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Associate Professor Elske van de Fliert leads the Communication and Social Change Researcg Group and facilitates the Communication for Social Change field of study of the Master of Communication program. She obtained a PhD in Communication & Innovation in 1993 from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. She joined the UQ School of Journalism and Communication (now School of Communication and Arts) in July 2006. Prior to this, Elske worked for two decades in research, development and teaching positions in Indonesia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, with work also across China, Kenya, Uganda, Philippines and Kyrgyzstan.

Elske’s research interests include participatory development communication, facilitation of transdisciplinary research for sustainable development, and impact assessment of social change processes. Over the years at UQ, she has been conducting research projects in Indonesia, Timor Leste, Philippines and Mongolia. She has published widely on a range of topics related to participatory research and communication in sustainable rural development.

Dr Thea Voogt is an Associate Professor in the School of Law and the Director of Business Law.

She specialises in income tax law, agriculture tax policy tools, the impact of climate change on the financial fortitude of farming families, corporate governance and business structures.

Thea leverages her significant business experience in senior executive roles and her background as a chartered accountant in industry projects. She holds a Doctorate in Financial Management and Master of International Commercial Law (UQ).

Thea is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an award-winning law teacher. She is the 2017 recipient of the prestigious UQ Business, Economics & Law Faculty Teaching Award and a joint recipient of the 2022 Business, Economics & Law Faculty Award for Excellence in Citizenship (Innovation). She also received the 2017 Inspired Me to Learn Award for Teaching Excellence in an undergraduate compulsory course, and the 2016 Award for Teaching Excellence in an undergraduate compulsory course from the UQ School of Law.

Thea is an academic member of the UQ Law School Pro Bono Centre and a member of the Pro Bono Centre Regional Rural Remote Steering Committee. She is also an independent member of the Management Committees of Rural Financial Counselling Services North Queensland and Farm Business Planning North Queensland.

Prior to joining UQ, Thea was the CEO (Principal Officer) of the superannuation funds of the University of Johannesburg, a Professor in Accounting and managed large tenders for this institution. Over the course of her career in South Africa, she was closely involved with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants as sought-after speaker, researcher and umpire for the national qualifying exams for chartered accountants. Thea also held a Ministerial appointment to the Board of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA).

Scott grew up on a mixed farming property in western Queensland, has an undergraduate degree in Asian studies and a PhD in agricultural economics.

Scott worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit in Beijing, graduated from the Nanjing-Hopkins Centre for Advanced Chinese and American Studies and is fluent in Chinese. In China he has: collaborated with 20 research and government organisations; conducted fieldwork at country level and below for at least 30 months; and provided technical assistance in trade negotiations.

He has written eight books on China, two of which were translated into Chinese, and he has published in leading China studies journals, includingThe China Journal and China Quarterly. His research in recent years was on China's trade barriers on Australian exports, and China's economic growth model and implications for trade relations. Scott has been invited to deliver talks on China for a wide range of Australian government and non-govenment agencies, including training for DFAT's China Literacy program.

For more information see the website of the China Agricultural Economics Group

At UQ Scott has conducted 25 agricultural development projects in China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. He led multi-country and multi-stakeholder projects funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Partnership for Australia-Indonesia Research (PAIR) and the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations (NFARCR).

He coordinated the courses AGRC7520 "International Agricultural Development in Asia", AGRC7127 "Agricultural and Resource Policy" and ECON3820 "Understanding China"

In 2024 Scott joined the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, as an economist in the Trade and Gobal Change program

Dr Yan Zhao is an agricultural remote sensing and digital agriculture scientist specialising in the integration of Earth observation, artificial intelligence, crop modelling and climate information for crop monitoring and decision support. His research spans satellite, UAV and proximal sensing to quantify crop type, phenology, soil moisture, crop stress and yield across field to regional scales. He develops scalable spatial-data and machine-learning approaches to translate complex sensing and environmental data into practical agricultural information, working closely with growers, agribusiness, government and international research partners. His current research increasingly explores multi-source hyperspectral sensing and analytics for detecting crop stress and assessing crop productivity and grain quality.

The aim of Allie's research is to improve soil health for sustainable agricultural production and environmental protection. Her research spans the areas of plant-soil-microbe interactions, soil microbiology, nutrients cycling and the recylcing of organic wastes, currently focusing on (i) the development of advanced and novel methodologies for investigation of plant-soil-microbe interactions; (ii) dynamics of nutrients (N, P, K) and carbon in soils including greenhouse gas emissions; and (iii) soil carbon sequestration and persistence.