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Shakes an imaging expert that leads a strong deep learning, artificial intelligence (AI) focused research team interested in medical image analysis and signal/image processing applied to many areas of science and medicine. He received his Ph.D in Theoretical Physics from Monash University, Melbourne and has been involved in applying machine learning in medical imaging for over a decade.

Shakes’ past work has involved developing shape model-based algorithms for knee, hip and shoulder joint segmentation that is being developed and deployed as a product on the Siemens syngo.via platform. More recent work involves deep learning based algorithms for semantic segmentation and manifold learning of imaging data. Broadly, he is interested in understanding and developing the mathematical basis of imaging, image analysis algorithms and physical systems. He has developed algorithms that utilise exotic mathematical structures such as fractals, turbulence, group theoretic concepts and number theory in the image processing approaches that he has developed.

He is currently a Senior Lecturer and leads a team of 20+ researchers working image analysis and AI research across healthcare and medicine. He currently teaches the computer science courses Theory of Computation and Pattern Recognition and Analysis.

Prof David Ascher is an NHMRC Investigator Leadership Fellow and Deputy Associate Dean (Research Partnerships) in the Faculty of Science at The University of Queensland. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics and Head of Computational Biology & Clinical Informatics at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute. Internationally, he sits on scientific advisory boards for A*STAR (Singapore), Fiocruz (Brazil) and the Tuscany University Network (Italy), and has been recognised with major honours including the Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Prize.

A global leader in computational biology and personalised medicine, Prof Ascher develops advanced AI- and structure-based approaches to understand how genetic variation alters protein structure, function, and clinical outcomes. His group has built one of the world’s most widely used platforms for interpreting coding variants—over 90 computational tools, accessed more than 9.5 million times per year from 120+ countries. These tools underpin clinical diagnostics, guide drug development pipelines, and support international public-health responses to antimicrobial resistance and emerging infectious diseases.

His research has led to new molecular insights across infectious disease, rare disease, oncology and cardiometabolic health, and has been translated directly into practice—informing WHO policy, enabling early resistance detection in tuberculosis and leprosy, stratifying patients with hereditary cancers, and supporting vaccine design with partners including Pfizer. Many of his methods are embedded in globally used resources such as Ensembl VEP, PDBe, and the EMBL-EBI KnowledgeBase.

Prof Ascher has a longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary leadership and capability-building across UQ. As Director (Strategy) of the Biotechnology Programs and later as Deputy Associate Dean (Research Partnerships), he has driven initiatives to transform UQ’s biotechnology education, grow industry-embedded training, expand international partnerships, and diversify research income. He has led the development of UQ’s biotechnology–industry placement ecosystem, initiated new professional development programs adopted across multiple Faculties and Institutes, and established major collaborations with government, industry and global research organisations.

He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed papers (over half as senior author: FWCI 2.7), secured more than $30M in competitive research funding, and supervised over 60 HDR students who now hold leadership positions in academia, industry and government. His work appears in leading journals including Nature, Nature Genetics, Science, PNAS and Nature Microbiology, and is cited in over 100 policy documents and 40 patents.

Prof Ascher holds degrees in Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Structural Biology and Law. His research career has spanned Adelaide, Melbourne, Cambridge and Brisbane. After his PhD with Professor Michael Parker, he worked with Sir Tom Blundell at the University of Cambridge, where he led programs in structure-guided drug discovery and protein–protein interaction targeting. He established his independent laboratory at Cambridge and then at the University of Melbourne/Bio21 Institute, before moving to the Baker Institute in 2019 and joining UQ in 2021.

Dr. Hossain is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering (SoMME) and has a joint appointment in the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at The University of Queensland (UQ). He currently leads a medium size research group within the Australian Centre of Materials Nanotectonics where he is the Co-Director. Dr Hossain has extensive expertise in the area of Materials Science and Engineering and one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of applied superconductivity. He has extensive expertise in a research field in which he has 12 years of experience. His research career has strongly supported by a number of awards, including the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from ARC, Strategic Research Fellowship from Australian Academy of Sciences, Priming and Bridging grant award from Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, the Vice-Chancellor’s Emerging Researcher Excellence Award and Vice-Chancellor’s Excellent Industry Partnership Award from University of Wollongong (UOW). His innovative research at the intersection of materials science, magnetism and applied superconductivity has already resulted in the elegant and efficient design of magnetic and superconducting materials for a range of applications including MRI, power cables, fusion magnets and chemical biosensors. He has devised novel strategies based on underlying physics and chemistry to design highly efficient nano-engineered materials and engineering devices which exhibit significantly enhanced superconducting and electromagnetic properties compared to current commercial counterparts.

The existing and new collaboration with leading universities, government organization and industry within Australia and abroad, including UOW, ANSTO, CERN and MIT will strengthen Australia's research profile in the field and the involvement of Dr. Hossain’s long standing industry partner Hyper Tech Reseatch Inc will ensure practical applications in an industry context.

Professor Justin Cooper-White is a global leader in using engineering to solve problems in biology. In addition to holding the position of Head of School and Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Chemical Engineering, he is Affiliate Professor in the AIBN, Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node, Research Director of the Herston Biofabrication Institute (a partnership between UQ and MNHHS) and co-Director of the Australian Organoid Facility at UQ. Professor Cooper-White is a past President of both the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and the Australian Society of Rheology and held the position of CSIRO Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader. He has previously held a Visiting Professor Fellowships at ETH Zurich (2007) and Politecnico di Milano (2012-2013). Professor Cooper-White is the Australian representative and Past President of the Asian Biomaterials Federation; an elected Fellow of and Australian representative on the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBE), and an elected Fellow and past vice President of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Cooper-White has many past and currently active international collaborations with world leading research groups at MIT (US); Stanford (USA); ETH (Switzerland); EPFL (Switzerland); SNU (Korea); University Of Grenoble (France); Politecnico di Milano (Italy); UCL (UK); and the Max Planck Institute (Germany). He has performed contract research and consultancy work for many multinational companies, including Unilever in the UK; Nestle International, Switzerland; Rhodia, US; Inion, Finland, Syngenta, UK; and NuFarm, AU since 2001.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of APL Bioengineering (American Institute of Physics Publishing); serves or has served on the editorial boards of Rheological Acta, Soft Materials, Biomicrofluidics and the Open Biomedical Engineering Journal; and is a reviewer of major international journals, including Nature Materials, Nature Methods, Advanced Materials, Lab on a Chip, Stem Cells, Stem Cells and Development, Biomacromolecules, Tissue Engineering, Langmuir, Biomaterials and Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics.