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Dr Kristy Nell (née Campbell) holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the North-West University (NWU), South Africa. She continued with post-graduate studies at the CRCED (Centre for Research and Continued Engineering Development), NWU, and completed her PhD, which focused on emission quantification in the ferrochrome industry.

While pursuing her post-graduate studies, Kristy worked as an engineer at ETA Operations for eight years. During this time, she gained experience in government tax incentives and disincentives, energy savings quantification as well as energy and emissions budgeting and reporting. Industry exposure includes gold and platinum mines, ferrochrome smelters and oil and gas refineries. She is also a Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP).

As a Research Fellow at JKMRC, Kristy will engage in research around carbon emission monitoring and quantification, and the evaluation of mitigation opportunities. Kristy is eager to further contribute to the field of carbon emission management in order to assist the mining sector in achieving its sustainability targets.

Prof Nestor joined the Queensland Brain Institute in October/2017 and has a conjoint appointment as a cognitive neurologist at Mater Misericordiae Ltd (Mater Hospital).

His particular interests include understanding the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease (i.e. before dementia is established); atypical forms of dementia with a particular focus on primary progressive aphasia and dementias related to Parkinson's and Lewy body diseases; and improving differential diagnosis between the major categories of neurodegenerative diseases.

He works on development of neuropsychological tests of cognition, both to accurately track change over time and improve diagnostic accuracy between the major diseases causing dementia. He also uses multi-modal imaging (magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] and positron emission tomography [PET]) to understand the sequence of events occurring in degenerative brain diseases (particularly Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease [ALS], progressive supranuclear palsy [PSP] and corticobasal degeneration [CBD]) and identify novel biomarkers. A major focus of his is on developing novel approaches to MR imaging for single subject pathological diagnoses that can be exported into the everyday clinical setting; recent examples include diffusion tensor imaging to identify PSP and CBD (Sajjadi et al, 2013) and quantitative susceptibility mapping in Parkinson's disease (Acosta-Cabornero et al, 2013).

Michael is passionate about plant-based foods, with a particular focus on their nutritional composition, quality, bioactivity, digestibility, and potential for promoting healthy diets. He has served as a Chief Investigator on several flagship initiatives, including the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Uniquely Australian Foods, the CRC for Developing Northern Australia, and the HIA-funded Naturally Nutritious project. His research emphasizes the importance of understanding both in vitro bioaccessibility—how compounds are released from the food matrix and become available for intestinal absorption—and the more complex in vivo bioavailability and metabolism, including microbial degradation in the gut. These processes are critical for predicting the bioactivity and potential health benefits of dietary phytochemicals in humans.

Suman is a senior lecturer in Finance. He holds a PhD (Finance) from Cranfield University, United Kingdom.

Suman’s research interests include environmental finance, investor behaviour, initial public offerings (IPOs), emerging markets finance, and corporate governance. Suman’s research has been published in the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of International Financial Markets Institutions and Money, and British Journal of Management. He has also been a recipient of several international, national, and internal grants including grants from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India. Suman received Pro Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award in the early career research category in 2016. He has presented his papers at national and international conferences.

Suman is currently the postgraduate coordinator for the finance PhD program. He currently teaches Advanced Studies in Finance (FINM4401) and Corporate Finance (FINM7402).

Dr Newey has pioneered a wellbeing approach to business and society. This framework assists leaders to integrate eight components of wellbeing: economic, environmental, social, cultural, physical, psychological, spiritual and material. Contemporary leadership in both business and society is seen to have to wrestle with competing tensions between these eight components. Dr Newey uses polarity leveraging as a way to assist leaders to create value across these eight components thus integrating businesses and societies to maximise wellbeing for their stakeholders. This integrated wellbeing model has been developed through a rigorous empirical research agenda and includes a number of conceptual papers laying out the core ideas, a measurement paper which specialises in how to measure wellbeing as well as field research. The field research has consisted of a large international study of the wellbeing beliefs and practices of leaders across Alaska, India and Norway as well as in-depth on-the-ground applied research with the City of Anchorage, Alaska. Included within the research is the study of how businesses and societies can successfully transition to wellbeing frameworks. Also included is a specialisation in circumstances of gridlock in societies where decision-making is characterized by polarization and lack of community investment. The research is currently being translated into a number of products including wellbeing frameworks for business and society as well as a wellbeing leadership development program for primary and secondary schools.

A passionate teacher, Dr Newey has won numerous internal University Teaching Awards as well as a prestigious National Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. These awards were earned based on undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Social Entrepreneurship. Dr Newey innovated deep experiential learning experiences for students who are challenged to develop and execute with real stakeholders a social entrepreneurship model around a social issue of their choosing. These projects have addressed and made important contributions to issues including mental health, environmental sustainability, children with severe disabilities, homelessness, human trafficking and child services for victims of domestic violence.

In 2019, Dr Newey will launch his new course 'Entrepreneurial Leadership' which utilises insights from his groundbreaking research to develop a generation of leader able to deal with complex challenges as well as undertake ongoing personal development.

Dr Natalee Newton is a molecular and structural virologist passionate about understanding the structure of flaviviruses and using these findings for the design and development of vaccines and therapeutics. Dr Newton completed her PhD at SCMB, UQ, developing a chimeric system to safely study the structure, using cryo-EM, of highly pathogenic tick- and mosquito-borne flaviviruses such as West Nile virus, dengue virus and tick-borne encephalitis virus. She also investigated the maturation and virion structure of an insect-specific flavivirus, which changed the way we view flavivirus architecture. Following this, Dr Newton began her post doc at SCMB UQ where she is now assessing the structure and immune profile of ancestral and sylvatic flaviviruses.

Professor Robert Newton, PhD, DSc, AEP, CSCS*D, FACSM, FESSA, FNSCA

Professor Robert Newton is Professor of Exercise Medicine in the Exercise Medicine Research Institute that he established (2004) at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. Prior to appointment at Edith Cowan University, Professor Newton was Director of the Biomechanics Laboratory, at Ball State University in Indiana, and was visiting research fellow at the Pennsylvania State University, in the Center for Sports Medicine. Current major research directions include: exercise medicine as neoadjuvant, adjuvant and rehabilitative cancer therapy to reduce side-effects and enhance effectiveness of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy; the influence of targeted exercise medicine on tumour biology and exercise medicine for reducing decline in quality of life, strength, body composition and functional ability in cancer patients.

Professor Newton is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with Distinction with the NSCA, Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, Fellow of Exercise and Sports Science Australia and Fellow of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), Member of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia, American Society of Clinical Oncology and American College of Sports Medicine. In 2004 he was awarded Outstanding Sports Scientist of the Year by the NSCA. In 2018 he received the career achievement award from the Cancer Council WA and was a finalist for Western Australian of the Year and finalist for the Premier’s Science Award. In 2019, Professor Newton was named the Western Australian Premier’s Scientist of the Year. In 2021, The University of Queensland awarded Professor Newton a Higher Doctorate (DSc) for his research into exercise oncology. Professor Newton was a finalist in the Research Australia Health and Medical Research Awards for 2021 and received a Highly Commended Frontiers Award.

Professor Newton has supervised 8 postdoctoral fellows, 52 PhD, 26 Masters by Research and 3 Honours students to successful completion. He is currently supervising 5 PhD students and 2 Masters students.

Professor Newton has published over 1,000 scientific papers including 550 refereed scientific journal articles, 490 conference abstracts and papers, three books, 17 book chapters and has a current Scopus h-Index of 96 with his work being cited over 32,000 times. Topic of greatest publication output is exercise and cancer for a field-weighted citation impact of 3.00 and prominence percentile of 99.31. As of 2024 Professor Newton had attracted 258 competitive research grants valued at $50,773,064 including NHMRC, PCFA, Cancer Australia and World Cancer Research Fund International.

Dr Giselle Newton (she/her) is a digital health sociologist at the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies and a Research Fellow on the Australian Ad Observatory in the Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. Giselle's research agenda is focused on understanding experiences of fertility and family in a digital age. Giselle has led projects considering how reproductive and genetic technologies shape personal life and family relationships, for example on donor-conceived people's use of digital technologies, direct-to-consumer DNA testing and digital advertising of fertility treatments and services. Giselle is interested in methodological and ethical considerations, and participatory, creative and data donation methods in social research. She is experienced working in interdisciplinary teams developing and employing digital tools and observatories to better understand individuals' (often unobservable and ephemeral) digital social worlds.

Giselle has published in Sociology, Human Reproduction, Social Media + Society, Sociology of Health & Illness, Sociological Research Online. Giselle was awarded the Early Career International Visiting Fellowship, University of Sheffield for 2024-25. In 2025, she was a keynote speaker at the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference in Adelaide. Giselle has been an invited speaker in Japan (Donor Link Japan) and Denmark (LGBT+ Danmark).

Research

Current projects:

• Ethical, social and regulatory implications of informal sperm donation, ARC Discovery Project
• Targeted digital advertising in fertility, reproduction and parenting, the Australian Ad Observatory
• Engaging consumers to work towards social license for implementation of AI in healthcare
• Technologies of the Body: Women, Visibility and Museum Collections

Past projects:

• Understanding stakeholders’ perspectives on public inquiries in sexual and reproductive health
• DNA datascapes: how individuals seek information about family via direct-to-consumer DNA testing
• How alcohol and gambling companies target people most at risk with marketing for addictive products on social media, using the Australian Mobile Ad Toolkit (contract research project commissioned by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education Limited, with Prof Nic Carah and Lauren Hayden)
• On target: Understanding advertising in the fertility sector with data from the Australian Ad Observatory, a winter research collaboration (with Romy Wilson Gray and Maria Proctor).
• Everyday belongings: how Australian donor-conceived adults’ use digital technologies to bond, sleuth, educate and strategise. Giselle's PhD study won Dean’s Award for Outstanding PhD Theses in 2022.
• Understanding care endings: Sociological and educational approaches to support pathways out of caring

Research supervision and development

Current students:

• Lauren Hayden (PhD candidate, Communications and Arts, UQ) - Digital advertising and cultures of alcohol consumption on social media platforms (with Prof Nicholas Carah, Prof Dan Angus) (2022-2026)
• Adriana Saab (Master of Genetic Counselling, UTS) - Understanding targeted advertising of genetic tests, products and services in Australia: a thematic analysis (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive)
• Quita Olsen (PhD candidate, Queensland Digital Health Centre, UQ) - Developing an Inclusive Framework and Communication Strategy towards the Public’s Willingness to Share Health Data for Secondary Purposes (with Prof Jason Pole, Dr Leanna Woods, Dr Amalie Dyda) (2025-2028)
• Juan Ospina Deaza (PhD candidate, Communications and Arts, UQ) How digital platforms shape experiences of male (in)fertility/parenthood (with Dr Giang Nyugen-Thu) (2026-2029)

Past students:

• Phoebe Price-Barker (Honours, Criminology, UQ) - Assessing cyber vulnerabilities in direct-to-consumer genetic testing platforms (with Dr Caitlin Curtis) (2025)
• Simone Sanders (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Representations of breast cancer predisposition testing on TikTok: a qualitative analysis (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive)
• Lina Choi (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Unpacking Narratives about Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing in TikTok Videos: A Thematic Analysis (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive)
• Cushla McKinney (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - The impact of direct-to-consumer DNA testing on genetic counselling practice (with Dr Lisa Dive, A/Prof Aideen McInerny-Leo, Dr Vaishnavi Nathan).
• Diya Dilip Porwal (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Experiences of carrier screening and genetic testing in gamete donors (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive).

Areas of supervision: Giselle welcomes research proposals focused on social research in digital identities and cultures; family relationships and practices; DNA and genetic testing/screening; reproductive health and donation.

Giselle is a member of the School of Communication and Arts HDR Committee.

Teaching

Giselle has coordinated and lectured across undergraduate and postgraduate programs in courses in humanities, social sciences and health. She has delivered guest lectures to students of Masters of Public Health on 'Digital Methods' and to Master of Diagnostic Genomics on 'Direct-to-consumer genetic testing’. She was course coordinator for COMU2030 Communication Research Methods in 2023, lecturer in HHSS6000 HASS Honours Research Design in 2024 and HHSS6040 Honours Research Design in Arts and Culture in 2025 and will continue in 2026.

Elize has a broad interested in avian biology and conservation. Here at UQ, as an affiliated research with the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, she is developing a comprehensive conservation action database for shorebirds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway to support conservation strategies and inform effective management for these migratory species.

With a background in population and evolutionary genomics, Elize’s research has explored how major drivers such as the captive trade, habitat fragmentation, and climate change shape avian species across diverse ecosystems, from the tropical forests of Southeast Asia to the icy landscapes of Antarctica. Through her current research in applied conservation, she leverages her genomic expertise to develop more targeted strategies for biodiversity preservation. Her aim is to bridge the gap between foundational genomic research and practical conservation strategies, addressing critical challenges in wildlife management and ecosystem sustainability.

Elize completed her BSc (Hons) at the National University of Singapore, where she studied the genomic impacts of the illegal songbird trade on local populations of the White-rumped Shama. Following this, she worked as a research assistant with the Avian Evolution Lab, focusing on the landscape and conservation genomics of birds, using Singapore as a case study. For her PhD at the University of Tasmania, Elize investigated how climate influences Antarctic seabirds, using genomic and modeling approaches to explore their responses to environmental change.

Dr Dominic Ng graduated with a BSc (Hons) and gained his PhD from the University of Western Australia. His doctoral studies, conducted in the laboratory of Assoc. Prof. Marie Bogoyevitch, were focused on cardiomyocyte signalling mechanisms regulating pathological tissue growth (ie cardiac hypertrophy). He continued his research training in Singapore as a post-doctoral research fellow based at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the flagship institute of Singapore’s science agency (A*STAR) located at the world renowned Biopolis research precinct. During this time, his research interests turned to the complex regulation of the cytoskeleton and their functions in development and disease.

He returned to the Australian medical research community on an NHMRC Peter Doherty Fellowship (2006-2010) followed by a Faculty Trust Roper Fellowship (2011-2012). In this time, Dominic established an independent research program focused on complex signalling regulation of microtubule organization. In 2013, Dominic was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow, supported by an ARC Future Fellowship (2013-2016) at the Department of Biochemistry within the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne. In 2015, Dominic relocated his research group to the School of Biomedical Science, University of Queensland and is currently appointed as an ARC Future Fellow and Senior Lecturer.

Associate Professor Son Nghiem is the Head of the Health Economics Research and Modelling Unit, Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland. A/Prof Nghiem has a background in applied econometrics and has 18 years of experience in health services research, health economics, and health technology assessment. He has been a chief investigator on 18 research grants, including ten grants as a chief investigator A, with a total funding of more than $15 million. A/Prof Nghiem successfully led a multidisciplinary team to develop the Queensland Cardiovascular Disease Cohort Linkage Study, the first data linkage cohort study for cardiovascular disease in Australia. A/Prof Nghiem has an excellent publication track record with 150 peer-reviewed articles, three book chapters and one book. His publications have been cited over 4000 times, resulting in an average H-index 36.