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Dr Hai Thanh Luong is currently conducting his Research Fellow in Cyber Criminology at the School of Social Science and a member of HDR Committee as well as collaborating with UQ Cyber Centre. Additionally, he is a member of the Global Initiative Network's Expert against Transnational Organized Crime (GI TOC) and also a senior researcher and chair of the Asian Drug Crime Research Committee at the Institute for Asian Crime and Security (IACS), the U.S while holding an Associate Research Fellow at the Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University. Dr Hai has a Bachelor of Law (Criminal Investigation) and has spent twenty years researching and teaching in police institutions across the mainland Southeast Asian region, particularly in Vietnam. In 2010, as one of the new emergent scholars for the Australian Development Scholarship in non-traditional security threat fields, he was awarded a full scholarship to gain a Master in Transnational Crime Prevention at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. In 2017 he earned a PhD (criminology) at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, after examining the complicated structure and modus operandi of several transnational drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle across the borderland between Vietnam and Laos in his thesis. His interests include cybercrime, policing in cybercrime/cybersecurity, drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, police training, environmental crimes and biological threats. As a research fellow in cyber criminology at the UQ, he prioritises exploring what, why, and how the human factors impact trends and patterns of cybercrime and applying criminological theories to analyse the criminal network structure and crime script of cyber-related crimes. His latest book 'Transnational Drug Trafficking across the Vietnam and Laos Border' was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019. He has also published several papers in various academic journals (Asian Survey; Journal of Crime and Justice; International Journal of Cyber Criminology; International Journal of Drug Policy; Policing and Society; International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy; and Trends in Organized Crime, among others). In 2020, he was awarded the Young Asian Criminologists from the Asian Criminological Society (ASC).

As a member of the Asian Regional Law Enforcement Management Program (ARLEMP), funded by the Australian Federal Police and hosted by the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam and RMIT Hanoi, he contributed to building a comprehensive connection among law enforcement agencies, policymakers, and academia across Asian countries to prevent and combat serious and transnational crimes since 2005. Accordingly, he has collaborated with law enforcement agencies (police, customs, border guards, coast/maritime guards, and rangers) to exchange, discuss, and research the trends and patterns of transnational crimes across the Southeast Asia region through joining and consulting at the Australia-Mekong Partnership and the U.S.-Mekong Dialogue against Transnational Crimes. Recently, he presented and worked closely with many international and regional organisations, including the UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok, Thailand), ASEANPOL, and AFP and consulted with the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam and the Ministry of Justice of Vietnam. He has gained research funds from the GI TOC, UNODC, Harm Reduction International, International Drug Policy Consortium, Australian Government, the U.S. Department of State, and Vietnamese Government in recent ten years.

Matthew heads the Ecological Cascades Lab [link] in the UQ School of the Environment, is a Chief Investigator with the UQ Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, is the Director of the TERN Wildlife Observatory of Australia, and is an ARC DECRA Fellow from 2022-2025.

We are accepting qualified PhD students for domestic and international wildlife projects. Potential PhD topics include: How does the loss of apex predators influence lower trophic levels? How does selective hunting of particular species (e.g. pigs) affect non-hunted competitors (e.g. deer)? How does wildlife influence plant communities and traits? How do invasive predators affect biodiversity? How can we integrate existing camera trap datasets to conduct powerful analyses and for monitoring? How will climate change impact the phenology of trees and thus fruit resources for animals?

Our lab is interested in all aspects of wildlife ecology, including food-web ecology, plant-animal interactions, and applied conservation science. We have experience with tropical forests in Southeast Asia using a variety of flora and fauna sampling techniques (cameras, vegetation surveys, fenced animal exclosures, invasive species, hunting surveys, and before-after zoonotic disease). We also run the largest camera trapping surveys across the Wet Tropics forests of Queensland. Most sampling is geared to assess the impacts of habitat fragmentation, agriculture, hunting, climate change, and invasive species on wildlife communities and plant-animal interactions.

Prior to joining UQ, Matthew worked with the Smithsonian Institute’s Forest Global Earth Observatory (ForestGEO) to coordinate surveys of wildlife communities in Sumatra, Borneo, Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. These projects link apex predators to herbivores to trees and have revealed how oil palm expansion has restructured ecological communities and triggered trophic cascades. Matthew has now begun a large long-term project in the Dja Faunal Reserve of Cameroon with the Congo Basin Institute and collaborates closely with UCLA on these projects. Matthew obtained his PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of California, Berkeley.

Experienced human factors and ergonomics researcher across a range of industries, particularly mining. Current projects are in the areas of mining automation, human systems integration, equipment design to reduce injury risk, whole body vibration, manual task risk assessment, diverty and incusion in the design of mining equipment to reduce injury risk, high reliability organisation (HRO) research, and most recently understanding how increasing the attractiveness of work will impact and impreve the health,safety and well being of the mining industry work force.

Danellie has held a research position within the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre since 2010. Prior to joining the centre she was director and principle physiotherapist of a combined physiotherapy clinic and ergonomics consultancy. She is a certified professional ergonomist (CPE) with the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia Inc.

Research Interests

Danellie has a broad range of research interests across the scope of human factors and ergonomics. She has undertaken work in health and safety in developing countries including sub sahara Africa and PNG funded by the International Mining for Developing Countries program, and been part of research grants by CSIRO (National Flagship Minerals Down Under project), the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP), the Coal Services Health and Safety Trust (NSW), and Resources Safety and Health Queensland.

Overview

Deborah Lynch is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at The University of Queensland who has a strong and coherent program of research grounded in social justice, community engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration. Her policy and practice engaged research has informed professional and organisational responses across health, education and justice sectors, including domestic and family violence, refugee support and Indigenous health. Her publications strengthen community development as a participatory, ethical and social justice‑oriented field of practice.

Deborah has contributed significantly to academic leadership since joining UQ in 2011. She has led initiatives to strengthen external partnerships, resulting in the NMSW External Engagement Strategy, and currently chairs the School’s T&L Assessment Sub-Committee. Her previous leadership roles include Higher Degree by Research Program Lead (guiding the program through the challenges of COVID-19), Student Engagement, Experience and Employability Academic Lead, and Program Lead for the Bachelor of Social Work and Bachelor of Social Work (Honours), overseeing a Faculty Academic Program Review and curriculum development and reaccreditation in 2016 and 2021.

Her research spans child protection, community development and school-community partnerships, with a current ARC Discovery Project advancing national understanding of how school‑community partnerships underpinned by social justice can support and empower young people experiencing marginalisation to participate in education and community life. This work builds on commissioned work for the Queensland Department of Education and has led to an ARC Linkage Grant application with community and school partners to co-create school-community resilience frameworks to support student attendance, drawing on community development and youth voice methodologies. Recently, her presentation at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Conference 2025 received the Special Interest Group (SIG) Best Presentation Award for Educational Leadership.

Deborah teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programs, specialising in group work, community development, and international social work. Drawing on her extensive practice experience in Australia and internationally in health, the legal system and international community development, she models professional practice by example, and seeks to create safe, supported and enabling learning environments which empower students as learners and future social work professionals. Deborah grounds her social work teaching in the values of social justice and human rights, working to support critical thinking and collective approaches to nurture dynamic and innovative forms of practice that can respond to contemporary community, environmental and social issues. She has a demonstrated track record in PhD research supervision. Since 2020, she has supervised five PhD completions.

Recognised for excellence in teaching, Deborah has received multiple awards (School, Faculty and UQ) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is an Affiliate Academic with the UQ Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation (ITaLI) and Graduate Attribute Champion (Respectful Leadership) which are academic outreach roles across UQ. She maintains strong national and international collaborations and is committed to advancing social work education and research that addresses contemporary social and environmental challenges. Collaboration with Indigenous researchers has supported community‑led prevention approaches to Rheumatic Heart Disease, while her international conference contributions and role as Visiting Expert for the Singapore Ministry of Health reflect global recognition of her expertise in community development and health equity.

Dr Sasha Lynn is a registered clinical psychologist and Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Queensland. She specialises in child and adolescent development, with a particular focus on social and emotional learning (SEL), mental health, and wellbeing in educational settings. Her work spans psychology, education, and neuroscience, with an emphasis on research that is both applied and translational.

Dr Lynn’s research investigates how wellbeing and mental health influence developmental and educational outcomes, particularly in relation to emotion regulation, peer relationships, and classroom engagement. She is committed to embedding SEL meaningfully into the curriculum through developmentally informed, evidence-based strategies. A core feature of her work is the co-design of interventions with educators and students, ensuring student voice and agency are central to program design and implementation.

She has a particular interest in the use of gamification frameworks to increase engagement with SEL and mental health content, and her research spans both digital and face-to-face modes of delivery. Her work also explores how compassion-focused therapeutic approaches can be adapted to educational contexts to enhance both student and teacher wellbeing, classroom climate, and relational safety.

Dr Lynn is affiliated with the UQ Learning Lab and is a member of the Compassionate Mind Research Group. She has been involved in a number of large-scale projects across school and clinical settings, and brings nearly 20 years of direct experience in school-based clinical and mental health roles to her academic work. This practitioner perspective ensures her research remains grounded in the realities of education systems and responsive to the needs of schools.

She has contributed to the development and evaluation of interventions such as KooLKIDS and Mindfields HS, which have demonstrated promising early outcomes and attracted commercial interest. Dr Lynn’s broader goal is to support educators, families, and students by creating practical, evidence-informed approaches that foster resilience, emotional literacy, and a positive foundation for lifelong learning.

Professor Kristen Lyons is a public intellectual with over twenty years experience in research, teaching and service that delivers national and international impacts on issues that sit at the intersection of sustainability and development, as well as the future of higher education. Trained as a sociologist, Kristen is comfortable working in transdisciplinary teams to deliver socially just outcomes, including for some of the world's most vulnerable communities. Kristen works regularly in Uganda, Solomon Islands and Australia, and her work is grounded in a rights-based approach. In practice, this means centring the rights and interests of local communities, including Indigenous peoples, in her approach to research design, collaboration, and impacts and outcomes. Kristen is also a Senior Research Fellow with the Oakland Institute.

Ding is a biostatistician and reserach fellow at the UQ Clinical Trials Centre. His research focuses on developing statistical methodology for time-to-event data, particularly semiparametric survival models, joint modelling of longitudinal and time-to-event data, and methods for addressing non-proportional hazards. His doctoral research focused on estimation methods for semiparametric accelerated failure time models with time-varying covariates. He also has experience in clinical trial design and simulation, including multi-arm multi-stage and Bayesian adaptive designs, and in applying modern survival and joint modelling methods to health data in areas including motor neurone disease and oncology. Ding is passionate about advancing statistical methodologies to support applications in biostatistics, especially in the design and analysis of clinical trials.

Dr Xiaodong Ma obtained his Bachelor's Degree in 2006 and a Master's Degree in 2009 from Dalian University of Technology, China, then graduated with a PhD in 2012 from The University of Tokyo, Japan, supported by the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) Scholarship.

Dr Ma joined The University of Queensland in 2012, right after his PhD graduation, starting as a postdoctoral research fellow.

Dr Ma is now the group leader of the High-Temperature Processing (HTP) group and leading the HTP Program at JKMRC, SMI of UQ. He is an expert in experimental and modelling research on thermodynamics and kinetics of high-temperature materials processing for ferrous, non-ferrous and advanced materials. He has extensive hands-on experience in fundamental study and applied research, including solar cell silicon purification, ironmaking, steel secondary refining, copper smelting, metal extraction from low-grade complexed ores, and waste treatment, etc. His research activities also extend to the development of high-strength and high-end specials steels by sophisticated control of second phase particles. Along with the research, he is also good at materials characterization by operating the analytical facilities of SEM, EPMA, TEM, XRD, ICP, etc.

His current research interests span the decarburization of ironmaking and steelmaking with hydrogen metallurgy and lower CO2 emission technologies in the metallurgical sector and high temperature processing of critical minerals, aiming to bridge the gap between conventional metal production and the emerging circular, sustainable economy..

Tianyi Ma is a Research Fellow (Academic Level B) at The University of Queensland whose research seeks to understand why children differ in their developmental trajectories and responses to preventive interventions. His interdisciplinary research program integrates developmental psychology, parenting and family psychology, educational psychology, prevention science, and advanced quantitative methods to investigate developmental mechanisms, individual differences, and family-school processes that shape children's learning, mental health, and wellbeing. He has published 28 refereed journal articles (including 17 as first and/or corresponding author) and secured over AU$340,000 in competitive funding as a lead or contributing investigator. He leads an independent program of research involving a coordinated team of honours students and research assistants while contributing to large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations. Tianyi serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools and Journal of Child and Family Studies, and sits on multiple editorial boards. His long-term goal is to develop a systems-contextual science of why children respond differently to developmental environments and preventive interventions, translating this knowledge into more personalised and effective supports across family, school, and community settings.

Dr Hui Ma received his B.Eng and M.Eng from Xi’an Jiaotong University (China), M.Eng (research) from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and PhD from the University of Adelaide (Australia). He has been working at the University of Queensland (Australia) since 2008. From 1997 to 2003, Dr Ma was an engineer in Singapore and made contribution to the design, development and deployment of the Intelligent Self-recovery and Automated Cargo Inventory Control System for Singapore Airline SuperHub 2.

Dr Ma's current research and development work is associated with Australian electricity supply industry. His research is centred on Electrical Asset Management including (1) modelling, sensing, and signal processing to improve the visibility of electricity networks and assets condition; and (2) data mining with uncertain reasoning for various applications of electricity networks with high penetration of renewables. Dr Hui Ma is an editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery and a member of CIGRE Australian Panel D1.

Dr Ma's course coordination and teaching:

ELEC2400 (Electronic Devices and Circuits)

ELEC4320 (Modern Asset Management and Condition Monitoring in Power System)

Dr Ma also coordinated and taught ELEC4400/EELC7402 (Advanced Electronic & Power Electronics Design) and ELEC7051 (Transformer Technology Design and Operation).

Thomas Maak is Professor of Leadership and the inaugural Professorial Chair in Ethics at the University of Queensland Business School. A business ethicist by training, he previously served as Director Centre for Workplace Leadership and Professor of Leadership at the University of Melbourne. Thomas is global authority in the field of responsible leadership, business ethics, and the micro-foundations of CSR. His research links the individual, group, and organizational levels, combining ethical theory, political philosophy, relational thinking and stakeholder theory. He conducted the first team neurodynamics study with MBA students in 2012. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as the Academy of Managment Learning & Education, Journal of Management Studies, Human Resource Management, Organizational Research Methods, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He is listed in the Stanford list of the world's most highly cited university professors.

Thomas has extensive experience in leadership development and has worked for several years with PricewaterhouseCoopers on their award-winning senior executive program ‘Ulysses’. He has also worked with other leading companies, including BMW, Volkswagen, Shell, UBS, Dong Energy, and Novo Nordisk. Through his work with leading social entrepreneurs in South Asia and South America, including Gram Vikas, Hagar, and Fundacion Paraguaya, he is also interested in social innovation and the advancement of human dignity in a fractured world. Before coming to Australia, Thomas started his academic career at the University of St. Gallen, home to the world’s best MSc in Management, and is a graduate from the INSEAD International Director’s Program. From 2004-2008 he held an appointment as Senior Research Fellow at INSEAD, France, and co-directed a research stream within the PwC-INSEAD initiative on high-performing organizations, before being appointed Full Professor at ESADE Business School in Barcelona, one of the top-ranked MBA schools in the world, and a leader in corporate executive education. In 2014 he was a visiting professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Thomas is the immediate past president of ISBEE, the International Society of Business, Economics, and Ethics and chaired and co-organized the 2022 World Congress in Bilbao, Spain.

John Macarthur is Professor of architecture at the University of Queensland where he conducts research and teaches in the history and theory of architecture, and in architectural design. John graduated from the University of Queensland with Bachelor (Hons 1st) and Master of Design Studies degrees (1984) before taking a doctorate at the University of Cambridge (1989). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the founding Director of the research centre for Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History (ATCH) and remains an active member of the Centre. He has previously served as Dean and Head of the School of Architecture at UQ and as a member of the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts. He is a past President and a Life Member of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand.

His research in the intellectual history architecture has focused on the conceptual framework of the interrelation of architecture, aesthetics and the arts. His book The Picturesque: architecture, disgust and other irregularities, was published by Routledge in 2007. John has edited and authored a further tenbooks and published over 150 papers including contributions to the journals Assemblage, Transition, Architecture Research Quarterly, Oase and the Journal of Architecture. John's book Is Architecture Art? an introduction to the aesthetics of architecture, was published in December 2024..

Memberships

Fellow, Australian Academy of Humanities Fellow; Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences; Life Member, Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand

My research informs and transforms how we understand the strategic organisation of innovation. I do this through research addressing the foundations of strategy and innovation. Empirically, my research focuses on complex, project-based forms of organising commonly found in infrastructure, engineering, and resources, to develop better explanations for how organisations innovate and adapt. Scholars of strategy and innovation have traditionally paid less attention to these organisational forms. And yet they are a central feature of many economies, including Australia. Theoretically, my research makes contributions to The Behavioral Theory of the Firm (e.g. developing new, more socialised models of organisational search and innovation), the Resource-based View of the Firm (e.g. how engineering and design can be used to protect innovation knowledge from imitation), and Project Organising (e.g. developing new frameworks for managing innovation in projects). My research has been published or is forthcoming in a wide variety of top journals ranging from MIT Sloan Management Review and the Academy of Management Review through to the Journal of Technology Transfer and EMBO Reports.

I love mentoring Honours, Masters, and PhD students passionate about doing research on innovation. I regularly get requests to supervise students and can only take on a small number. What I look for in a candidate is a clear understanding of the literature motivating their research interest, some knowledge of my research, and insight into how they see our interests connecting.

Fiona is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology with research interests in grief & loss, trauma, emtion regulation and anxiety. Her work is mechanism focussed. She applies experimental and longitudinal methods including experience sampling to better understand the pyschological processes that contribute to resilence and/or the development of psychopathology. Her work is also focussed on improving supports for those struggling with grief and trauma.

Fiona completed her Master of Psychology(Clnical) and PhD at UNSW and undertook an NHMRC postdoctoral fellowship at the Loss, Trauma and Emotion Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also has many years experience working as a clinician in public health and private practice.

Lorna Macdonald delivers courses at the intersection of design, technology and humanity at The University of Queensland. Her interaction & technology interests lean towards the tangible and physical. Her research focus is on location-based systems & reinventing the value of design frameworks for education.