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Dr Nyoman Kurniawan is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advanced Imaging and the Facility Manager for Preclincal 16.4T Microimaging 9.4T MRI scanners.

Dr Kurniawan’s research areas are:

• Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging of mouse neuroanatomy, with view to study neurological disease model, including:
  • neurodegeneration
  • developmental abnormalities
  • spinal cord diseases
• Development of 3D CNS brain atlases using high resolution structural and diffusion MRI
• Development of imaging methods for nephron imaging
• Application of MRI for agriculture imaging

Ella’s research seeks to understand the experiences of people experiencing deep and persistent disadvantage, including those who use and are subjected to domestic violence; those who experience poverty and homelessness; and those who are engaged with statutory child protection services. Although Ella is a qualitative scholar, she collaborates within a multidisciplinary team that leverages both qualitative and quantitative data to form a comprehensive picture of how different forms of disadvantage interact with each other, and with broader social structures and systems. Ella also collaborates and engages deeply with industry partners to ensure that her research and its outcomes align fully with their research and practice needs.

Within this broad picture, Ella’s research aims to develop strategies for overcoming the structural barriers that perpetuate social disadvantage.

I am a postdoctoral researcher within Associate Professor Nathalie Dehorter's group at the Queensland Brain Institute. I was awarded a PhD in Neuroscience from Monash University in 2024 where my PhD centred on using genetic and electrophysiological methods to manipulate and record from circuits within the visual system and leveraging these techniques for translational applications.

Within Associate Professor Dehorter's group I have extended my technical expertise to further explore how neuromodulation and electrophysiology within the brain is altered in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.

Professor Marguerite La Caze’s research interests include: European philosophy, feminist philosophy, moral psychology, especially the emotions, and aesthetics, including philosophy and film.

Professor La Caze holds a BA (UQ); MA (Melbourne); and PhD (UQ), and is an Australian Research Fellow 2003-2007. She held an ARC Discovery Grant 2015-2018 on ‘Ethical Restoration After Oppressive Violence: A Philosophical Account’ and was a visiting Fellow at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland in 2022.

Her current research projects include:

• Ontologies of force: Violence, non-violence, and resistance
• European political cinema and democracy
• Finitude in Beauvoir's A Very Easy Death and Mia Hansen-Love's One Fine Morning
• Beauvoir's concepts of independence, freedom, and happiness in Mia Hansen-Love's Things to Come
• Indigenous Australian documentary
• Beauvoir on adolescence and motherhood and the Dardennes' Young Mothers

Marguerite has successfully supervised more than 30 PhD and Master’s students on a wide range of topics and is currently supervising students on projects including non-violence and resistance in Australian and Indian texts, on the work of Monique Wittig, critical phenomenology and abortion, Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur on forgiveness, and on Val Plumwood's ecofeminism.

Dr Nikky LaBranche is a mining engineer, occupational health researcher and industry leader specialising in occupational dust, airborne hazards and respiratory health. She is Director of Professional Development at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) and leads the Dust and Respiratory Health Program within the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre.

Nikky leads a portfolio of more than $4 million in applied research focused on preventing occupational lung disease and improving how airborne hazards are understood, assessed and controlled. Her research spans underground and surface mining, engineered stone, mineral processing and other dust-generating industries, with particular expertise in respirable crystalline silica, coal mine dust, diesel particulate matter and complex workplace aerosols.

Her work sits at the intersection of mining engineering, exposure science, advanced microscopy and worker health. She has pioneered the application of automated mineralogy and advanced scanning electron microscopy to occupational dust samples, allowing individual particles to be characterised by their composition, size, shape and associations. Increasingly, her research is also exploring artificial intelligence and large particle datasets to identify patterns that cannot be resolved through conventional exposure measurements alone.

A central theme of Nikky’s work is moving beyond asking simply how much dust a worker is exposed to, towards understanding what the dust contains, where it came from, how it changes with mining and processing activities, and which characteristics may be most important for health. This evidence supports more targeted exposure assessment, control selection and risk management.

Nikky works extensively with industry, government, regulators, unions, clinicians and researchers to translate research into practice. Her broader research program encompasses exposure assessment and control, occupational disease prevention, respiratory health risk factors, return to work following occupational lung disease, emerging airborne contaminants and the development of new approaches to occupational health surveillance and risk management.

With more than 20 years of experience across mining operations, research, occupational health and safety and industry leadership, Nikky brings a strong applied perspective to her work. Alongside her research role, as Director of Professional Development at SMI she provides strategic leadership for industry-facing education and professional capability development, helping translate university research and expertise into practice across the resources sector.

Nikky is a Fellow and Chartered Professional of AusIMM and a member of the AusIMM Board. She also contributes to national occupational health and professional initiatives through Standards Australia and the Lung Foundation Australia Occupational Lung Disease Network. She is a recognised speaker and media commentator on mining health and safety, respirable dust, silica, occupational lung disease and emerging approaches to exposure assessment.

Her contributions have been recognised through the 2024 AusIMM Professional Excellence Award in Health and Safety, the 2025 Queensland Resources Council Exceptional Woman in Technological Innovation Award, the 2025 Women in Resources National Exceptional Woman in Technological Innovation Award and the 2025 Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference Health Award.

Dr Larisa Labzin is an ARC Future Fellow and leads the viruses and innate immunity lab at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. Her lab studies how our innate immune system detects viral infections and deciphers diverse signals to mount an appropriate immune response, with a focus on influenza and SARS-CoV-2. The Labzin group aims to identify new therapeutic targets to prevent and treat viral infections and diseases in humans and animals.

The lab has four key research areas: (1) how viral tropism and life cycle shape innate immune sensing and inflammation; (2) how pre-existing antibodies influence innate responses to viruses and vaccines; (3) how innate immune signalling differs across patient risk groups and species; and (4) how viral-triggered inflammation drives vascular dysfunction and thrombosis. As cell biologists, the Labzin Lab studies the primary cellular targets of these viruses (respiratory epithelial cells, macrophages, and endothelial cells) using imaging, molecular biology, gene editing, and immunological approaches.

Dr Labzin started her career in innate immunity with Honours at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at UQ with Prof. Matt Sweet before relocating to Germany to undertake her PhD with Prof. Eicke Latz, a world leader in innate immunity (2015, University of Bonn). She was subsequently awarded an EMBO Fellowship and NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral training at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, from 2016 to 2019. She returned to Australia in 2019 as a CJ Martin Fellow to start her independent research team at the IMB under the mentorship of Prof. Kate Schroder. She was heavily involved in science communication during the COVID-19pandemic and was a 2022 QLD Tall Poppy recipient and winner of the 2022 Australian Society of Immunology Public Engagement Award.

Pure Mathematician, working in Differential Geometry and Geometric Analysis.

Brief bio: Ramiro grew up in Argentina and found an early passion for mathematics as a high school student by participating in the Maths and Programming Olympiads. He obtained an undergraduate degree from La Plata University in 2009, and a PhD in mathematics from Cordoba University under the supervision of Prof. Jorge Lauret in 2013. After that, he was a postdoc in the Differential Geometry group at the University of Münster in Germany (first as a Humboldt fellow, and then as Prof. Wilking's assistant). He also spent three months at MSRI in Berkeley, California, in 2016. Since mid-2018, he has been working at the School of Maths and Physics at UQ.

Dr Melissa Lai is a Neonatologist at the Grantley Stable Neonatal Unit, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, and serves as co-chair of the RBWH Neonatal Research Group. She is the site lead for a dynamic set of clinical trials and quality improvement projects, and helps to build research capacity and collaboration across institutions. Awarded in 2021, Dr Lai's PhD investigated the neurodevelopmental effects of infant massage in premature infants with a primary outcome measuring neonatal EEG power. Other clinical areas of interest include data management, clinician performed ultrasound and retrieval coordination. She is currently building an innovative body of work related to improving and supporting the provision of mother's own milk, and introducing new technologies into the neonatal intensive care environment.

Dr. Andrew Lai is a leading biotechnologist and translational researcher, specialising in the role of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in gynaecological cancers and reproductive diseases. His research focuses on developing innovative EV isolation methods and characterising EV cargo to discover biomarkers with potential clinical applications.

His work has directly influenced the development of an early-detection test for ovarian cancer, OCRF-7, which is currently being validated for clinical use. His expertise in mass spectrometry-based proteomics has been instrumental in advancing the understanding of EV roles in cancer progression and treatment resistance.

Sunil Lakhani is Executive Director Research and Senior Staff Specialist, Pathology Queensland, and Head of the Molecular Breast Group at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR) at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

Prior to his move to Australia in 2004, he was Professor of Breast Pathology at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK

His current research interests include lobular carcinoma and its variants, normal and stem cells, tumours with a basal phenotype, familial breast cancer and biology and therapeutic development for brain and distant metastases.

He was series editor for the 4th Edition WHO Tumour Classification Books and volume editor for the 4th Ed WHO Classification of Tumours of the Breast (2012). He is currently Standing member of the Board for the 5th Ed WHO Tumour Classification Books. He is also on the editorial board of a number of pathology and experimental research journals.

Ratilal Lalloo is an Associate Professor, Teaching and Research, in the School of Dentistry, University of Queensland (2016 - ); and was the Teaching & Learning Director (2020 - 2024) and Higher Degree Research Director (2016 - 2019). He was an Adjunct Professor in the Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health (ARCPOH), University of Adelaide. He held an academic title of Professor in the School of Dentistry and Oral Health, Griffith University from 2014-2019. He is a dental public specialist, with an undergraduate degree in dentistry (1986), honours degree in Epidemiology (1992), Masters degree in Community Dentistry (1994) and PhD in Dental Public Health from the University College London (2002). After almost 20 years as a dental academic in South Africa he took up the position of Colgate Chair & Professor: Rural, Remote and Indigenous Oral Health, in the School of Dentistry & Oral Health, Griffith University, for 5-years from January 2009. He was then a Senior Research Fellow at ARCPOH for a year (2014-2015). He was an Associate Professor, on a short contract position, in the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Sydney (2015). He has been involved in the training of under- and post-graduate dental students, dental public health related research and various management roles. He has published widely and his main research interests vary across many dental public health issues including evidence-based dentistry, oral health-related quality of life and health inequalities.