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Jenny Maturi is a social scientist. Jenny’s research interests include gendered violence, refugee and migrant studies, social movements and institutions, and feminist theory. Prior to academia Jenny worked in the human services for 15 years, mostly in domestic violence and refugee resettlement organisations. Building on this work experience, Jenny’s research has a particular focus on strategies addressing gendered violence at the level of policy, advocacy and front-line service delivery. Her work to date examines the inclusion and exclusion of marginalised groups from mainstream systems and institutions, and explores what can be done differently to address social inequalities. Jenny has published in international journals on intimate partner violence and refugee communities; gender, race, ethnicity and culture; and gendered violence in a broader context of structural inequalities aimed at addressing issues of social justice.

I am a molecular microbiologist in the Degnan lab. My research focuses on studying the symbiotic relationship between marine sponges and the internal microbial communities they harbour. As one of the earliest multicellular life forms, marine sponges are in a unique evolutionary position to shed light on the cardinal rules governing modern animal-microbe symbioses thereby uncovering broader ecological and evolutionary implications. Using genomic, molecular and behavioural methods, I investigate how these symbiotic partnerships influence sponge development and how symbioses break down in response to environmental challenges.

Dr Helen Mayfield is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work lies at the intersection of epidemiology, infectious diseases and environmental conservation. With a decade of experience studying zoonotic and vector-borne diseases, she employs advanced data modelling techniques like Bayesian networks and spatial models to explore the environmental drivers of disease. Helen holds a PhD in machine learning for environmental management. Her research focus is on refining and testing new disease surveillance methods and strategies, such as molecular xenomonitoring of mosquitoes, and targeted sampling to combat lymphatic filariasis in the Pacific islands. In addition, her current project collaborating with the NSW Saving our Species programme aims to facilitate adaptive management for threatened species using structured expert knowledge to improve decision outcomes for biodiversity.

Helen teaches in courses for conservation planning and practice, and conservation policy. She is currently president of the Bayesian Network Modelling Association and a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Decision Science Working Group.

Associate Professor Margaret Maynard’s research is interests include Australian dress, identity and fashion; fashion photography and gender studies.

Her current research includes dress studies, history of fashion, and Australian fashion photography.

She is the author of:

• Fashioned from Penury: Dress as Cultural Practice in Colonial Australia, CU Press (Cambridge University) 1994.
• Out of Line: Australian Women and Style, Uni. of New South Wales Press, 2001.
• Dress and Globalisation, Manchester Uni. Press, 2004.

Dr Maynard is a dress historian and an Honorary Consultant of the Queensland Museum.

Dr Hannah Mayr is an Advanced Accredited Practicing Dietitian and works as Principal Research Fellow for the Nutrition and Dietetics Department at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane. She collaborates with diverse teams of allied health and medical clinicians, clinician researchers, academics and consumers.

Dr Mayr has expertise in cardiometabolic disease prevention and management and her work has a focus on evidence-based healthy dietary patterns. In this area her interests and experience include dietary intake assessment and intervention design; randomised controlled and feasibility trials; telehealth and mhealth; qualitative interviews; implementation science and consumer engagement.

Dr Mayr received the Dietitians Australia Early Career Researcher Award in 2018 for her PhD work investigating a Mediterranean diet intervention in people with coronary artery disease and its impact on the Dietary Inflammatory Index. She has recently led a project focused on translating a Mediterranean-style, heart healthy diet approach into routine care for people with type 2 diabetes or heart disease. Dr Mayr has also collaborated on projects focused on improving outcomes for people with kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, liver transplant, and fatty liver disease through nutrition assessment or intervention.

Dr Mayr is an experienced university Lecturer and research supervisor in dietetics practice and research and is committed to research capacity building of dietitians and allied health professionals.

Lorraine Mazerolle is an Emeritus Professor at The University of Queensland, School of Social Science and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2010–2015). She received the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in the General Division on Australia Day 2024 “for eminent service to education, to the social sciences as a criminologist and researcher, and to the development of innovative, evidence-based policing reforms.” Professor Mazerolle has published 5 books, 4 edited books, over 180 scientific journal articles and 46 book chapters. Her work has been cited more than 14,000 times. Her research interests are in experimental criminology, policing, drug law enforcement, regulatory crime control, and crime prevention. She has held many academic leadership roles including Co-Chair of the Crime and Justice Group (Campbell Collaboration), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Criminology and Chair of the American Society of Criminology’s (ASC) Division of Experimental Criminology. She is an elected Fellow and past president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology (AEC), and an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences Australia and the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Professor Mazerolle is the recipient of the ASC Division of Experimental Criminology Jerry Lee Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), Partners in Research Excellence Award The University of Queensland (2019), Distinguished Achievement Award of the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy at George Mason University (2019), ASC Sellin-Glueck Award (2018), the ASC Division of Policing Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), the AEC Joan McCord Award (2013), and the ASC Division of International Criminology Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award (2010). She has won numerous US and Australian national competitive research grants on topics such as partnership policing, police engagement with high-risk people and disadvantaged communities, community regulation, problem-oriented policing, police technologies, civil remedies, street-level drug enforcement and policing public housing sites.

Professor Ross McAree is Head of the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. His research interests are focused on machinery dynamics and control with a current emphasis on mining equipment automation.. Professor McAree led the development and demonstration of the world’s first fully autonomous mining excavator as the outcome of a 10year collaboration with Joy Global Surface Mining (now part of Komatsu) and has collaborated with Caterpillar Inc. to develop and trial the world’s first autonomous bulldozer capable of production dozing using the ‘pivot push’ method. From 2007-2015 Professor McAree held an industry funded (P&H) Chair in Mechanical Engineering and from 2009-2015 he was Vice President for Automation and Automation Program Leader with the Cooperative Research Centre for Mining. He has attracted in excess of $12M dollars of Category 1-3 and $8.5M of Category 4 funding has contributed to the winning of two CRC bids (CRCMining and CRCMining2) for a total of $35.2M funding. He established the Mechatronic Engineering Plan at UQ in 2002. He has given leadership to his School as Chair of Research Committee (2009-2015) and Teaching and Learning Committee (2015-2017). Significant external service includes serving as Chair for the Australian Academy of Science National Committee on Mechanical Sciences (2001-2006) and as the Australian representative to the International Federation of Mechanism and Machine Theory (2001-continuing), Associate Editor for journal ‘Mechatronics’ (1999-2011) and member of Australian Standards Committees ME-27 and IT-06P. Professor McAree is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE).

Tomomi is an early career researcher who has a strong interest in parental health and wellbeing in the context of disability. She has worked in mental health practice before changing the direction of her career to the tertiary education sector. As she worked with people who were mothers in clinical context, she became interested in the power of mothering role and occupation. This interest has led her to complete her PhD study to investigate family routine management and its everyday impact on mothers of autistic children. With her PhD, she compared the experiences of mothers of autistic children using their household status (i.e., single versus couple) as well as region of residence (i.e., major city versus regional areas) to highlight the similarities and differences between these groups. Tomomi is also interested in mental health among international students, especially those students who come from non-Western cultural background. She has presented her research both at national and international conferences.

I am an experienced systems thinking practitioner/senior researcher with The University of Queensland’s Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, and a Non-Executive Director of the Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service with 15 year’s state and national Board experience. I hold a PHD, an MBA, Econometrics Hons and Bach. Econ from UQ and am an Oxford Said Business School and London Business School alum. With both an industry and research background, I am dedicated to helping organisations use system thinking tools to diagnose, understand and analyse and develop solutions for the critical challenges before them. In the rapidly changing healthcare environment, systems tools and methods have been used with great success to transform organisations through fostering an integrative approach to patient-centred care, improving efficiency, and promoting co-ordinating operations, amongst other positive results. Systems thinking’s holistic approach to understanding the interconnectedness of system elements and the underlying dynamics of systems can help explain why health systems behave the way they do and offer valuable insights into leverage points for sustainable change. In my senior research role, the systems thinking interventions I have led have required wide collaboration across the health industry’s peak bodies including Queensland Health leadership, CEO’s and Executives, HHS researchers and clinicians, QAS, OCNMO, Community Controlled Indigenous Health Organisations, Consumer groups and other health agencies. Many of the reports I have written for industry and government that have directly influenced policy e.g. the use of systems thinking workshops to inform QLDs nursing and midwifery ratios.

I am proficient with system thinking methods, both qualitative and quantitative, and specialise in working collaboratively with organisations to deploy these methods to explore the broader context of their complex problems and develop holistic solutions. Systems often involve feedback loops where actions produce consequences that affect future actions. A systems thinking approach to problem solving focusses on understanding how those changes may propagate through the system, and where those effects actually impact.

I enjoy working with industry partners to impart systems thinking skills. This usually involves facilitating participatory workshops which use scripted activities to enable stakeholders at the coalface to translate their expert knowledge into meaningful systems maps used to communicate to others, enhance understanding of system behaviour and inform leverage points for improvement. Complex systems tend to have multiple processes which cross multiple boundaries. This can encourage a silo mentality promoting” firefighting” fixes over systemic solutions. These are often costly and can mask unintended consequences. Systems thinking methods encourage thinking across boundaries wherein the system maps and system solutions are codesigned from a shared understanding.

Health is systemic and integrative, multidimensional, and multilevel. I can help your organisation to explore problems from a systems perspective to (a) identify leverage points for intervention, (b) discover a richer understanding of the implications of interventions and policy, (c) foster more robust interventions and (d) strengthen stakeholder buy-in and policy ownership through encouraging a shared vision and collaborative style.

Underpinning my research skillset is my 15 years’ experience of Boards and 25 years of senior leadership experience in Industry. I am a member of the UQBS Future of Health Hub. In my past corporate finance/Treasury roles, both public and private, I have had extensive experience in project leadership (as treasury systems design/implementation and as CIA on grants), governance (Chair/member of Governance Committees), regulation and strategic oversight (Treasurer, JBS Australia), cash and foreign exchange risk management, policy frameworks and financial and enterprise risk management. I have 15 years’ experience on Boards, six and a half as Board Chair. In 2019, I completed the London Business School’s Leading Change Course which gave me unique insights into ways, aimed at helping healthcare leaders face the unprecedented challenges before them with agility and vision. I have lived experience in compliance and ethics, risk and assurance, strategy formation, financial oversight, and culture resets. All this experience has benefitted my industry facing roles, enabling me to better support industry partners to evaluate and discern, collaborative effectively, make evidence-based decisions with confidence, understand the consequences of feedback in systems, consider broader impacts on healthcare systems and communities and foster a culture of innovation.

I hold a first-class honours degree in Econometrics, a full two year MBA and completed a PhD in 2015 investigating the impact of the carbon tax on Australia’s Red Meat Industry using system dynamics. My interest in the topic was born of working for 25 years in the red meat processing sector. I entered the industry in 1984, accepting the newly formed role of Group Treasurer, Australia Meat Holdings, to steer Australia's major processing companies through an industry wide rationalisation. In later years, I undertook the role of Risk Manager and Co-Treasurer for JBS Australia's operations, a $3billion enterprise nationally. Responsibilities included currency and cashflow management and loan negotiation. Prior to 1984, I was second in charge of the Queensland Government Treasury Department with responsibility for management of Queensland Government debt and foreign currency exposures under the leadership of Sir Leo Hielscher.

Professor Craig A McBride PhD, FRACS, FACS is a full-time Senior Staff Specialist Paediatric Surgeon at Children's Health Queensland. He is also an educator, a researcher, and a father to two boys. In addition to his public work, he has a private practice at www.betterkids.com.au.

Professor McBride is originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand and worked in three of the four Paediatric Surgical units in that country, before moving to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne for the final two years of his surgical training. Following Fellowship in 2007, he moved to Brisbane and has been here ever since.

He has specialised interest and expertise in thoracic, hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery, burns and trauma. He is also a member of both the Children's Health Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee and the Clinical Ethics Response Group at Queensland Children's Hospital, as well as being involved in the Queenslannd Children's Critical Incident Panel and the Clinical Incident Subcommittee of the Queensland Paediatric Quality Council.

Craig has published research in many areas related to children's health.

My research focus encompasses a broad range of methods – Bayesian Inference, statistical models, compartmental models, stochastic models, social network analysis, forecasting methods- and a broad interest in emerging pathogens –tuberculosis, influenza and hospital associated pathogens and emerging infectious diseases including SARS, Ebola and COVID-19. I have led research teams to complete international consultancies, modeling of tuberculosis control in our region, and international research collaborations in the area of tuberculosis, healthcare associated infections SARS and Ebola and COVID-19.

I have diverse cross-disciplinary skills, as an infectious diseases physician (FRACP) and mathematical modeler (PhD -QUT), epidemiologist, and biostatistician (MBios Uni Melb). Since 2003, I have worked on interleaving clinical research with mathematical modeling and simulation of infectious diseases transmission. In this time, I have developed the ability to communicate and collaborate across the disciplines of mathematics, biostatistics, epidemiology, public health and clinical infectious diseases. I lead a team of highly skilled mathematicians and biostatisticians, epidemiologists.

I am currently the Professor of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research, working with the ODeSI program. I continue clinical work as a physician for the TB control unit at the Torres Strait and Cape York Health Service. My collaborators across Australia include as a chief investigator on two Centres for Research Excellence in forecasting and in tuberculosis. I work with researchers in major national (Monash University, Australian National University, Curtin University and the Doherty Institute, UWA, UQ) and international universities (Imperial College, LSHTM, Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Mahidol).

COVID-19 work to date includes providing modelling and advice for: the commonwealth Government, Victorian State Government, OzSage Indigenous working group, and leading the AUS-CMI Australian Covid-19 modelling initiative group, the Global Fund against Malaria TB and AIDS, and the World Health Organization in conjunction with countries in the Asia Pacific Regions.

My major methodlogical areas of research in active development are (1) forecasting (2) scenario analysis for decision support (3) disease dynamic insights through data analysis including Bayesian inference and machine learning.

Dr. Emily McCann is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Dementia & Neuro Mental Health Research Unit at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research. She is currently working on the development of a Parkinson's Disease specific cognitive toolkit to harmonise cognitive assessment and understand the development of dementia.

She completed her PhD in 2024 at the Cognitive Neurology (Nestor) lab at the Queensland Brain Institute. During her PhD, she investigated the nature and timing of visuoperceptual impairments across a range of neurodegenerative diseases.

Associate Professor Kate McCarthy is an Infectious Diseases Physician and a Microbiologist. She is an Associate Professor with the University of Queensland Medical School. She is a committee member of the Australian Healthcare Infection Control Special Interest Group and is the Medical Director of Infection Control at the RBWH. A/Prof McCarthy has authored 36 publications and co-supervises two PhD students. She lectures for the University of Queensland Medical School. A/Prof McCarthy is passionate about research that impacts the longer term care of the patients she sees in clinical practice.