Affiliate of Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre
Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Affiliate of W.H. Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre
WH Bryan Mining Geology Research Centre
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Affiliate of Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre
Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Senior Research Fellow - OHS in Mining
Sustainable Minerals Institute
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Nikky LaBranche is an occupational health researcher and mining engineer specialising in dust and respiratory health. She leads the Dust and Respiratory Health Program at The University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute, managing a $3.6 million portfolio of applied research.
Her work focuses on respirable dust characterisation, exposure assessment, control technologies, and return-to-work strategies for workers affected by lung disease. She has developed advanced methods using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with automated mineralogy (MLA) and field emission SEM (FEG-SEM) to understand particle size, shape, mineralogy, and agglomeration. This research informs industry, government, and unions on practical measures to prevent occupational lung disease in coal, metal, smelting, and engineered stone industries.
Nikky also brings nearly two decades of broader mining health and safety experience, including:
Injury analysis and accident investigation – developing classification systems for mining incidents and identifying organisational risk factors.
Occupational health systems – linking exposure and surveillance data to disease outcomes.
An AusIMM Fellow and Chartered Professional, Nikky has been recognised with the 2024 AusIMM Professional Excellence Award in Health & Safety and the 2025 QRC Exceptional Woman in Technological Innovation Award. She is committed to creating safer, healthier, and more sustainable workplaces across the resources sector.
Affiliate Research Fellow of School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
Faculty of Science
Affiliate of Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research
Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr. Larisa Labzin studies how our innate immune system detects viral infections and how it decodes different signals to mount an appropriate immune response. Dr. Labzin's interest in innate immunity started during her honours training with Prof. Matt Sweet at the IMB, looking at how inflammatory signalling is regulated in macrophages. After gaining more experience while working as a research assistant for Prof. Sweet, she moved to Germany to the University of Bonn for her PhD. At the Univeristy of Bonn, Dr. Labzin investigated the anti-inflammatory effects of High-Density Lipoprotein with Prof. Eicke Latz. Here she discovered novel regulatory pathways that control inflammation. Dr. Labzin then moved to Cambridge, UK as an EMBO postdoctoral fellow to work with Dr. Leo James at the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Biology. In Dr. James' lab Dr. Labzin focused on how viruses are sensed by the innate immune system to trigger inflammation. In particular, Dr Labzin investigated how antibodies change the way viruses trigger inflammation. While in Cambridge, Dr. Labzin was awarded an NHMRC CJ Martin Fellowship to return to Australia. Larisa returned to the IMB in September 2019 to work with Prof. Kate Schroder. Dr. Labzin is an IMB Fellow and leads an independent research team studying inflammation in response to influenza and SARS-CoV-2.
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.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Not available for supervision
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.
Affiliate of Centre for Extracellular Vesicle Nanomedicine
Centre for Extracellular Vesicle Nanomedicine
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Research Fellow
Frazer Institute
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
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.
Affiliate of Centre for Extracellular Vesicle Nanomedicine
Centre for Extracellular Vesicle Nanomedicine
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Conjoint Professorial Research Fellow and Staff Specialist Anatomical Pathology
Frazer Institute
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
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.
Director of Teaching and Learning of School of Dentistry
School of Dentistry
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Associate Professor
School of Dentistry
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
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.
Research Fellow/Senior Research officer (Supervisor)
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
Availability:
Available for supervision
Yasmine Lam is a researcher within the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation at the University of Queensland. Her main areas of interest are using biotehnological tools like gene editing to dissect key traits of interest in cereals to further understand the molecular mechanisms that underpin phenotypes. Currently she is focusses on integrative approaches for leveraging breeding data for biotechnological research and disseminating the influences of genes on various aspects of root system architecture in winter cereals. Overall, she endeavours to form more integrative approaches for crop improvement by looking at ways to harness biotechnlogical tools in a manner that can be utilised not only in crop research, but in crop breeding.
Affiliate of Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Robyn Lamont is a post doctoral research fellow and physiotherapist researching the assessment and physiotherapy management of people with neurological conditions including people with Parkinson's disease. Robyn's current research focuses on the assessment of community ambulation and participation in people with Parkinson's disease and the factors associated with community ambulation ability and disability in this population.
Dr Julian Lamont’s research interests include Political philosophy and economics, metaphysics, applied ethics, business and professional ethics, and bioethics.
He teaches in the areas of the Introduction to Social, Political and Legal Philosophy; Crime and Punishment: Issues in Legal Philosophy; Social and Economic Justice; Business and Professional Ethics; Political Philosophy.
Dr James A. T. Lancaster is an intellectual historian who received his PhD from the Warburg Institute, University of London. He is presently Lecturer in Studies in Western Religious Traditions in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, as well as the Editor (special issues) of Intellectual History Review. Previously, he was a UQ Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland. As a member of the Editorial Board of the Oxford Francis Bacon edition, he has published widely on the philosophical and religious thought of Francis Bacon. His research and teaching interests and experience include the history of science and religion, the history of atheism and irreligion in the early modern period, and the history of the psychology of religion.
