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Olivia Mejías is a Research Fellow in Critical Minerals and Mine Waste Geoscience at the W. H. Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre within the Sustainable Minerals Institute and a member of the ARC Training Centre for Critical Resources for the Future. She is also part of the Mine Waste Transformation through Characterisation (MIWATCH) research group. Olivia holds a Masters degree in geometallurgy and has recently submitted her PhD, which focused on indium mobility and transformation in mine waste environments.

A geologist with more than 10 years of combined industry and research experience, Olivia has worked across a range of deposit types and commodities. She has applied geometallurgical frameworks to copper-molybdenum porphyry ores, advanced geochemical studies in cobalt-rich IOCG systems, and most recently characterised indium-bearing mine wastes from copper-tin granite related and copper-gold VMS deposits.

Her research uses multi-scale characterisation approaches to investigate critical minerals in mine waste materials and acid mine drainage. Through this work, she aims to improve understanding of their biogeochemical cycling and to translate these insights into sustainable mineral extraction and geometallurgical practices. This research is supported by experience with a wide range of analytical techniques, including laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), automated mineralogy using Maps Min, MLA and QEMSCAN, LA-ICP-MS, synchrotron based XFM and XAS, atom probe tomography (APT) and geochemical modelling using PHREEQC.

She is a dedicated and collaborative researcher who is passionate about advancing critical minerals science in ores and mine waste materials and about contributing to a more sustainable future.

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 Erika MELER, DVM, IPSAV, CEAV, MSc, MVSc, Dipl ACVIM (SAIM), Dipl ECVIM-CA

Senior Lecturer in Small Animal Internal Medicine - Registered Veterinary Specialist

Erika graduated from the National Veterinary School of Lyon (France) in 2003 and continued her clinical training with a rotating internship at the University of Montreal in small animal medicine and surgery (Canada). She pursued her clinical training with a Certificate in advanced studies in internal medicine at the National Veterinary School of Nantes (France) which is equivalent to an Australian Membership. Then interested in laboratory research work, she completed a Master in Oncogenetics at the Medical School of Marseille (France) and worked on the side as veterinary general practitioner.

Erika who enjoys both clinical research and internal medicine practice, decided to take the experience to the next step further. In order to broaden her knowledge and competences in both fields she entered a combined Master in Veterinary Sciences and residency program in small animal internal medicine at the Purdue University Veterinary Teaching Hospital (United States). She was awarded both her Master by the University of Purdue and her Certification in Small Animal Internal Medicine by the American College of Veterinary Medicine in 2010. During her Residency, Erika won the Osborne case report competition organized by the Phi Zeta Society which rewards the best case presentation of the year.

After her residency, Erika worked for about 3 years in one of the biggest emergency and referral private practices in Canada where she founded the internal medicine service. Erika has trained in her career many students, interns, veterinary nurses and mentored younger colleagues. She has given continuing education conferences and written numerous articles summaries for general practitioners. Having worked in both private and academic environments, she can prepare her students for both careers and understands the challenges of both types of practice.

Erika's academic activities encompass clinical teaching and management of referral cases in the department of small animal internal medicine at the University of Queensland Veterinary Medical Centre, classroom teaching for veterinary students in their 3d, 4th and 5th years and veterinary technology students in their 3d year of training, as well as research work bridging human as well as laboratory science and IT technology to clinical practice (so called collaborative and translational medicine). She has also an interest in developing business management field in veterinary medicine as well as innovative teaching methods for veterinary students and professionals.

Erika’s clinical areas of interest are the use of new technologies in veterinary medicine such minimally-invasive techniques (including laser and stenting) in dogs.

Erika's research areas of interest are infectious diseases such as MRSA, MRSP, protozoal, viral and fungal diseases in pet companions.

Erika's teaching areas of interest are the development of new teaching methods in the veterinary clinical setting and the exploration of a new balance between economic needs of teaching hospitals and their educational goals.

Erika is definitively a team player and has an excellent track record in student supervision and graduation. Although veterinary oriented, these themes are also deeply translational so any colleague from a medical or educational background who would like to collaborate is very much welcome to make contact. Erika looks forward to work with any colleagues and students interested any of the themes listed above.

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.

Professor Paul Memmott is an anthropologist and architect and for some decades was the Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland (School of Architecture and Institute for Social Science Research). This has now become the Aboriginal Environments Research Collaborative (AERC) within the School of Architecture, Design and Planning. The AERC has provided and continues to provide an applied research focus on a range of topics in relation to Indigenous populations, including institutional architecture, vernacular architecture, housing, crowding, governance, well-being, homelessness, family violence and social planning for communities.

Paul was the first full-time architectural-anthropological consultant in Australia, being principal of a research consultancy practice in Aboriginal projects during 1980 to 2008. His research interests encompass Aboriginal sustainable housing and settlement design, Aboriginal access to institutional architecture, Indigenous constructs of place and cultural heritage, vernacular architecture, social planning in Indigenous communities, cultural change and architectural anthropology.

Paul’s scholarly research output includes over 300 publications (including 11 books and monographs), 215 applied research reports and 40 competitive grants. He has supervised over 50 postgraduate and honours students and has won a number of prestigious teaching awards in Indigenous education (including an Australian Award for University Teaching – AAUT). One of his books, titled 'Gunyah, Goondie + Wurley: Aboriginal Architecture of Australia', received three national book awards in 2008 (Edition 1), including the prestigious Stanner Award from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and then upon the publication of an expanded edition 2 in 2022, another three national book awards.

Paul also has extensive professional anthropological experience in Aboriginal land rights claims, Native Title claims and associated court work since 1980. He has presented evidence and been examined in a variety of Australian courts as an expert witness on a cross-section of Indigenous issues, in addition to the Native Title work.

Awards

• AIA Neville Quarry Award, 2015
• Best Exhibit, Australian Architectural Exhibit, Venice Biennale 2018 (Team led by Baracco + Wright Architects, Melbourne)

Memberships

• Life Member, Academy of Social Sciences (Australia)
• Life Fellow, Australian Institute of Architects
• Fellow, Australian Anthropological Society

Flavio Menezes is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Australian Institute for Business and Economics at the University of Queensland (UQ). Flavio is also a part-time member of the Australian Competition Tribunal and a Member of the NDIA’s Pricing Arrangement Reference Group. His third and final term as Chair of the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) ended in September 2025. He was a member of the Board of the QCA for nearly a decade. He was engaged by the Australian Treasury to provide independent strategic advice to the Australian and New Zealand governments for a review into regulatory barriers to the net zero transformation. His report was released in September 2025 with both governments having committed to using it to sharpen regulatory settings, boost trade, and lift living standards across Australia and New Zealand.

Professor Menezes was a member of the Expert Panel for the Special Disability Accommodation (NDIS) 2022-2023 price review. He was the president of the Economic Society of Australia (Queensland) from 2016 – 2018 and a member of the advisory board of the Federal government’s 2019 – 2020 Deregulation Taskforce.

He was the Head of the School of Economics at UQ from 2009 to 2015, the chair of the Research Evaluation Committee for Economics and Commerce, Excellence of Research in Australia (ERA) 2018, and a member of the same committee for ERA 2015. Professor Menezes was an elected member of UQ’s Academic Board and of its Standing Committee from 2018 to 2021. Prior to joining UQ in 2006, he was a Professor of Economics and a Professor of Regulatory Economics at the Australian National University and the foundation director of the Australian Centre of Regulatory Economics. He was a (part-time) Vice-President at Charles Rivers Associates International in Canberra from 2005 to 2006.

Professor Menezes is a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Distinguished Public Policy Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia. He is an associate editor of Journal of Public Economic Theory and was the co-editor of the Economic Record from 2016 to 2022. He has published extensively on the economics of auctions, competition and regulatory economics, industrial organisation, and market design. He is a sought after UQ Expert on Australian economic policy. Professor Menezes’ engagement with industry and government is significant.

His experience includes advising the federal government, the AEMC, the ACCC, IPART, the QCA, and the ACT and Victorian governments on market design issues in regulatory environments. He has also provided economic advice to many private and public organisations on competition and regulatory issues in telecommunications, defence, fisheries, water, gambling, natural resources, electricity markets, dairy, smart cities, banking, aged care, the NDIS, early childhood education and childcare, health, and transport.

I study aspects of reproductive physiology that impact fertility in cattle, early embryonic development, and precision animal agriculture technologies that can improve animal health and performance. The goal of my research program is to apply research-based knowledge to refine current and develop new bio-technologies that can be readily adopted by cattlemen.

My research program is centered on three focus areas:

1. To investigate reproductive physiology and advance reproductive efficiency of beef cattle through the development of reliable bio-technologies that can be quickly implemented;
2. To maintain collaborative research that focuses on investigating early embryonic development in cattle;
3. To develop reliable, efficient, and profitable management strategies and technologies that can enhance the productivity of beef production systems.

My research and teaching interests include development, applied microeconometrics, agriculture, poverty, and the environment. I am particularly interested in using new data sources and new empirical methods to improve our understanding of a wide range of outcomes, especially the SDGs.

My current work focuses on three separate strands of literature: labor allocation, poverty, and methodologies to improve estimates of statistics of interest to economists and policymakers. Ongoing work studies how households allocate their labor in developing countries, especially across sectors. I work on the effects of pollution on agricultural productivity as well as how a changing environment affects labor allocation decisions. I also have ongoing work studying poverty and the best ways to improve poverty estimates, whether across time or across space. Relatedly, in work with regular collaborators, we are studying the best options to estimate different statistics – including poverty and labor force statistics – in developing countries, where data infrastructure may not allow the types of methods used in developed countries. For example, we are studying whether small area estimation methods or machine learning methods offer more accurate predictions of different outcomes and at different levels of aggregation. As part of my small area estimation and poverty work, I take part in capacity building with the United Nations Statistics Division and the World Bank to improve the understanding of small area estimation across the world. Current work revolves around disseminating working guidelines as well as in-person workshops for officials from national statistics offices.

Dr Lea Merone is a Senior Research Fellow in the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Queensland. Lea graduated as a medical doctor with honours in the UK in 2011 and emigrated to Australia in 2016, where she completed her specialist training in public health medicine and obtained her Fellowship of the Australian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (FAFPHM) in 2020. Lea also has expertise in Health Economics, having completed her Master of Health Economics in 2019.

Lea is an experienced researcher who holds a PhD in women's health. Her research interests include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, sexual health and gender. She is also co-convenor of the Ecology and Environment Special Interest Group and a committee member of the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Special Interest Group with the Public Health Association Australia. Lea can use Auslan to a general conversational standard. In her spare time, she enjoys playing chess, singing and dancing.

I lead the Carbon & Climate Change Group in the Centre for Environmental Responsibility in Mining.

My research to date has focused on:

• The role of weathering of serpentinites and other ultramafic rocks in the global carbon cycle
• Development of carbon offset projects for mining companies, including reforestation, enhanced rock weathering, and carbon mineralisation projects
• Sourcing feedstocks for reaction with carbon dioxide
• Carbon accounting at mine sites, with a focus on accounting for land-use change emissions
• Environmental impacts of nickel mining, particularly laterite deposits
• Exploration and mining of marine placer deposits, including diamond, gold, and platinum‑group‑element deposits
• Geochemical and mineralogical tools for mineral exploration, for both traditional commodities and feedstocks for reaction with carbon dioxide

I joined the Sustainable Minerals Institute in 2026 after 14 years working in the mining industry in both geology and sustainability roles, including working as a Climate Change Specialist for the De Beers Group and a Carbon Mitigation Principal for Anglo American.

I have worked on mining and mineral exploration projects on four continents: North America, South America, Africa, and Australia. During my Ph.D. studies, I conducted fieldwork in the Sultanate of Oman in the Middle East.

In addition to my academic research, I am a writer and enjoy writing about science for a general audience. I wrote a geology blog for the American Geophysical Union for several years, and my book Rocks & Minerals: An Illustrated Field Guide was published by Cider Mill Press (an imprint of HarperCollins) in 2023.

Professor Frederic Meunier obtained his Masters degree in Neurophysiology at the Paris XI University, France in 1992 and completed his Ph.D in Neurobiology at the CNRS in Gif-sur-Yvette, France in 1996. He was the recipient of a European Biotechnology Fellowship and went on to postgraduate work at the Department of Biochemistry at Imperial College (1997-1999) and at Cancer Research UK (2000-2002) in London, UK. After a short sabbatical at the LMB-MRC in Cambridge (UK), he became a group leader at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland (Australia) in 2003. He joined the Queensland Brain Institute of the University of Queensland in 2007 and obtained an NHMRC senior research fellowship in 2009 renewed in 2014 with promotion. He became Professor in 2014 at the Queensland Brain Institute and is currently part of the Centre for Ageing Dementia Research.