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My academic training is in language teaching and linguistics. I hold a BA/MA equivalent in Teaching Foreign Languages from Ryazan State Pedagogical University, Russia, MA in English with concentration in Linguistics and TESOL from East Carolina University, USA, and PhD in Linguistics from University of South Carolina. Before coming to UQ, I taught at tertiary level for 13 in three universities in Russia and USA. I have supervised teaching practicums and research projects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and have taught a range of Russian, English, Linguistics and Language Teaching courses.

My research interests lie at the intersection of Bilingualism, Second Language Acquisition, Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching. I am interested in cognitive, social and pedagogical implications of bilingualism in its broad sense and specifically in the similarities and differences between language development in foreign/second language learners and heritage speakers. I am interested in finding which linguistic phenomena are more difficult to acquire and why. I study factors that can potentially affect the success of bilingual language acquisition. The broad goal of my research is to gain a better understanding of how language works in the case of bilingual acquisition and, as a result, to inform classroom language pedagogy and policy.

United Nations (UN) member states in 2015 agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Dr Deirdre Mikkelsen is a microbiologist and Senior Lecturer in Food Science at the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, where her teaching and research contribute to several UN SDGs, including:

• Goal 2 – Zero Hunger
• Goal 3 – Good Health and Well-being
• Goal 4 – Quality Education
• Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production
• Goal 13 – Climate Action
• Goal 15 – Life on Land

Deirdre holds a B.Sc. (First Class Honours, 1999) and a PhD in Microbiology (2005), both from UQ. She has expertise in molecular microbial ecology, bioinformatics and fermentation microbiology. Her academic journey includes research roles at the Advanced Wastewater Management Centre (2005) and from 2006 at the Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences (CNAFS), Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), where she held Postdoctoral and Research Fellow positions. She joined her current School in 2019.

Program Coordination and Teaching

Dr Deirdre Mikkelsen is the Program Coordinator for the following postgraduate programs:

• Master of Food Science and Technology
• Master of Food Science and Technology (Research Extensive)
• Graduate Certificate in Food Science and Technology

She also coordinates and teaches:

• FOOD2000 – Food Science
• FOOD3017 – Food Safety & Quality Management
• FOOD7021 – Professional Experience (Work Integrated Learning)

Professional Memberships and Engagement

• Member, Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST) – Queensland Branch Committee
• Member, International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) Education Oversight Group – Australasia representative
• Member, IUFoST – Food Safety Working Committee 2.2 (Education focus)
• Academic Advisory Group Member, Ag Connections Agriskills Accelerator Program
• Member, Australian Society for Microbiology (ASM)

Jared is a proud Yuwi man, pharmacist and early-career researcher with interests spanning from culturally safe and effective pharmacy practice through to new technologies for pharmaceutical development and delivery. After graduating from UQ with a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours) in 2012, he worked as a community pharmacist before returning to undertake a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences, focusing on discovering new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout his PhD, Jared developed an interest in teaching and tutored for many pharmacy courses. Ultimately this led to his current role as a Senior Lecturer with UQ School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences upon finishing his PhD in 2021. Jared also works as a clinical and research pharmacist with the Institute of Urban Indigenous Health (IUIH).

Elissa is an Intensivist and clinician researcher. She is a full-time Intensive Care Specialist in the Australian Army through which she works at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. She holds honorary academic titles at the University of Queensland and Monash University. Her PhD was on the role of the endothelial glycocalyx in severe trauma, and she is building a research program that spans the management of severe burns, trauma, blood transfusion, military medicine, and endothelial dysfunction in critical illness. She also has a strong interest in the design of novel clinical trials and is currently completing a Masters in Biostatistics. She is an emerging leader in critical care clinical trials, currently leading the Australian sites of the international, multi-centre, Threshold for Platelets (T4P) clinical trial, and is on the management committee of several other large multi-centre clinical trials. She is an active member of the ANZICS Clinical Trials Group community and supervises several student research projects.

I received a BA in Biology from Columbia University in New York City. After taking two years off to work as a research assistant, I began graduate school at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, also in New York. My graduate advisor was Andrew Koff at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute. I studied the cdk inhibitor, p27, and discovered that it is regulated at the level of translation as cells exit the cell cycle. I received my PhD in Molecular Biology in 2001. My postdoctoral work was carried out in Larry Zipursky's lab at UCLA. Here, I learned both Drosophila genetics and neurobiology and began working on the Dscam-family of cell recognition molecules. I identified Dscam2 as the first tiling receptor and discovered that Dscam2 and Dscam1 are redundantly required for photoreceptor synaptic specificity. I moved to Brisbane and began as a lecturer at the UQ School of Biomedical Sciences, in December 2009. I am also an affiliate of the Queensland Brain Institute.

Dr Jodie Miller is an Associate Professor in mathematics education, in the School of Education at The University of Queensland. Her research focuses on improving the educational outcomes of students most at risk of marginalisation in school, particularly in the fields of Mathematics and Indigenous education.

Jodie is internationally recognised for her research in early algebraic thinking and evidenced based strategies to support engagement in mathematics in primary school settings. She leads research projects with a focus on classroom and mathematical practices, teacher professional development, culturally responsive teaching, and examining student understanding. This research has been conducted in countries including Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.

In addition to this, Jodie’s recent research collaborations focus on examining excellence in Indigenous education. This work is led by Associate Professor Marnee Shay, where the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are brought to the forefront to re-imagine the notion of excellence in Indigenous education.

I am a Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Queensland, Meaanjin/Brisbane, Australia.

My research draws on machine learning, reinforcement learning, AI planning, interaction design, and cognitive science, to help people to make better decisions. I have done work on areas including explainable AI, human-AI planning, and human-centered decision support.

Prior to my appointment at The University of Queensland, Tim was a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne, where I was founding co-director of The Centre for AI and Digital Ethics. I am an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne.

If you are an organisation applying artificial intelligence or looking to apply artificial intelligence, especially in south-east Queensland, please reach out. I am always interested to hear what organisations are currently doing, the opportunities and barriers in this space, and how the University of Queensland can help.

If you are prospective PhD student interested in studying for a PhD under my supervisor, see here.

Veterinary pharmacology and therapeutics, with special interest in transdermal drug delivery, pulmonary therapeutics and the control of inflammation. An additional interest includes wildlife ecology and therapeutics.

Paul Mills graduated from UQ School of Veterinary Science in 1987 and, after a period in clinical practice, completed a PhD investigating pharmacological control of inflammation in racing animals. He undertook a 3 year postdoctoral position at The Animal health Trust in the United Kingdom and established the Oxidative Stress research group. He was also the team veterinarian on a study of heat and humidity in horses towards the Atlanta Olympic Games. He returned to Australia and undertook positions as a NHMRC Senior Research Officer at the Princess Alexandria Hospital and as a Senior Government Veterinary Officer with Racing Queensland.

A/Prof Mills re-joined the School of Veterinary Science in 2001 and established the Pharmacology Research Unit to focus research into veterinary pharmacology. He was also a co-founder of Veterinary Marine Animal Research, Teaching and Investigation (Vet-MARTI; http://www.uq.edu.au/vetschool/vet-marti) in 2008. He has attracted over $2 million in research funding during this time and is the author on more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications. A/Prof Mills is a member (by examination) of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists for Veterinary Pharmacology and an external reviewer for the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. He currently teaches veterinary pharmacology and anatomy, receiving UQ and ALTC awards and funding for teaching innovations.

Professor Martin Mills's research interests include the sociology of education, social justice in education, alternative schooling, gender and education, school reform and new pedagogies. Martin’s work in these areas has been significant in contributing to international and national debates on these topics. His recent co-authored books include Re-engaging young people in education: learning from alternative schools and Boys and schooling: Beyond Structural Reform.

He is a Fellow of Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA), the immediate Past President of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE), holds a Visiting Professorship at Kings College London and is a Life Member of Clare Hall Cambridge University. Martin has also been on a number of government advisory committees, for example, the Equity Advisory Group to the Queensland Studies Authority. Substantial policy advice has also been provided through the numerous government reports that he has co-authored, the most recent of which are a report to the Australian Capital Territory government on the alternative provision of schooling in that Territory and a report to the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment on disengagement in Queensland Schools.

Dr Carmen Mills is an Associate Professor in Teaching, Learning and Classroom Pedagogy in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, where she is the Director of Teaching and Learning. Her research interests are informed broadly by the sociology of education. She has an international reputation for significant research contributions in the areas of social justice in education, schooling in disadvantaged communities and teacher education for the development of socially just dispositions. As a socially critical researcher, informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu and others, she is concerned to explore questions related to whose interests are served by the social arrangements evident in educational contexts and how these arrangements might be structured more equitably. She is experienced in undertaking empirical research with others from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, bringing her particular experience in interviewing and observation, her empirical interest in equity and social justice, as well as her understanding of Bourdieuian theoretical concepts, to these research teams.

Kiara is a social psychology researcher at the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at The University of Queensland as a research fellow. She is currently focused on strengths based approaches to sexual health and relationships and sexuality education for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She received her doctorate from the University of Queensland in July 2021 for her PhD research project, The role of idealising jealousy in inhibiting the identification of and response to non-physical intimate partner violence: a schema theory approach. She has since completed a post-doctoral research fellowship on sexual consent in Australia.

Kiara has a passion for applying quality research techniques to identify practical strategies for real improvements across a range of social issues. Kiara is experienced in quantitative and qualitative research methods, and holds a strong commitment to research transparency, methodological rigour, and collaborative research as the foundation of positive social change. She is also dedicated to research communication and has previously written and edited a blog page for social change research.

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics at the University of Queensland and a Research Associate at the ANU Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA) since 2017.

I received my Ph.D in Economics from the University of Virginia (US) in 2017.

I am a macroeconomist working on understanding the sources of business cycle fluctuations, the consequences and causes of sectoral shifts, and the transmission mechanisms of fiscal policy. My research focuses on the role that firm-level and household-level heterogeneity play in shaping macroeconomic volatility, recessions, and the effect of fiscal stimulus.

Dr Mehrnoosh Mirzaei is an interdisciplinary designer, design researcher, and educator. She is a Lecturer in Design at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Queensland (UQ). She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the University of Tehran, specialising in Product Design, and completed her PhD at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 2023. Her doctoral research explored the potential of experiential learning and embodiment within disaster risk reduction (DRR) education for children, using Research-through-Design and participatory methods. The study produced a three-step design model for creating child-centred, inclusive, and practitioner-friendly DRR learning frameworks. Her research is interdisciplinary, addressing complex social and environmental challenges through design-led approaches that bridge education, community resilience, and health. Mehrnoosh’s work focuses on enhancing climate adaptation, risk perception, and well-being through participatory and embodied design methods. She leads and collaborates on projects such as the Tropical Bus Stop (TAP) project and Resilient by Design, which connect design research with real-world impact across communities, local governments, and industry.

Beyond academia, Mehrnoosh has extensive professional experience as an industrial designer, with a portfolio spanning the automotive, homeware, and toy industries, and she received the Bronze A’ Design Award (2017) for her work “Escher.” She also partners with government and health organisations to develop co-design frameworks and user engagement tools, including design-driven risk awareness programs for children and healthcare system design improvements. Mehrnoosh integrates these experiences into her teaching, advancing interdisciplinary and user-centred design practice to prepare the next generation of designers for complex societal challenges.

Dr. Partha Narayan Mishra obtained his PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia in 2020 with the Dean’s Award for Outstanding HDR theses. He was conferred with the Institute Gold and Institute Silver Medals from National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India during his graduation with a dual degree (B.Tech. Hons. In Civil Engineering and M.Tech. in Geotechnical Engineering) in 2015.

Research

Partha is a Geotechnical Engineer and researcher with research interests in the arenas of improvement of soft soils, behaviour of unsaturated soils, electromagnetic characterisation and monitoring of soil processes, biomediated geotechnical engineering and clay barrier systems in hazardous waste disposal facilities. Outcomes of his research have been summarised in 30+ technical articles in top tier international journals, conferences, and book chapters. In academic and research space, Partha has worked as a summer research fellow at IIT Guwahati, India (2013) and at IIT Madras, India (2014), research scholar at IIT Madras, India (2015-2016), casual academic/research assistant in Civil Engineering at UQ, Australia (2016-2020), adjunct lecturer in Civil Engineering at UQ, Australia (2020-cont.) and at UCSI university, Malaysia (2020-2021).

Industry

As a practicing engineer, he has worked on several projects pertaining to tailings storage facilities (TSFs) in Australia and overseas. His industry experience comprises of working as a consulting geotechnical engineer with Klohn Crippen Berger (KCB Australia) (2020- 2021) and as an owner’s engineer with Rio Tinto Aluminium (2021-2022). Through these roles he has developed an intimate understanding of the challenges encountered in engineering, operation, and management of TSFs, some of which he aims to address through his research.

Teaching

Partha has co-supervised 1 PhD, 1 masters, 2 bachelors and 3 summer research thesis to completion at UQ. He currently advises 2 PhD and 5 masters students. He has co-delivered Advanced Soil Mechanics (CIVL4230) at UQ in 2021. He has also tutored Fundamentals of Soil Mechanics (CIVL2210) and Geotechnical Engineering (CIVL3210) at UQ from 2016 - 2020. In 2020, Partha initiated the ‘Lecture Series on Advancements in Geotechnical Engineering: from Research to Practice’ (AGERP) in collaboration with Professor Sarat Das. The AGERP lecture series is a pro-bono attempt towards disseminating the coupled learnings from academia and industry on several key topics in Geotechnical Engineering. The AGERP lecture series has reached to participants (academics, practicing engineers and students) from over 125 countries. More on the AGERP initiative is here: https://www.age-rp.com/. Partha was conferred with fellowship (2021) and associate fellowship (2019) from the Higher Education Academy, UK for his teaching portfolio benchmarked against UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) for teaching and supporting learning in higher education.

Service

Partha is a member of the Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS), the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), the Indian Geotechnical Society (IGS) and an associate member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He regularly reviews technical articles (50+ so far) for top tier international journals in the discipline such as Geotechnical Testing Journal, Acta Geotechnica, Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering etc. Partha was the President of UQU association of postgraduate students (2016-2017) and chair of the annual conference of the EAIT faculty of UQ (2017-2018). He has also sat in the UQ library advisory committee (2018) and student experience committee of UQ academic board (2017).

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'm a researcher with interdisciplinary interests spanning social and biological sciences. I'm currently an ARC Future Fellow at UQ working on social and temporal dynamics of bone metabolism in humans. My technical expertise is in skeletal histology, which I have applied to a range of questions and samples across different disciplines, including bioarchaeology, biology, biomedicine, forensics, and palaeontology. What fundamentally unites all this research is understanding how the environment and societal structures impact skeletal growth and health. My research has attracted ~$1.7 mln in funding as a PI, including an ARC DECRA and Future Fellowship, totalling ~$3.3 mln including collaborative grants.

I am the current Editor-in-Chief of Anthropological Review and Vice-President of the Australasian Society for Human Biology, In 2024, I was awarded the Trail-Crisp medal for outstanding contribution to microscopy as an essential tool for the study of natural history by The Linnean Society of London.

In my previous roles over the last 10 years I was a Martin & Temminck Fellow at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands; spent almost 7 years at the Australian National University in Canberra working as an ARC DECRA Fellow, Senior Lecturer, and Lecturer; and worked as a Research Assistant in medicine at Imperial College London. Until 2014, I spent about 8 years at the University of Kent in Canterbury completing a BSc Hons, PhD (2014), and PGCHE, and working in various teaching roles, including tutoring, lab demonstration, sessional lecturing, and lecturing. I was also previously Treasurer of the Australasian Society for Human Biology, Editor and Associate Editor of The Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, and Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports and Anthropological Review.