youth and Community Studies and an OCN Level 3 Certificate in Community Development. I completed my PhD in Public Health in 2021.

I have a proven track record for delivering high-quality projects, with national significance, including policy change and integration into the national strategy in Brazil, and the implementation of a digital model of care developed in Australia. My track record demonstrates a rising career trajectory. My research interests are telehealth, virtual care and digital health, including digitally disrupted models of care for chronic conditions, trust and confidence in telehealth and digital health, digital health literacy, health services research, including implementation and evaluation strategies, mixed-methods, cross-sectional studies, co-design and qualitative inquiry, community and consumer involvement in research and service redesign.

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.

Dr Chelsea Dobbins is an Associate Professor within the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Queensland. She has a background in Software Engineering with expertise in Digital Signal Processing, Applied Machine Learning, and Human–Computer Interaction.

Her research focuses on the use of sensing technologies and intelligent data analysis to understand behaviour, emotion, and wellbeing, with applications spanning both human and animal contexts. In addition to her work on emotion detection using smartphones and wearable sensors within personal informatics and digital health, her research increasingly explores the use of computational technologies for animal conservation and welfare, including the application of machine learning, and mobile/embedded sensing to monitor behaviour and environmental interactions in animals.

Her work intersects areas such as affective computing, pervasive computing, digital health, conservation technology, bio‑inspired sensing, human–computer interaction, mobile and wearable sensors, and physiological computing.

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.

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.

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.

Dr Kathryn Fortnum is an Early Career Researcher working as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation (School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences), a collaboration between The University of Queensland and Health and Wellbeing Queensland; and affiliate researcher in the Queensland Centre for Olympic and Paralympic Studies (UQ). As an ESSA Accredited Exercise Physiologist, Dr Fortnum has extensive experience working with children and young people living with mental illness, neurological conditions, and neurodevelopmental disorders across inpatient and community settings.

Her research focuses on enhancing physical health, mental wellbeing, and participation outcomes for children and young people, with a commitment to improving equitable access to the tools and opportunities that foster lifelong health and resilience.

Dr Fortnum’s areas of expertise include:

• Physical activity and physical literacy
• Clinical and applied research
• Qualitative methodologies
• Systematic reviews and evidence synthesis
• Co-design and participatory approaches including engaging consumers with lived experience
• Program design and evaluation
• Rapid translation of research into evidence-based practice through partnerships with community and clinical services
• Implementation science, centred on scaling effective interventions into real-world contexts (emerging)

Her work aims to bridge the gap between evidence and practice, producing research that is both scientifically robust and directly meaningful for the individuals, families, clinicians, and organisations she collaborates with.

Dr Carl Francia (Saibai Koedal awgadhalayg) is a Torres Strait Islander physiotherapist and cardiovascular epidemiologist whose research focuses on improving cardiovascular health equity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through Indigenous-led, community-partnered research.

Based at The University of Queensland's Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, Carl leads research examining acute rheumatic fever (ARF), rheumatic heart disease (RHD), cardiovascular health, health services, and implementation of evidence into policy and practice. His work combines epidemiology, health systems research, and community partnership approaches to support prevention, early detection, long-term management, and elimination of RHD.

Carl currently coordinates the NHMRC Synergy-funded iPreventRHD program, a national Indigenous-led research initiative focused on life-course approaches to preventing and managing RHD. He is also a Chief Investigator on an MRFF-funded project exploring cardiovascular health among First Nations women and girls and is involved in community-led climate and cardiovascular health initiatives in the Torres Strait.

Research interests include:

• Cardiovascular epidemiology and population health • Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease • Indigenous health and health equity • Implementation science and health services research • Climate change and cardiovascular health • Indigenous Data Sovereignty and community-led research

Carl welcomes enquiries from Honours, Masters, and HDR students interested in Indigenous health, cardiovascular disease prevention, epidemiology, implementation science, health systems research, and community-partnered research.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Professor Christian Gericke is a Neurologist and Public Health Physician. He directs the Canberra Specialist Epilepsy Centre at Deakin Private Hospital in Canberra and consults at Cadogan Medical in Brisbane.

He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Australian National University, Honorary Professor of Public Health at the University of Queensland, Convener of the Specialist Medical Review Council (SMRC) for the Australian Government and Visiting Scholar at the Uehiro Oxford Institute, University of Oxford. He regularly acts as an Independent Medical Expert for the Supreme Courts and the Coroners Courts in all Australian jurisdictions and for the High Court of Justice in England (King's Bench).

Previously, he worked as an academic neurologist at Calvary Mater Newcastle, the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, King’s College Hospital in London, and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

After graduating from medical school in Berlin, he trained in neurology at the Charité, followed by fellowships in adult and paediatric epilepsy in Strasbourg and Geneva. He holds two research doctorates and master's degrees from the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne.

He chairs the Neuroepidemiology Section of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and serves on the International League against Epilepsy (ILAE) Standards and Best Practice Council.

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 hardware. I am currently investigating the feasibility of combining error mitigation and error correction techniques with quantum algorithms at the University of Queensland. My team's recent focus spans quantum kernel methods, quantum Hamiltonian simulations for chemistry and optimization, and analysis of quantum channels and their impact on quantum learning. While my group is a theoretical physics research group, we focus on hardware-aware algorithms design and have close partnerships with superconducting qubit experimental platforms at UQ and IBM, with supporting classical computational compute capability at Pawsey Sentonix through NCMAS. I co-lead the quantum computing workstream with Prof. Sally Shrapnel for the Queensland Digital Health Center; I work closely with Prof. Eleanor Rieffel quantum algorithms aligned with the work of the newly established Queensland Decarbonization Alliance and I lead the Asia Pacific Hub of IBM Quantum's Industry Working Group for Healthcare and Lifesciences. 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. QDA is hiring a postdoc position in Quantum Algorithms (https://lnkd.in/e9jZQUEt) and funning two Ph.D positions: Robust Quantum Algorithms for Decarbonisation Applications (https://lnkd.in/gQ3S6bjY) & Distributed Quantum-Enhanced Algorithms (https://lnkd.in/gV7z4EQj)

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).