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Dr. Lieske’s overarching research theme is spatial decision support. Topics include city analytics, the costs of sprawl, planning support system theory and implementation as well as regional environmental change. Additional areas of expertise include the effective use of geographic visualisation as a communication and decision support tool.

As an agricultural and resource economist, Thilak Mallawaarachchi focuses on building resilient and sustainable food, agricultural and natural resource systems under climate, market and policy uncertainty. His work combines economics, public policy and systems thinking to improve decision-making across agriculture, agribusiness, water and environmental management.

With over 35 years of international experience across Australia, Asia and Africa, Thilak has contributed to research and policy development on climate adaptation, agricultural productivity, water allocation, food systems, natural resource management and rural development. He has worked with governments, industry and international development agencies to address challenges affecting farmers, communities and ecosystems.

Current multidisciplinary research focuses on economic modelling and policy analysis to inform institutional arrangements in agriculture, food systems and land management, including:

• Agricultural economics and rural development • Risk management and resilience • Industrial organisation and entrepreneurship • Collective decision-making and cooperation • Contract theory and its applications • Environmental and resource economics

His work has informed major Australian policy initiatives, including climate adaptation strategies, Murray-Darling Basin water reform and national food policy, while supporting agricultural development programs across the Asia-Pacific and Africa aimed at improving agricultural productivity, reducing food loss and waste, and enhancing market access.

Professor Sarah Medland (OAM, FASSA, FAHMS, PhD) is a Psychiatric and Statistical Geneticist working in Neuroimaging and Mental health genetics. Her work bridges Genetics, Psychology, Neuro-Imaging, Health Economics and applied Statistics with a focus on understanding the genetic and environmental contributions to human behaviour and disease. She chairs the genetics working group of the ENIGMA neuroimaging consortium and is an active member of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium.

Primary Appointment: Coordinator of the Mental Health Research Program and Group Leader (Psychiatric Genetics) QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

ORCID: 0000-0003-1382-380X

ResearcherID: C-7630-2013

Scopus Author ID: 34571085600

Email: sarah.medland@qimrberghofer.edu.au

Qualifications

2006 PhD (Psychology), University of Queensland

Dean's Award for Outstanding Research Higher Degree Thesis

2000 BA Hons (Psychology), University of Queensland, 2000 (Psychology Double Major, English Minor)

Flavio Menezes is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Australian Institute for Business and Economics at the University of Queensland (UQ). He is also a part-time member of the Australian Competition Tribunal and a member of the Sydney Airport Demand Management Compliance Committee. His third and final term as Chair of the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) concluded in September 2025, following almost a decade as a member of the Authority.

Professor Menezes was engaged by the Australian Treasury to provide independent strategic advice to the Australian and New Zealand governments on reducing regulatory barriers to the net zero transition. His report, released in September 2025, informed a joint commitment by both governments to strengthen regulatory settings, facilitate trans-Tasman trade, and improve productivity and living standards.

He served on the NDIA's Pricing Arrangements Reference Group from 2023 to 2026 and was a member of the Expert Panel for the 2022–2023 National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Specialist Disability Accommodation Price Review. He was President of the Economic Society of Australia (Queensland) from 2016 to 2018 and served on the advisory board of the Australian Government's Deregulation Taskforce between 2019 and 2020.

Professor Menezes was Head of UQ's School of Economics from 2009 to 2015. He chaired the Economics and Commerce Research Evaluation Committee for Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2018 and served as a member of the same committee for ERA 2015. He was also an elected member of UQ's Academic Board and its Standing Committee from 2018 to 2021.

Before joining UQ in 2006, Professor Menezes was Professor of Economics and Professor of Regulatory Economics at the Australian National University, where he was the foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Regulatory Economics. He also served as a part-time Vice President at Charles River Associates in Canberra from 2005 to 2006.

Professor Menezes is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Distinguished Public Policy Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. He has previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal of Public Economic Theory and Co-editor of the Economic Record. His research focuses on competition policy, regulation, market design, and the economics of the net zero transition, with applications spanning energy, digital platforms, infrastructure, and public policy. He is regularly sought by the media and policymakers for expert commentary on Australian economic policy, competition policy, and regulation.

His engagement with government and industry has been extensive. He has advised the Australian Government, the Australian Energy Market Commission, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of New South Wales, the Queensland Competition Authority, and the ACT and Victorian governments on competition, regulation, and market design. He has also provided expert economic advice to public and private organisations across a wide range of sectors, including telecommunications, defence, fisheries, water, gambling, natural resources, electricity markets, dairy, banking, health, transport, aged care, the NDIS, and early childhood education and care.

Dr Lin Mi is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the UQ Business School. Lin's research interests include corporate finance and real estate finance. Her work has been published in well-regarded international journals including Journal of Banking and Finance, British Accounting Review, Economic Modelling, International Review of Finance, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, and Accounting and Finance.

Julie joined the University of Queensland as an Associate Professor in May 2023. Julie participated in designing the Journeys Home Survey, a longitudinal study of Australians who are homeless or at-risk of homelessness. Her current research revolves around a number of issues related to disadvantage in education, housing, health and labour economics. Specifically, she works on homelessness & precarious housing, substance use, incarceration, gender gaps in education, peer effects and female's labour market participation. Julie is developing a research agenda aiming to support the development of better opportunities for Indigenous Australians. This includes a project to evaluate the impact of Indigenous preferential procurement programs and a project on “Historical frontier violence: drivers, legacy and the role of truth-telling”, both supported by ARC funding.

Dr Kim-Huong Nguyen is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at the University of Queensland. Her research centres on the efficient and equitable allocation of resources to support brain health in disadvantaged populations. She applies economic methods and theories to evaluate interventions, programmes and public policies for neurodegenerative diseases, brain injuries, and mental disorders. As a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin and University of California, San Francisco), she collaborates closely with multidisciplinary teams—including artists, medical professionals, engineers, industry partners, advocates, and health and social care consumers—to advance knowledge and transform practices for brain health.

Chris O’Donnell obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Productivity Analysis, an Associate Editor of Empirical Economics, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. His current research is focused on economic and statistical methods for measuring and explaining productivity and efficiency change. He has authored or co-authored three books on this topic. His work has been published in leading economics and econometrics journals, including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, Econometric Reviews and the European Journal of Operational Research. He has provided in-house training and/or been a consultant for organisations including the World Bank, the Asian Productivity Organisation, the International Rice Research Institute, the Australian Energy Regulator, the New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, and the Australian Independent Hospital Pricing Authority.

Dr Anton Pak is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, The University of Queensland. Anton is an applied economist by training and his research interests focus on the behaviour of patients and their choices, utilisation of emergency department services, waiting time modelling, and the economics of digital health. Anton examines empirical questions by utilising health economics theory and concepts and by analysing large panel and cross-sectional datasets (including linked data) using classical econometrics techniques, as well as machine learning methods.

Anton is currently co-leading an Emergency Medicine Foundation funded project “ED waiting time predictions in real-time: development of data acquisition system and performance evaluation of advanced statistical models.”, which is being undertaken in partnership with Princess Alexandra Hospital. Anton has worked extensively on interdisciplinary research with statisticians, mathematical modellers, clinicians, epidemiologists, and public health experts.

Prior to joining the Centre, Anton worked as a Research Fellow in Applied Economics and Data Scientist at James Cook University. His previous experience also includes working as a management consultant and university lecturer.

Anton has a PhD (Economics) from The University of Queensland.

John Quiggin is a Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland. He is prominent both as a research economist and as a commentator on Australian economic policy. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and many other learned societies and institutions. He has produced over 1500 publications, including six books and over 200 refereed journal articles, in fields including decision theory, environmental economics, production economics, and the theory of economic growth. He has also written on policy topics including climate change, micro-economic reform, privatisation, employment policy and the management of the Murray-Darling river system. His latest book, Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work so Well and Why they can Fail so Badly, was released in 2019 by Princeton University Press.

Research interests include: applied econometrics, time series econometrics, state-space models and spatial time series models. Has published in journals that include the Journal of Econometrics, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Applied Econometrics.

Current research projects are in: spatial time series models with applications to modelling housing and land prices, transport demand, international comparisons and sectoral productivity

Lachlan Schomburgk is a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Queensland Business School whose research examines consumer behaviour in financial and retail contexts, particularly how payment methods and transaction environments shape spending, judgement, and pro-social giving.

Positioned at the intersection of consumer behaviour, financial decision-making, and technology-enabled marketing, his work explores how changes in payment systems and digital environments influence real-world consumer outcomes.

His research has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Retailing and the European Journal of Marketing, and has attracted broad public attention through outlets including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 9News, and The Guardian.

Dr David Smerdon is an Associate Professor in the School of Economics, and an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow. He primarily works in behavioural and development economics. His research involves theory and modelling, experiments, and econometric analysis to investigate topics at the intersection of these fields, such as reducing female genital cutting in Somalia, and stopping child trafficking in Nepal.

David earned his PhD from the Tinbergen Institute and the University of Amsterdam (UvA) as a General Sir John Monash scholar, and afterwards worked as a PODER fellow at Bocconi University in Milan. His research often involves collaboration with non-academic partners, ranging from aid agencies and NGOs like US AID and Save the Children, to tech companies like Chess.com and WHOOP.

Prior to his academic career, David spent three years working for the Australian Department of Treasury as a policy analyst. David is also a chess Grandmaster and has represented Australia at eight chess Olympiads. Combining his passions, David conducts niche research in chess economics on topics such as gender inequality, cheating, and the life cycle of cognitive performance, supported by organisations such as the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and Chessable.

I am a senior researcher with cross-disciplinary expertise in health economics, pharmacy practice, and virtual health solutions. I am passionate about optimising healthcare outcomes by developing economically sustainable services that use technology and artificial intelligence to empower patients. My work explores the economic efficiency of implementing either virtual health or advanced-scope clinician initiatives within the Australian health system to improve patient care.

I am also a clinical pharmacist with more than a decade of experience in patient care and clinician training. I am a health economist at the UQ School of Pharmacy and Phamaceutical Sciences, and I lead the research work in the Pharmacy Department at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.

Main research interests include development and health economics. Current research topics include mental health, health inequality, income insecurity, inequality in opportunity, mortality uncertainty.

I am the lead of the Effective and Efficient Healthcare program at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health at The University of Queensland. I also lead Health Technology Assessment for the Centre, which involves evaluating submissions made to the Australian Government to reimburse new medicines and medical devices through the Pharmaceutical benefits Scheme (PBS) and the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS). My research is focused on the economic evaluation of health interventions to inform decision making and promote value-based health care. I have pioneered the application of Value of Information (Research) analysis to enhance the efficiency of clinical trials and maximise the return on investment from medical research.

I have extensive experience working with key stakeholders including consumers, clinicians, decision makers and researchers. I am chief investigator on over $45 million Category 1 grants from the NHMRC, MRFF and ARC. In addition, I lead several projects for the Department of Health and other peak organisations.

I chair the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR)-Oncology GroupI, and I am the past chair of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia's (COSA)-Epidemiology Group and the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA)-Research Prioritisation Group. I am an Associate Editor for Value in Health, and an Editorial Board Member for Medical Decision Making and PharmacoEconomics-open journals.