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Dr Joseph Lelliott is a Senior Lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law, teaching courses in criminal law, advanced crime and criminology, and international human rights law. He is a co-author of the textbook Criminal Law in Queensland and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He holds undergraduate degrees in Law and Arts and a PhD in Law.

Joseph’s research interests broadly lie in criminalisation and the scope and impact of criminal or otherwise punitive measures. He has particular expertise on the interrelated phenomena of migrant smuggling and human trafficking and is a co-editor of a commentary on the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocols on smuggling, trafficking, and firearms (OUP, 2023). Joseph also frequently serves as a consultant to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on issues related to smuggling and trafficking. He has authored or contributed to various UNODC publications, including the Legislative Guide to the Trafficking Protocol and other reports, issue papers, and case analyses. Joseph has a particular interest in the smuggling and trafficking of children (the topic of his PhD thesis) and has published numerous articles and chapters on migrant children.

Joseph is also currently working on a project concerning the criminalisation of threats. This includes an ongoing study on threats of fire in the context of domestic and family violence.

Joseph provides assistance to the Queensland Supreme and District Courts’ Criminal Directions Bench Book committee.

I am a Health Economist at The University of Queensland’s Centre for the Business and Economics of Health (CBEH). My expertise lies in applied economics, using econometric and discrete choice modelling techniques. I also apply economic evaluation methods to assess health policy, conduct cost-effectiveness analyses, and evaluate the scalability of public health and service innovations.

I’m particularly passionate about enhancing the lives of older individuals, with a focus on cognitive decline, dementia, and aged care—both informal and formal. I currently lead the health economics analyses on several MRFF-funded projects aimed at improving care for people with cognitive decline, chronic pain, and young adults at risk of alcohol-related harm.

Biography:

Christopher Leonardi is an Associate Professor within the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering and an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow (Mid-Career). Dr Leonardi completed his PhD in computational mechanics at The University of Wales, Swansea, and his BE(Hons) in mechanical engineering at James Cook University, where he graduated with First Class Honours and a University Medal. Christopher’s PhD thesis resulted in the development of a computational approach to modelling complex fluid-particle suspensions and demonstrated its application in the context of underground mining. Prior to joining UQ, Christopher spent three years as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on computational modelling of fluid-solid interaction problems in the context of oil and gas production.

Dr Leonardi has published more than 40 scientific papers in international journals, 30 conference papers (most in collaboration with industry partners), and one book chapter. He has graduated four PhD students as principal advisor and a further three as associate advisor. In addition to his academic pursuits, Christopher spent five years working as an engineering consultant with Rockfield Technologies Australia, where he applied advanced computational analysis tools to problems in bulk materials handling, structural design, and geomechanics.

Research:

Associate Professor Leonardi’s research is focused on the development and application of computational models of complex fluid-solid interactions, including suspension transport, porous media flow, multiphase flows, and poromechanics. The outputs of his work are applied to provide insight into the complex characteristics of subsurface fluid and solid mechanics in gas production from unconventional reservoirs (e.g. coal seams) and mineral extraction from challenging orebodies. Current and recent projects include studies on hydraulic fracturing and proppant transport in coal seam gas (CSG) reservoirs, surface movement within and adjacent to CSG tenements, counter-current two-phase flow in CSG wells, in situ recovery of minerals from low-permeability rocks, and bubble-particle interaction in hydrogen formation via methane pyrolysis.

Christopher and his group of postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students possess expertise in a range of computational techniques, including the lattice Boltzmann, discrete element, finite element, and finite difference methods. His team collaborates closely with national computing facilities, such as Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, to development, implement, and apply these techniques to large-scale engineering problems.

Teaching and Learning:

Associate Professor Leonardi is Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering where he coordinates and lectures the course, MECH3780 Computational Mechanics, and lectures the first-year course, ENGG1001 Programming for Engineers. Christopher was awarded a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education from UQ in 2015 and received Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) in 2019 and UQ in 2018.

Shaping the next generation of healthcare professionals

Dr Nora Leopardi is passionate about preparing current medical students to face the healthcare challenges of the next 50 years. She believes in fostering self-directed and self-regulated learning in students from the earliest stages of their training, in order for them to engage in continuous professional development and lifelong learning. At the core of her work, Dr Leopardi aims to prepare her students to thrive in the rapidly changing healthcare and technological landscape they will encounter, to provide high-quality and sensitive care for their patients, and to be positive agents of change in their communities, in society, and for the whole world. A creative thinker and award-winning educator, Dr Leopardi is deeply committed to creating student-centred learning environments that enrich the educational experience and shape the students' attitudes and behaviours towards excellence, integrity and inclusivity in their academic and professional careers.

Dr Li-Ann Leow is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Sensorimotor Performance, at the University of Queensland, working with Associate Professor Tim Carroll, Associate Professor Stephan Riek, Aymar de Rugy and Dr Welber Marinovic. D Prior to working at UQ she completed a 2 year postdoctoral research fellowship at the Brain and Mind Institute, Western University (University of Western Ontario), working with Dr Jessica Grahn. Before that she pursued a doctoral research under the supervision of Geoff Hammond and Andrea Loftus at the University of Western Australia, examining how Parkinson's disease patients show in a selective deficit in retaining motor learning acquired from updating an internal model, despite intact ability to update an internal model during motor learning.

I am a proud Accredited Practising Dietitian and emerging dietetics leader in curriculum design and interdisciplinary education, with a Doctor of Philosophy in medical nutrition education from the University of Wollongong. My unique research and leadership portfolio spans workforce capacity building, AI, health services, and public health.

I am highly regarded internationally for conducting research related to workforce capacity and nutrition, as evidenced by my appointment as Assistant Director (Exec) at the NNEdPro Global Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health. My publication record speaks to my reputation as a dynamic and collaborative researcher – I’ve published reviews, original research, editorials, conference proceedings and textbook chapters, and more than half of my papers have international coauthors. I was recently invited to speak at the World Health Organization on the need to improve nutrition education for healthcare professionals, and in 2024 I spoke at TEDxUQ.

Associate Professor Sharlene Leroy-Dyer is a Saltwater woman; she is a descendant of Matora (Awabakal) and Bungaree (Garigal / Darug) with family ties to Wiradyuri Nation. She is a fulltime academic in at the UQ Business School where she is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Indigenous Business Hub, and the Associate PRME Director - Indigenous Engagement for UQ Business School.. Sharlene has extensive experience as an equity practitioner, having worked for over 40 years in industry and academia. Sharlene has been on several ministerial advisory boards, and her work has been cited in Ministerial papers and in Bills introduced into Parliament.

Sharlene’s research specialises in centres around Closing the Gap on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage in education and employment, Indigenous scholarship, labour law, and organisational theory. Her work integrates Indigenous methodologies, frameworks and intersectional analysis to examine how policy and employment systems can support Indigenous economic sovereignty. She has contributed to critical legal studies, policy-oriented writing, and empirical research focused on Indigenous leadership and organisational transformation.

Sharlene’s scholarship bridges theory and practice, with a focus on real-world impact. She is currently engaged in collaborative research projects that explore Indigenous participation in governance, culturally safe employment, and decolonial policy reform. Her long-term goal is to influence policy and institutional design to embed Indigenous values and promote justice across economic systems.

Her PhD is in Business, having obtained her Doctor of Philosophy (Business) in 2016. The thesis title is 'Private-sector employment programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: Comparative case studies'. Sharlene was the first Aboriginal person to gain a PhD in Business from the University of Newcastle.

She completed her Honours thesis in 2006, entitled 'Is mentoring an effective Human Resource strategy to redress labour market disadvantage for Indigenous Australians: A qualitative study of mentoring outcomes for Indigenous trainees at the University of Newcastle'.

Sharlene is a staunch Unionist and Activist with left wing political views.

Research Expertise Sharlene's current research areas include: Closing the Gap on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage in Education and Employment, Labour Market disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment strategies, Managing Diversity in Organisations, Employment Relations and the importance of unions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander labour history, Indigenous Entrepreneurship / Indigenous Social Enterprise / Indigenous Leadership, Indigenous Enabling education & Indigenous HDR success.

She is a member of the UQ Business School Social Impact Hub, Sustainable Infrastructure Research Hub, and the Business Educators Hub, in addition to leading the Indigenous Business Hub.

Teaching Expertise Sharlene is leading the Indigenisation of curriculum for the UQ Business School. Other teaching expertise are: Industrial relations, diversity management, negotiation and advocacy, Aboriginal studies, Aboriginal labour history, Aboriginal employment, enabling courses for Aboriginal students.

Administrative Expertise 14 successful grants

Collaborations Research collaborations include: Building resilience of Social Enterprises in QLD, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community engagement, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inclusion in the workplace, Workplace mentoring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Increasing participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Business Schools, Aboriginal leadership, Stolen Wages, Disability in employment, Indigenous research methods, Enabling Pedagogies, Enabling education.

Service / Leadership Sharlene is an active participant in university and community service roles. At a University level, Sharlene sits on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment Consultative Committee and the NTEU Branch Committee as the Aboriginal representative. At a Faculty level, Sharlene is on the Bel RAP Implementation Committee and the Indigenous Staff Network group. At a school level, Sharlene is the Director of the UQBS Indigenous Business Hub, the Associate PRME Director for Indigenous Engagement, and leads the Indigenisation of the curriculum within the UQ Business School. External to the university, Sharlene is the Treasurer and Director of Hymba Yumba Indpendant School, the Chair of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee, a member of the Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) First Nations Committee and a member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Sharlene is a member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium (NATSIHEC), the peak organisation for Indigenous Higher Education. Sharlene is the President of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduates Association (NATSIPA) and sits on the National representative Committee and the Board of the Council of Australian Postgraduates Association (CAPA).

Sharlene is an elected member of the Academic Board and the Research and Innovation Committee for 2026-2028. Prior to this Sharlene was an elected member of Academic Board and the HDR committee of Academic Board from 2021-2023.

Awards Sharlene was the recipient of the BEL Faculty Award for Excellence in Citizenship - Leadership in 2025, the Dr Robert (Uncle Bob) Anderson award in 2023 for outstanding contribution to the union movement, the BEL Faculty EDI Award in 2022, the UQ Business School Recognition of Outstanding Achievement Award for Excellence in Community, Diversity and Inclusion in 2021 and a UQ Commendation Award for Excellence in Reconciliaiton in 2021 and 2022. In 2008 Sharlene was the recipient of an Australia Day Award from the Council of Women NSW - Office of Women - Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Dr Stuart Leske is a Senior Research Fellow and Program Manager of a Centre of Research Excellence in Urban Indigenous Health at UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health.

Stuart currently endeavours to support Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait researchers by seeking to provide more in technical (e.g., literature review, writing, editing, data interpretation and visualisation) and leadership skills than he takes in cultural knowledge from Indigenous staff.

Stuart has reviewed 41 times for the Lancet Group journals.

Stuart enjoys two-way learning with all people he works with.

Andrew is a population biologist in the School of Biological Sciences. A broad goal of his research is to understand the effect of environmental variability on the stability of ecological communities. At the same time, in order to deliver on this broader goal, he is working to scale up understanding from simple tractable systems to the more complex dynamics of real world-systems.

Before joining UQ, he was a Marie Curie fellow working with Jonathan Levine and Alex Hall at ETH Zurich (2018-2020), a postdoctoral fellow in Daniel Stouffer's lab at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand (2017-2018), and a CEHG (Centre for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics) postdoctoral fellow in Tad Fukami's lab at Stanford University, USA (2015-2017). He did his PhD (2011-2015) with David Keith in the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW Australia.

Dr. Sherman Leung is the Head of Research Operations at Wesley Research Institute - the research partner of UnitingCare. UnitingCare is the largest private employer in Queensland, encompassing four hospitals (The Wesley Hospital, St. Andrew's War Memorial Hospital, Buderim Private Hospital and St. Stephen's Hospital), as well as significant community-based offerings through Lifeline, Blue Care, Family and Disability Services, and ARRCS.

Dr. Leung is a PhD trained scientist, conducting his research training at Mater Research Institute, The University of Queensland, during which his research was published in highly regarded peer-reviewed journals, including in 'Diabetes', receiving the Cover Image, an 'In This Issue' feature, and shared across the Australian-wide 7 Network news.

He has extensive experience in clinical trials, having worked at Microba Life Sciences, an ASX-listed biotechnology start-up, and Nucleus Network, Australia’s largest early phase clinical trial site having overseen the conduct of several high-profile COVID-19 projects including Nuvaxovid by Novavax that has been granted emergency authorisation in 40 countries including by the TGA, EMEA & FDA.

He contributes his spare time to the greater good through numerous initiatives in the industry including being a Board Director of the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA), Co-Chair to the Clinical and Consumer Advisory Group of the $75m Australian Teletrials Program, Co-Chair to the Clinical Trials Advocacy Working Group of the Queensland Clinical Trials Consortium (QCTC), former member of the Metro North Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), Editorial Board for 'Trials' – a journal promoting all aspects of trials including methods, processes and non-significant outcomes for transparency in the field – and offers regular guest classrooms on clinical trials, informed consent and ethics at The University of Queensland.

A/Prof Janni Leung (PhD) is an NHMRC Development Fellow at National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research (NCYSUR) at The University of Queensland. Their program of research includes investigating the epidemiology of substance use and mental health because they are both major public health issues that commonly occur together. This research program had made paradigm-changing development through 200+ articles, which have recognised impact (15,000+ cites, 30% output in the top 1% citation percentile). Many of their work involves conducting systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and applying statistical models to epidemiological data on addiction and mental health issues to better understand their impacts on populations. Her work is used to inform policies on how to reduce the disease burden caused by addiction and mental health problems in Australia and overseas. Janni is committed to conducting high-quality rigorous research to generate empirical epidemiological evidence to inform decisions to prevent addiction-related harms in the population.

Teaching and supervision: They have qualifications and training in public health, sociology, and psychology. In addition, they have strong research and teaching experience in epidemiology and biostatistics. Janni has worked with a range of students from diverse demographic and cultural backgrounds, including mature-aged students and students with family responsibilities. She currently has a topic available for a self-motivated student interested in addiction research. Janni’s current research focus is on the epidemiology and disease burden associated with mental and substance use disorders across the globe.

Consultation: Janni is available for private consultation and workshop presentations on request for various research methodological and data analysis topics, e.g. systematic reviews and meta-analysis, questionnaire and survey designs, cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses.

Where can you find Janni: Janni is based at the UQ St Lucia campus with regular visits to the Long Pocket and Herston campuses.

Ian has been a research fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering since 2023. He has a diverse background in chemical engineering R&D, with PhD in chemical engineering at UQ, experience in pilot scale hydrometallurgy where he was a lead researcher in the product development team for AlphaHPA and has a growing researcher profile focussing on bioplastics production, modification, and applications, as well as their life-cycle assessments. His current research within the ARC Centre for Bioplastics and Biocomposites is supporting transition away from linear, non-degradable plastics toward a more circular economy through the production of a bioderived and biodegradable bioplastic called PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) using halophilic biotechnology, with expertise in scaleup design and techno-economic assessments. Another topic Ian is passionate about is nutrient pollution, which has cascading effects on our local aquatic ecosystems, as well as air quality and climate change. To address this global challenge, he is developing novel controlled release fertilisers by coating them with PHA and other bioplastics to help mitigate nutrient losses from agricultural lands and reducing fertiliser requirements. Ian is a motivated problem-solver, applying fundamental chemical engineering principles to help support a transition to a more sustainable future.

Dr. Anne Levitskyis a scholar and performer of medieval vernacular song, in particular troubadour lyric poetry, and its connections to the larger cultural milieu of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She is a graduate of Stanford University and earned her PhD in Historical Musicology from Columbia University in May 2018. At present, she is Lecturer in Music at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and has taught previously at Columbia, Dixie State University (now called Utah Tech), and Stony Brook University. As an academic, she is interested in medieval vernacular song, poetry, and narrative literature, and she is currently at work on two projects. The first, Sound(ing) Bodies: Song and Materiality in Troubadour Lyric Poetry, is under contract with Liverpool University Press for their series Exeter Studies in Medieval Culture. It reads troubadour lyric poetry in the context of philosophical, theological, and medical writings available in the twelfth century, and uses this analytical frame to employ new methods for the analysis of medieval monophonic song. The second project, Singing in the Reign: Song, Grammar, and Politics in the Thirteenth-Century Northern Mediterranean, explores how song is used in the courts of the northern Mediterranean in the thirteenth century to produce specific notions of space and geography, and demonstrates how Occitan song and grammars were involved in the (re)formation of these regimes. Dr. Levitsky is also interested in the presence and role of medievalisms in popular music, especially in heavy metal. She supplements this academic interest in vernacular song with an active performance career, and has studied and performed lyric poetry with the Narbonne-based Troubadours Art Ensemble, and recorded troubadour and trouvère songs both with the group and as a soloist. Dr. Levitsky performs regularly with professional ensemble Fractio Modi (of which she is a founding member), and in Brisbane. Past performances include a June 2013 performance with the Rolling Stones in Washington, DC, tours to Germany with NYC-based chamber ensemble GHOSTLIGHT Chorus, and concerts of monophony and polyphony from the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries on Columbia's Music at St. Paul's concert series. Dr. Levitsky has also served as the director of the Collegium Musicum, one of Columbia University's leading choral ensembles.