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A/Prof. Alejandro Melendez-Calderon has an interdisciplinary background in engineering and rehabilitation with extensive experience in rehabilitation technologies (e.g. robotics, wearables, biofeedback) and computational approaches to understand human neuromuscular control (unimpaired, stroke and SCI population). He has over 20 years of experience gained in academic, clinical and industrial environments. He is one of a select few experts who has working experience in area of Rehabilitation Engineering at top academic, industrial and clinical environments around the world (Australia, Switzerland, USA, UK, Italy, Denmark). This diversity of working environments provides him with a solid understanding of the development and clinical translation processes of rehabilitation technologies - from conception in academia, to transfer, commercialization and adoption in clinical settings.

He is Principal Research Fellow and Theme co-lead of Rehabilitation and Outcomes at the Jamieson Trauma Institute (Jun 2022-present), and an Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Queensland (May 2026-present).

Work experience | Clinical - He leads the Rehabilitation Innovation and Technology Assessment (RITA) service across STARS (Metro North Health) and Princess Alexandra Hospital (Metro South Health); RITA aims to close the gap between the potential of existing/emerging technologies and their practical, sustainable integration into everyday rehab care. He was previously a Senior Research Scientist and Head of Technology at the cereneo Advanced Rehabilitation Institute / cereneo Center for Neurology and Rehabilitation (Switzerland; 2017-2019), where he led and conducted research in the area of neuromechanics of movement deficits after stroke. He was also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Northwestern University (USA; 2014-2020) and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago) (2012-2013), where he conducted research in cross-modal multisensory interactions and assessment of neuromuscular impairments. Medical industry - He led the areas of Robotic Hand Rehabilitation and Assessments, and work on adaptive control of robotic trainers (arm and legs) at Hocoma AG (Switzerland; 2014-2016), one of the world-leading manufacturers of robotic and wearable technologies for rehabilitation. Academic research - He was previously a Senior Lecturer within the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland (Australia, Jan 2020-May 2026), where he led the NeuroRehabilitation and Medical Robotics group. He was a Guest Researcher at ETH Zurich (Switzerland; 2016-2019), where he conducted research in biomechanics and motor control/learning. He received his PhD degree from Imperial College London (UK; 2007-2011) for research in robotics, rehabilitation and human motor control.

Interests | A/Prof. Melendez-Calderon has a scientific interest in understanding principled mechanisms of human behavior, in particular related to movement control/learning and physical interaction; his technical interests are in robotics and computational modeling for medical diagnostics, assistive applications & (bio)medical education.

Dr Katelyn Melvin is a Lecturer and Researcher in Speech Pathology in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland. Katelyn's qualitative and mixed-methods research focuses on collaborating with families, professionals, and communities to drive meaningful, long-term improvements in developmental outcomes for children and families. Her clinical experience as a speech pathologist working alongside families navigating social and economic disadvantage and families with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds has deeply shaped her approach to research and practice. Katelyn is committed to equity in the early years, ensuring that all children and families have access to the support they need to thrive.

Her research themes include:

1. Health promotion and prevention in the early years. Designing and implementing proactive, community- and population-level approaches to supporting children's development, with a particular focus on communication.
2. Advancing best-practice family-centred care through collaboration with families. Supporting collaborative working with families in pre-professional training through to professional practice in complex early years settings.
3. Co-design for health service innovation. Equipping clinicians and services to bring stakeholder voices together to solve real-world problems and improve service delivery.

Gita Mishra AO is Professor of Life Course Epidemiology at the University of Queensland (UQ) and is internationally recognised for her research on women’s reproductive health and chronic conditions across life. She is the founding Director of the Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research (AWaGHR) Centre at UQ with a 40-strong multidisciplinary team, including 12 PhD students, that has arisen out of her leadership of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Women and Non-Communicable Diseases (2019-2025). Professor Mishra is currently an NHMRC Leadership Fellow (Level 3; 2022-2031), having previously been awarded with an ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2017) and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellowship (2017-2021).

Within the AWaGHR Centre, she is Director of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH), a national flagship study since 1996 with data on over 57,000 women in four age cohorts. She leads a series of NHMRC and MRFF funded studies, including on endometriosis, menstrual disorders, and perimenopause and menopause, that place strong emphasis on the life course and the inclusion of women from First Nations’ communities and from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The Centre also hosts InterLACE, the International collaboration for a Life course Approach to reproductive health and Chronic disease Events which Professor Mishra has developed and led since 2012. InterLACE now combines data from more than 1.2M women in 35 studies in 19 countries and has become a leading resource for robust evidence on women’s health. As a result, she regularly presents findings from InterLACE and from the AWaGHR Centre at international policy meetings, including as an expert contributor at the UN Commission for the Status of Women in New York and at the WHO in Geneva.

Over her career, Professor Mishra has authored over 500 scientific papers, invited reviews, book chapters, and evidence reports. She is lead editor of “A Life Course Approach to Women’s Health”, a key text that presents the latest research in the field and is part of the ground-breaking Life Course Series from Oxford University Press. She works extensively with governments, especially with Australian Department of Health and Aged Care. She led the 2018 evidence review for the inform the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030, which prioritised a life course approach. In 2023, she was scientific advisor to Queensland Health for the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Strategy 2023-2032.

In her current role in supporting health policy implementation and research priorities, she is a founding member of the National Women's Health Advisory Council established by the Australian Government and is on the Strategic Advisory Committee for the Queensland Women and Girls’ Health Promotion Program. From 2023-2025 she was co-president of the 16th World Endometriosis Congress in Sydney and is currently Chair of the Queensland branch of the Heart Foundation.

In 2017, Professor Mishra became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences and in 2025 she was appointed as President-elect for the World Endometriosis Society (2025-2027). She has received prestigious awards for her contribution to research and education, including the 2022 RANZCOG Award for Excellence in Women’s Health. In 2025, she was honoured with the title of Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Stockholm University.

I am an ARC Future Fellow at UQ with interdisciplinary research interests spanning social and biological sciences. My research examines how environmental and societal structures shape skeletal growth, metabolism, and health, drawing on technical expertise in skeletal histology applied across bioarchaeology, forensics, palaeontology, biology, and biomedicine. I also offer ad hoc skeletal histology consultation in forensic cases. My research has attracted ~$1.7M in competitive funding as PI (>$3.3M including collaborative grants), including an ARC DECRA and Future Fellowship.

I currently serve as Editor‑in‑Chief of Anthropological Review, Editorial Board Member of Annals of Human Biology, and Vice‑President of the Australasian Society for Human Biology. In 2024, I received the Linnean Society of London’s Trail‑Crisp Medal for contributions to microscopy in natural history.

My career spans academic, government, and industry roles in Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands, including positions at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Australian Government, ANU, Imperial College London, and the University of Kent, where I completed my BSc (Hons), PhD, and PGCHE. My previous service includes Treasurer of the Australasian Society for Human Biology and editorial roles with The Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, Scientific Reports, and Anthropological Review.

Amy is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work and affiliate of the Parenting and Family Support Centre at UQ. She is the recipient of consecutive Children's Hospital Foundation Early Career Fellowships (2018-2021, 2021-2022). Amy is a paediatric nurse and completed her PhD (Health) in 2011, for which she received the Executive Dean's Commendation for Higher Degree Research. Amy's productive program of interdisciplinary research draws on health and behavioural science methodologies to understand the role of parents and parenting in child health and development, identify targets for intervention, and develop and test evidence-based parenting support interventions to improve children’s health and developmental outcomes. Current areas of focus include the use of evidence-based parenting support to improve outcomes for children with chronic health conditions (e.g., asthma, eczema, type 1 diabetes, PKU) and neurodevelopmental differences (e.g., autism), supporting families to develop healthy habits from early childhood (e.g., oral health, nutrition, screen use), and supporting parents in the transition to parenthood (e.g., perinatal mental health, breastfeeding). Amy is also the Program Lead for the Master of Nursing (Graduate Entry) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

Dr Miura's research focus is the role of nutrition and dietary intake in prevention of chronic disease, especially skin cancer and cardiovascular disease. Dr Miura is currently leading projects to studying nutritional status and dietary intake among heart transplant recipients. Her research areas also extend to health of airline pilots in relation to radiation exposure.

Dr Morley is an epidemiologist by background who works in health policy and health services research. Her broad areas of research interest are the intersections between healthcare provision and non-health sectors (e.g. the criminal justice system, transport infrastructure), particularly in relation to mental health and substance use. She is also interested in the evaluation of complex interventions using mixed-methods approaches involving administrative data.

Prior to joining UQ, Dr Morley was a Senior Research Leader and Deputy Director of the Health and Wellbeing Research Group at RAND Europe, a not-for-profit policy research organisation based in the UK. In this role she led two major research projects investigating government policy: an evaluation of the UK government investment in drug and alcohol treatment and recovery systems (NIHR205228), and an assessment of the mental health impact of a major high-speed rail infrastructure project on surrounding communities (NIHR132761). She is a co-investigator for the Birmingham, RAND and Cambridge Rapid Evaluation Centre, one of five UK rapid evaluation centres funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR156533). She has also conducted research for the European Commission, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the UK Department for Health and Social Care.

Before working at RAND Europe, Dr Morley was a Senior Lecturer at the King's College London Institute for Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IOPPN), based at the National Addiction Centre. While at the IOPPN, she led research focused on using electronic health records to understand the unmet physical and mental health needs of people who use alcohol and other drugs and taught research methods and statistics on MSc programmes. Before this she held positions at University College London, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Melbourne.

Dr Sally Mortlock is a genetic epidemiologist and NECST Research Fellow who leads the Genetic Epidemiology stream at the Australian Women and Girls Health Research (AWaGHR) Centre, University of Queensland. Her research integrates genomics with life course epidemiology to understand how genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors shape women’s health across the lifespan.

Her work focuses on reproductive and menstrual health, particularly endometriosis and related conditions, with the aim of improving understanding of disease mechanisms, risk, diagnosis, and personalised approaches to care.

Research areas include:

• Genetic epidemiology and reproductive genomics
• Women’s health across the life course
• Endometriosis and reproductive disorders
• Longitudinal cohort studies and life course epidemiology
• Genetic risk prediction and causal inference methods (including Mendelian randomisation)
• Multi-omics and biological pathway analysis

Dr Mortlock previously spent seven years as lead computational biologist within the Genomics of Reproduction Disorders group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, contributing to internationally recognised research in reproductive genomics. She now combines this expertise with large-scale longitudinal health data, including genetic resources within the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, to investigate women’s health trajectories over time.

Beatrice is a Postdoctoral Researcher with a special interest in behaviour change and digital health promotion. She has extensive experience in clinical trial management and evaluation. Following on from a Master’s Degree in Medical Science, her PhD was dedicated to the development of a mobile app that targeted adults’ physical activity and sleep health. The body of work she has contributed to has incorporated a wide range of research methods and study designs and her research outputs have added important knowledge to the field of multiple behaviour change and non-clinical sleep interventions. In more recent roles, Beatrice has worked on wide-scale implementation projects targeting the health and wellbeing of young children. Beatrice’s work is about maximising impact, both in the scientific field and out in the community by way of generating high quality data and improving equity of access to evidence-based resources.

Herston Campus

Allyson Mutch is an Associate Professor in Health Systems in the School of Public Health, University of Queensland and a Senior Fellow in the Higher Education Academy. Her research uses qualitative methods to investigate the social determinants of health and the health and wellbeing of people who are socially excluded and experiencing disadvantage. Allyson's research is firmly embedded in community, with strong links to community organisations that ensure their needs are represented.

Dr Bushra Nasir is a Senior Research Fellow with expertise in Indigenous, rural, and remote health research. She leads and contributes to large-scale multidisciplinary research addressing Indigenous health, chronic disease, mental health, digital healthcare and health service delivery. Her research has achieved national and international reach, with strong academic, policy and community impact.

Her work is characterised by extensive collaboration with researchers, clinicians, health services and communities, alongside contributions to global health policy, including work informing World Health Organization recommendations. She is actively involved in research leadership, mentoring, peer review and professional service, and has held leadership roles within university research committees. Her research is strongly collaborative and community-engaged, with a particular focus on translating evidence into policy and practice. She is also committed to research leadership, mentoring and capacity building, supporting clinicians, students, educators and health professionals to strengthen research and improve health outcomes in regional and rural communities.

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Prof Nestor joined the Queensland Brain Institute in October/2017 and has a conjoint appointment as a cognitive neurologist at Mater Misericordiae Ltd (Mater Hospital).

His particular interests include understanding the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease (i.e. before dementia is established); atypical forms of dementia with a particular focus on primary progressive aphasia and dementias related to Parkinson's and Lewy body diseases; and improving differential diagnosis between the major categories of neurodegenerative diseases.

He works on development of neuropsychological tests of cognition, both to accurately track change over time and improve diagnostic accuracy between the major diseases causing dementia. He also uses multi-modal imaging (magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] and positron emission tomography [PET]) to understand the sequence of events occurring in degenerative brain diseases (particularly Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease [ALS], progressive supranuclear palsy [PSP] and corticobasal degeneration [CBD]) and identify novel biomarkers. A major focus of his is on developing novel approaches to MR imaging for single subject pathological diagnoses that can be exported into the everyday clinical setting; recent examples include diffusion tensor imaging to identify PSP and CBD (Sajjadi et al, 2013) and quantitative susceptibility mapping in Parkinson's disease (Acosta-Cabornero et al, 2013).

I completed a PhD in Neuroscience with Jack Pettigrew (FRS) at Vision, Touch & Hearing Research Centre followed by an NHMRC Clinical Research Fellowship at Alfred Health & Monash University.

Back in QLD I'm continuing a transdisciplinary research & innovation program to Bring Discoveries of the Brain to Life!

I'm currently focused on developing novel MedTech Biotech diagnostics & therapeutics for enhancing human performance, recovery & resilience with the following projects:

[1] Precision Pain Medicine — the largest genetic study of persistent (chronic) pain in Australia, in collaboration with QIMR Berghofer & Monash University, aims to identify pharmacogenomics causal pathways for the design of personalised therapeutics & effective early intervention approaches (e.g., screening, education, prevention).

[2] Brain Switcha — A digital transdiagnostic biomarker and cloud-based large-scale population phenotyping & analytics platform to improve early intervention strategies in sleep & mental health conditions (esp. at-risk youth cohorts) and recruitment screening for Defence forces.

[3] VCS — vestibulocortical stimulation: A simple, inexpensive, non-invasive & non-pharmacologic neurotherapeutic treatment technique for fibromyalgia (with US colleagues) and other centralised pain syndromes, sleep apnoea, dementia & mental health conditions (e.g., depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder).

I also have >5 years professional services experience providing specialist research performance evaluation, consultation, reporting & training workshops that successfully delivered several major strategic priorities to a large internal & external client base — such as organisational unit leaders/managers at multiple levels (e.g., Centre/Department) and senior executive business missions for national/international strategic partnerships. This work includes mapping, monitoring & benchmarking of research capacity, capabilities/strengths, gaps & collaboration networks (e.g., clinical, corporate & government) across diverse disciplines for Annual & Septennial Departmental Reviews (e.g., patent, policy & clinical guideline citations; external stakeholder engagement including media); ARC Engagement & Impact assessments; and workforce capability development (e.g., recruitment for senior leadership positions and ranking of NHMRC/ARC funding applicants).

In particular, I enjoy meeting & connecting people with a shared vision & commitment towards building innovative & sustainable public-private partnerships to deliver meaningful solutions for the wider community.

Dr Huy Nguyen is a biostatistician and epidemiologist whose 25+ year career has spanned clinical medicine and advanced quantitative research across Vietnam, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. He trained as a medical doctor at Thai Nguyen and Hanoi Medical University, before completing postgraduate qualifications in statistics, research methods and public health at Flinders University and a PhD in Statistical Modelling and Epidemiology at Queensland University of Technology, for which he received the Outstanding PhD Thesis Award. He has held academic and biostatistics roles at Hanoi Medical University, St Luke's International University, the University of Adelaide, Griffith University, and Federation University Australia, and currently serves as Senior Research Fellow (Biostatistics) at the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, University of Queensland, with honorary and adjunct appointments at Federation University, St Luke's, UMass Chan Medical School, and Mekong University.

Huy's research focuses on the design and statistical analysis of clinical trials and large observational studies, with particular expertise in causal inference, longitudinal and survival modelling, and Frequentist and Bayesian methods applied to chronic and infectious disease epidemiology. He has served as statistician or statistical/technical advisor on seven clinical trials (six ANZCTR-registered) – most recently as Technical/Statistical Advisor on the Wellcome Trust-funded E-Dengue cluster-randomised trial to reduce dengue incidence in Vietnam's Mekong Delta – and has contributed statistical expertise to over 30 funded research projects supported by the NHMRC, NIH, CDC, and Wellcome Trust, including NIH/Fogarty-funded non-communicable disease research and training in partnership with UMass Chan Medical School.

He has published nearly 100 peer-reviewed articles in international journals – including The Lancet, eClinicalMedicine, The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific, PLOS Medicine, and Cardiovascular Research.

Huy has supervised 1 postdoctoral fellow, 6 PhD candidates (2 completed, 4 in progress), 25 Master's students, and 17 Honours/Bachelor students.

Professor Nissen is Director, and Taylor Family Chair, of the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health (CBEH), Faculty of Business Economics and Law at The University of Queensland. She has been a prominent health practitioner leader, educator, researcher, and implementation scientist nationally and internationally for more than 25 years. A pharmacist by training, her research has driven major health system change, notably leading to the introduction of immunization services by pharmacists throughout Australia (Queensland Pharmacists Immunization Pilot (QPIP), (2014-15) and more recently the Urinary Tract Infection Pharmacy Pilot – Queensland (UTIPP-Q, 2020-21), both Australian firsts. Before joining UQ, Lisa was previously Head of the School of Clinical Sciences at QUT (2012-22) overseeing the training for 2,500 students per year across seven clinical disciplines. In late 2022 she returned to UQ, taking on a new and innovative role as Director of the EvolveHealth Health Workforce Optimisation Program at CBEH. This program is part of the seven strategic Health Research Accelerator (HERA) initiatives announced by UQ in 2022, which will address some of the most pressing health and medical challenges of today.

Lisa has had career-long leadership and executive roles with national boards and state committees including the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia, Family Planning Queensland, and Hepatitis Queensland. Professor Nissen was a ministerial appointment to the Queensland Health Interim Pharmacy Round Table overseeing the implementation of a council to govern pharmacy ownership in Queensland. She is also a ministerial appointment to the Queensland Health Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board. She is on governance boards various other health organization groups including the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand Board, and the AHPRA scheduled medicines expert committee.

Professor Nissen focuses on strategic collaborations across the healthcare continuum with key partnerships in government, professional boards, associations, university, and other industry and consumer groups. These have led to the implementation of multiple complex practice change interventions. She has a proven record of bringing together these groups to focus on establishing multidisciplinary care teams to provide consumer-centric health care. This often means challenging currently held views of the scope of practice of health professionals, drawing on her high-level collaboration and negotiation skills.

Professor Nissen has supervised more than 80 higher degree research students and published over 180 peer-reviewed journal articles, and 200 professional publications. She has given more than 250 invited keynotes, plenary, and workshop presentations. In the past 5 years she has generated more than $9M in competitive research funding.

Susan Nunan is a Clinical Academic and Course Coordinator for the Master of Nursing Studies (Pre-Registration) Program in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work (NMSW), and joined the School in 2010. Susan is currently the Course Coordinator for NURS7124 Clinical Practice 1 and NURS7125 Older Adults' Health (Semester One) and NURS7130 Professional Practice and NURS7131 Clinical Practice 4 (Semester Two).

Susan has extensive clinical nursing experience in General Medical, Coronary Care and Surgical Units in major hospitals in Brisbane and Sydney, as well as in QLD and NSW rural hospitals where she has also facilitated undergraduate nursing students. In addition, her clinical experience includes; Community Nursing, Gerontological Nursing and Dementia Care in both city and rural settings in QLD and NSW. Susan is a Registered Nurse Division 1 with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, and is a member of the Australian College of Nursing and the Australian Association of Gerontology. Susan has a PhD in Nursing, a Masters of Health Professional Education (Nursing major), a Graduate Certificate in Clinical Practice (Wound Management), a Bachelor of Arts, Research Master of Arts, and has undertaken post-graduate course studies in Mental Health topics.

Susan’s current research interests include falls risk assessment and management, and she has recently completed her PhD within the UQ, School of NMSW, with thesis entitled:Evaluating the validity, reliability and feasibility of a falls risk assessment tool recommended for use in Australian residential aged care facilities. A mixed methods study.

Other areas of research interest for Susan are in Healthy Ageing, Dementia Care and Older Adults' Health.

Doctor Jake O’Brien is Senior Research Fellow and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS). His main field of interest is in wastewater-based epidemiology, but he also has interest in developing analytical methods for chemicals of emerging concern within biological and environmental samples. Doctor O'Brien is a strong advocate for collaborative research having co-authored with more than 300 collaborators worldwide on over 170 publications. Jake is strongly supportive of early career researcher development and is the former chair of the EMCR@UQ Committee. He is also a Chief Investigator of the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program since its establishment in 2016.