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I completed my PhD in Neuroscience at UQ in 2009. After this, I undertook postdoctoral training in motor neuron disease/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (MND/ALS) under the mentorship of neurologists at Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital. In 2012, I received a MND Research Australia Bill Gole Fellowship to develop a research focus to study metabolic dysfunction in MND/ALS. I started my independent research group at UQ in 2015, after receiving the Scott Sullivan MND Research Fellowship to lead a translational program to define the contribution of altered metabolic homeostasis to MND/ALS pathophysiology. In 2017, I relocated my laboratory to the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology to introduce the use of human stem cells for disease modelling into my reserach program. In 2020, I was awarded a FightMND Mid-Career Research Fellowship to transition into clinical trials.

My current research integrates studies in MND/ALS patients with studies in human-derived cell models (stem cell-derived neurons, human primary myosatellite cells, human myotubes) and mouse models of MND/ALS. I have served as lead investigator or co-investigator on several projects aimed at defining the mechanisms that drive MND/ALS and identifying therapeutic strategies for the disease. Projects have led to the expediting of clinical trials (NCT03506425; NCT04788745, NCT05959850). In 2021, I established the MND at UQ Collective to enhance national and international collaboration, and to facilitate community consultation to drive scientific and clinical discoveries in ALS and FTD (www.uq.edu.au/mnd-collective).

I have received invitations to contribute to high impact review articles (i.e., Brain, Nat Rev Neurol), and have received >20 invitations to speak at conferences including: 33rd International ALS/MND Symposium (2022, Plenary), 64th Japanese Society of Neurology Meeting (2023, Tokyo; Plenary), 3rd International Pan-Asian Consortium for Treatment and Research in ALS (PACTALS) Congress (2023, Kuala Lumpur), 18th International Congress on Neuromuscular Diseases (2024, Perth).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr Ngo is a highly successful recent PhD graduate from The University of Queensland who has led a project examining outcomes of catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation at a nationwide scale in Australia and New Zealand. Throughout her PhD study, Dr Ngo has excelled in outcomes research and her work has been selected as finalist for prize competitions at local and international conferences, most notably, the Young Investigator Award competition at Heart Rhythm Society Scientific Meeting 2020. Besides her success in academia, she is also a passionate young doctor who graduated from one of the best medical schools in Vietnam with multiple prizes and awards achieved, including the prestigious Australia Awards Fellowship. She is now working as a RMO at The Prince Charles Hospital.

Dr Duc Ngo-Cong is a research professional with over 10 years of experience in computational mechanics, CFD, modelling and simulations of industrial flows.

Duc completed a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, specialising in Computational Mechanics at the University of Southern Queensland in 2012. He has worked on multi-disciplinary projects in the areas of aeronautical, mechanical, agricultural, and minerals engineering. His expertise includes mineral flotation, turbulence, multiphase flows, bubble-particle interactions, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, surface and subsurface flows, and industrial applications of numerical methods.

Duc first developed his expertise in flotation when working on an ARC-DP project titled “Surface characteristics and hydrodynamics in detachment of coarse particles” (2017-2019). During this project, he derived theoretical models based on isotropic turbulence and statistical theories to quantify the bubble-particle collision and detachment in flotation, involving multiphase (solid particles, air bubbles, and water), multiscale (particles of micrometre size, bubbles of millimetre size and water of continuum scale) and turbulence phenomena.

Duc's current research focuses on computational and experimental modelling of turbulent-multiphase-multiscale flows in flotation cells, to improve the flotation performance through the design and operating conditions of flotation cells.

Biography:

Anh Nguyen is a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering where he held the BMA (BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance) Chair from 2007 till 2017. He previously held academic positions at the University of Newcastle (Australia), the University of Utah (USA) and the Technical University of Kosice (Czechoslovakia). He was awarded an ARC (Australian Research Council) Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany). His relevant publications include a research book on the colloidal science of flotation, 3 edited volumes, 15 book chapters (invited) and over 350 papers in refereed journals. He has an editorial role on Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, and International Journal of Mineral Processing.

Research:

Professor Nguyen’s research interests embrace various colloid and interfacial science and engineering aspects. His current research focuses on colloid and interface science of particles, bubbles and drops in surfactant solutions and saline water. The ultimate applications include coal and minerals processing, saline water usage and treatment, foliar fertilisers, smart self-cleaning materials, hydrophobic hydration and hydrates of natural gas, and particle separation. His research funding has come from industry partners (BMA, BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Rio Tinto, OneSteel, Agrichem) and agencies (ARC and ACARP). He is the Leader of the Mineral Processing and Interfacial Processes group.

Teaching and Learning:

Professor Nguyen aims to encourage critical thinking, understanding and application of fundamental principles. The objective is to engage students by providing a stimulating learning process and environment at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, relevant to the changing focus of national and global economic importance. He has taught a number of courses, including colloid and surface chemistry, particle processing and technology, unit operation, coal and mineral processing, flotation, computing and design laboratory, process modelling and simulation. He is currently an academic and international advisor for chemical and metallurgical engineering.

Projects:

1. Saline Water: molecular phenomena and engineering of saline water-air interfaces, water desalination, salt flotation, coal flotation in sea water and tailings processing. Foliar Fertilizers and Pesticides: self-assembly of colloids from evaporating droplets on leaf surfaces.
2. Gas Hydrates: role of hydrophobic hydration and additives in gas hydrate formation for storage and transportation.
3. Nanomaterials: surface self-assembly of surfactants and nanobubbles
4. Hydrometallurgy: role of colloidal forces and surface chemistry in bacteria attachment in bioleaching, and leaching of minerals in brine solutions.
5. Mineral Processing: role of microhydrodynamics and colloidal forces in bubble-particle collection in flotation, surface electrochemistry of sulfide flotation, flotation of ultrafine particles, flotation of coarse particles and composite particles.
6. Foam and Froth: drainage and stability of thin films of saline water, role of particle shape and hydrophobicity in foam drainage and stability, foamed cements.
7. Molecular (MC and MD) modeling and validation by VSFG spectroscopy of the partition of salt ions and surfactants at the interfaces of liquid films relevant to flotation, bubble columns and oil processing.

Dr Quan Nguyen is a Group Leader at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), The University of Queensland. He is leading the Genomics and Machine Learning (GML) lab to study neuroinflammation and cancer-immune cells at single-cell resolution and within spatial morphological tissue context. His research interest is about revealing gene and cell regulators that determine the states of the complex cancer and neuronal ecosystems. Particularly, he is interested in quantifying cellular diversity and the dynamics of cell-cell interactions within the tissues to find ways to improve cancer diagnosis or cell-type specific treatments or the immunoinflammation responses that cause neuronal disease.

Using machine learning and genomic approaches, his group are integrating single-cell spatiotemporal sequencing data with tissue imaging data to find causal links between cellular genotypes, tissue microenvironment, and disease phenotypes. GML lab is also developing experimental technologies that enable large-scale profiling of spatial gene and protein expression (spatial omics) in a range of cancer tissues (focusing on brain and skin cancer) and in mouse brain and spinal cord.

Dr Quan Nguyen completed a PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Queensland in 2013, postdoctoral training in Bioinformatics at RIKEN institute in Japan in 2015, a CSIRO Office of Chief Executive (OCE) Research Fellowship in 2016, an IMB Fellow in 2018, an Australian Research Council DECRA fellowship (2019-2021), and is currently a National Health and Medical Research Council leadership fellow (EL2). He has published in top-tier journals, including Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Methods, Nature Protocols, Nature Communications, Genome Research, Genome Biology and a prize-winning paper in GigaScience. In the past three years, he has contributed to the development of x8 open-source software, x2 web applications, and x4 databases for analysis of single-cell data and spatial transcriptomics. He is looking for enthusiastic research students and research staff to join his group.

I am a Senior Lecturer in finance and the Program Convenor for the Commerce Programs at UQ Business School.

My research interests are in empirical corporate finance and climate finance. I have published in international peer-reviewed finance journals including Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, and Financial Management. I have so far received one Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery research grant and several AFAANZ research grants. I am currently an associate editor at International Review of Financial Analysis and was a guest editor for Pacific-Basin Finance Journal.

I am available for supervising research students. I am particularly proud that some of my former PhD students had their first placements at some UK and Australian universities. Also, all of my former honours students have so far received their first-class honours, some awarded the University Medals.

Dr Kim-Huong Nguyen is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at the University of Queensland. Her research centres on the efficient and equitable allocation of resources to support brain health in disadvantaged populations. She applies economic methods and theories to evaluate interventions, programmes and public policies for neurodegenerative diseases, brain injuries, and mental disorders. As a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health with the Global Brain Health Institute (Trinity College Dublin and University of California, San Francisco), she collaborates closely with multidisciplinary teams—including artists, medical professionals, engineers, industry partners, advocates, and health and social care consumers—to advance knowledge and transform practices for brain health.

Dr. Nguyen is an expert in applying long-read Oxford Nanopore Sequencing Technologies (ONT) in agriculture, particularly livestock and other sectors. Her groundbreaking contributions include being the pioneer in sequencing the genomes of Brahman and Wagyu cattle, developing an innovative epigenetic clock for age prediction in cattle, and successfully implementing ONT portable sequencers for Blockchain traceability systems in Australia.

As a leader in the field, Dr. Nguyen spearheads the use of ONT long-read technology to scaffold genome assemblies in livestock, plants, protists, and insects. Her multidisciplinary expertise in molecular biology, advanced genomics, and animal sciences also empowers her to explore causative markers for commercial SNP arrays and identify significant DNA variants from low-coverage sequencing data sets.

Dr. Nguyen's exceptional achievements and expertise have been acknowledged through the prestigious ARC Industry Fellowship, recognising her as a promising early career researcher. Her work has significantly contributed to advancing genomic research in agriculture and has opened new avenues for utilising ONT sequencing technologies across diverse domains.

Dr. Tuan Nguyen is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Chemical Engineering, University of Queensland. He has worked on a diverse range of multidisciplinary research projects, focusing primarily on advancing fundamental knowledge and developing environmentally friendly and sustainable solutions for minerals, oil, and gas processing, as well as environmental pollution management. Over the past five years, his research has closely aligned with the needs of the mineral resource sector, particularly in addressing engineering and environmental challenges associated with the clean energy transition, using both experimental and modeling approaches.

Dr. Nguyen’s current work emphasizes the secondary prospectivity of mineral residues, rare earth elements (REE), biomining, carbon-locking methods, and innovative technologies aimed at minimizing water-, waste-, and carbon-footprints. His research also covers “green” and sustainable solutions for agriculture, including pesticides, fertilizers, peptides, nanofibers, gas hydrates, and geopolymers as cement alternatives. Additionally, he has expertise in molecular dynamics simulations (GROMACS, LAMMPS, Reactive FF, Coarse-grained Force Fields, Organo- & Mineral-associated simulations, Materials Studio), applied to various aspects of mineral, oil, and gas processing.

Tuan has secured over $1.9 million in research funding from ARC, QLD, ACARP, ANSTO, UQ-ECR, and various industry partners. His research has received multiple recognitions, including being named among the “Top 25 Most Cited Papers Published 2012-2016” by Chemical Engineering Science (2016), “Top Cited Papers for 2011 and 2012” (2013). Other accolades include Best Journal Papers in Chemical Engineering (UQ, 2013), the Best Poster Prize “The IUPAC Poster Award at the World Polymer Congress MACRO” (2018), and the EUREKA Student Science Research Award (2006).

He has been actively involved in organizing national and international conferences and leading roundtable discussions. Notable events include TMS 2025 – Energy Technologies and CO2 Management, TMS 2025 – Innovations in Energy Materials, the Australian Mine Waste Symposium, and the 26th World Mining Congress. Dr. Nguyen has also served on the TMS Energy Committee since 2022.

Dr. Nguyen’s research interests are in the areas of ocean energy converters and large floating structures. He has developed numerical methods for analysing the interaction between ocean waves and several marine structures (large floating platforms, wave energy converters and floating breakwaters). He is working on: (i) attaching perforated/porous elements (such as perforated plates) to floating structures for increased safety and cost-effectiveness; and (ii) developing floating platforms for farming seaweeds.

Dr Ngoc N. Nguyen is a Senior Lecturer and an ARC DECRA Fellow at School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. He was awarded an Australia Award Scholarship by the Australian Government for studying at UQ and attained a PhD in Chemical Engineering at UQ in 2018. After completing his PhD, he was awarded a renowned Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellowship by the AvH Foundation (the German Government) and worked as an AvH fellow at the Department of Physics at Interfaces, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Germany) for three years (2019-2021). Dr Nguyen used to work as a visiting scholar to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in USA and a lecturer at Hanoi University of Science and Technology in Vietnam. He recently secured a prestigious ARC DECRA (Discovery Early-Career Researcher Award) granted by the Australian Research Council (ARC). He is also an associate investigator within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Eco-enabling Beneficiation of Minerals.

His research strives for creating cutting-edge knowledge and innovations in three inter-related pillars of the low-carbon economy:

(1) sustainable energy,

(2) natural resources including critical metals,

(3) innovative approaches for tackling environmental issues such as CO2 emissions and mine waste.

He is working concurrently in these pillars. In particular, he is leading an ARC DECRA project about unconventional energy storage by locking fuel gases (e.g., hydrogen, methane) in the solid lattice of water, taking the intrinsic advantages of water as the cheapest, safest and most sustainable feedstock on Earth. Besides, he his working actively in eco-efficient extraction and separation of valuable resources from the Earth's crust toward a sustainable mineral processing industry for supplying sufficient commodities (e.g., metals) for the energy transition. In addition, Dr Nguyen has enduring interest in creating innovations for tackling the pressing environment problems such as CO2 emissions, with special interest in carbon capture and storage and utilisation, as well as addressing the mine waste in the mineral processing industry and the recylcing of critical metal-containing waste.