Find an expert

Dr Northwood is a clinical academic psychiatrist, with combined clinical, research and teaching experience.

She graduated with an MBBS and PhD from the University of Queensland and has completed specialist training in psychiatry at Metro South Health, while continuing to engage in research with a goal to improve the physical and mental health outcomes in consumers with serious mental illness. Dr Northwood received the binational Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) Early Career Psychiatrist award in 2024.

She has a particular interest in treatment-refractory schizophrenia and psychopharmacology. Dr Northwood’s research skills include advanced bioinformatics with experience in complex analysis of large data sets. She has authored a number of papers, with a h-index of 14 (as of 2024), and has been Chief Investigator on several grants, funded through Metro South Health, UQ and NHMRC.

Nutritional Biochemistry, grazing and intensive production of cattle, sheep, goats.

My passion for agriculture and animal science comes from growing up amongst relatives in country Victoria, from Yea in the north, Korumburra in Gippsland and Heywood in the Western District. My career in agricultural science began at Melbourne University in 1960, with a defining year (1961) at Dookie Agricultural College, and subsequently with studies at The University of Sydney (1964-1969), University of New England (1970-72) and since 1973 at The University of Queensland. Promoted to Associate Professor in 1984, appointed Head of School of Agriculture in 1993 and the Head of School of Land and Food (1998-1999). Promotion to Professor was denied in 1997 and again in 2000. Retired from the University in 2006, but have maintained academic and research activity by managing ACIAR and other grants in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam. Publications since retirement have included books on family history, goat production in Vietnam and other biographies. Latest publications were on goat nutrition in 2022, in collaboration with Dr Simon Quigley's team at UQ, This year, 2023, celebrates 50 years of service to the University of Queensland.

Professor Clare Nourse AM is a paediatric infection specialist at the Queensland Children’s Hospital in Brisbane and clinical professor of paediatrics at the University of Queensland. She qualified in medicine in from Trinity College Dublin and trained at Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Dublin, Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and Mater Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. Her particular interests are in tropical medicine, HIV, TB and syphilis infection in children, health in resource limited countries and staph aureus infection. She travels regularly to Timor Leste and is a board director of Maluk Timor, a not for profit organisation in Dili, of which she chairs the Medical Advisory Committee.Clare established the Paediatric Infection Management Service at Mater Children’s Hospital in 2001 and currently leads the Children’s Health Queeensland (CHQ) Paediatric services for HIV, Tuberculosis and Syphilis. Clare regularly contributes to/leads national multicentre trials in Australia and New Zealand. She is the author of 70+ peer reviewed publications. Clare is the recipient of many external grants for service provision (Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government for the Pacific Infectious Diseases Prevention (PIDP) Program) and research (Queensland Sexual Health Research Fund and others).

Dr James Novak is an industrial design and advanced manufacturing specialist. He has worked in numerous industry roles whilst maintaining an active research and education profile with The University of Queensland. This has included being the Senior Research Fellow of the CranioFacial program at the Herston Biofabrication Institute, the largest advanced manufacturing facility inside an Australian hospital; Design Manager at performance carbon fibre catamaran manufacturer Cure Marine; Group Product & Marketing Manager for M-Holdings, an innovative collection of brands specialising in lighting and EV infrastructure products; and Assistant Editor of the Computer-Aided Design and Applications journal. He has previously completed postdoctoral research at Deakin University's School of Engineering, and the University of Technology Sydney's School of Design.

Dr Novak has a particular interest in 3D printing and is an author of the book 3D Printing for Product Designers: Innovative Strategies Using Additive Manufacturing. His high profile research has won awards like the Dick Aubin Distinguished Paper Award at RAPID in 2015, North America’s largest annual additive manufacturing conference and expo. It was also influential during the COVID-19 pandemic, informing the World Health Organization guidelines for 3D printed medical devices. His well known 3D printed bicycle frame has been exhibited globally, including at the Red Dot Design Museum in Germany.

Dr Asep specialises in the design and development of advanced inorganic materials with porous architectures, specifically tailored for energy and environmental applications.

Dr Asep's research focus lies in the development of novel mesoporous inorganic materials with enhanced functionality through a simplified wet-chemical synthesis process. His work is motivated by the unique properties exhibited by the porous materials, such as their ultra-high surface area and abundance of active sites. These properties provide ample space for interaction with environment, making them highly valuable in various applications, including energy storage and conversion, sensing, and bio-related applications. He is particularly interested in the rational design and construction of inorganic mesoporous materials through self-assembly processes, utilizing template-assisted approaches in both chemical and electrochemical methods.

Dr. Asep earned his Bachelor's degree from Padjadjaran University, Indonesia, in 2014. He then joined the Department of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at Waseda University, Japan, as a Master's student in 2016, completing his degree in 2018. In 2019, he conducted research as a research assistant at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan. Dr. Asep received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2024 and is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering & Nanotechnology (AIBN). As an early career researcher, Dr. Asep has established a strong track record, with over 600 citations from his research articles published in prestigious, high-impact journals. His work reflects both the quality and impact of his contributions to the field.

Susan Nunan is a Clinical Academic and Program Lead for the Master of Advanced Nursing and the Master of Mental Health Nursing Programs. Susan is also Course Coordinator for the Professional Practice, Professional Practice One, and Older Adults' Health courses for the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work (NMSW), The University of Queensland. Susan joined the School in 2010.

Susan has extensive clinical nursing experience in General Medical, Coronary Care and Surgical Units in major hospitals in Brisbane and Sydney, as well as in QLD and NSW rural hospitals where she has also facilitated undergraduate nursing students. In addition, her clinical experience includes; Community Nursing, Gerontological Nursing and Dementia Care in both city and rural settings in QLD and NSW. Susan is a Registered Nurse Division 1 with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia, and is a member of the Australian College of Nursing and the Australian Association of Gerontology. Susan has a PhD in Nursing, a Masters of Health Professional Education, a Graduate Certificate in Clinical Practice, a Bachelor of Arts, Research Master of Arts, and has undertaken post-graduate course studies in Wound Management and Mental Health.

Susan’s current research interests include falls risk assessment and management, and has recently completed her PhD within the UQ, School of NMSW, with thesis entitled:Evaluating the validity, reliability and feasibility of a falls risk assessment tool recommended for use in Australian residential aged care facilities. A mixed methods study.

Other areas of research interest for Susan are in Healthy Ageing and Older Adults' Health.

From the politics of climate change to defending democracy, Professor Daniel Nyberg is seeking to understand how corporations, governments, and citizens negotiate different priorities when facing key challenges of our time.

This qualitative researcher takes an interdisciplinary approach to his work across two main areas:

1. climate change, where he interrogates the links between climate change and corporate capitalism, and
2. defending democracy, where he seeks to untangle the relationships between industry and government.

“These are some of the biggest threats facing humankind,” he affirms.

“How could you not be interested?”

Climate Change

Professor Nyberg’s interest in climate change came from a growing sense of urgency. As public interest in green products grew, corporations were beginning to address climate change internally, through the design and delivery of green products and services. At the same time, the climate emergency led to attempts to contain or regulate polluting industries, for example through carbon offsets and other measures.

“It’s important to understand what corporations are doing in order to mitigate and/or minimise the effects of climate change,” Professor Nyberg explains.

“We also need to have knowledge about what they’re doing so we can regulate their activities.”

Working alongside Professor Christopher Wright from the University of Sydney's Business School, and Dr Vanessa Bowden from the University of Newcastle's School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences, this ground-breaking research has been published in a number of leading international journals. The three colleagues collaborated on the book, Organising Responses to Climate Change: The Politics of Mitigation, Adaptation and Suffering (2022, Cambridge University Press), building on the success of Professor Nyberg and Professor Wright's book, Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations: Processes of Creative Self-Destruction (2015, Cambridge University Press), which attracted wide attention across both the social and natural sciences.

Defending Democracy

Building on this work, Professor Nyberg has developed a strong interest in corporate political activity, both in how public policy is interpreted and implemented in practice, as well as in how corporations seek to influence public policy. This shift from the narrow focus on corporate outcomes to the broader understanding of democratic processes, is particularly relevant in the fraught debates around climate policy.

“I’m currently exploring how corporations influence democracy,” he states.

“The clearest example is the Labor Government’s super profit tax proposal of 2010, which the mining industry vehemently opposed. Even though it spent $22 million doing so, calculations by the Australian Financial Review suggest it saved $10 billion by agreeing to a truce with then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard. So, you can see it’s often much easier and cheaper for corporations to deal with public policies than it is for them to deal with their processes.”

Dr. Eric O. Ansah is a postdoctoral research fellow at the W.H. Bryan Mining Geology Research Centre, Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland. He is currently researching sustainable solution that addresses both improved metal extraction and the potential to improve mine closure outcomes. Eric has expertise in Geochemistry and Hydrometallurgy with proven track record in developing innovative heap leaching technology for sustainable metal extraction and mine waste reclamation as part of the BHP’s Think & Act Differently (TAD) Essential Minerals Cohort. The protonated brine lixiviant technology was developed as part of his PhD studies into coupled chalcopyrite dissolution with reprecipitation during copper heap leaching at the University of Melbourne.He has worked in metallurgical and geochemical research, plant operations, translation of research to industrial start-up and technology development. Some of his projects and studies involved copper, gold, silver, cobalt, uranium, and REE.

Professor Kate O'Brien applies modelling and data analysis to explore sustainability challenges in engineered, ecological and human systems. Professor O'Brien works with a diverse network of local and international collaborators, from academia, government and industry, to tackle important questions such as: In restoring valuable coastal habitat, what is the minimum patch size required for success, and why? How much oil can individual fossil fuel producers extract without compromising global climate targets? Why is gender equality in the workplace so hard to achieve? She uses modelling as a tool to connect ideas across traditional disciplinary boundaries to promote innovation and tackle complex, open-ended problems. Professor O'Brien is the former Director of Teaching and Learning in the UQ School of Chemical Engineering. She has won numerous awards for teaching students critical thinking and other transferrable skills needed to lead the shift from the current "take-make-waste" paradigm to genuine sustainability. She teaches new academics to take a practical, student-centred approach to teaching called "Ruthless Compassion", and she is passionate about finding creative solutions to work-family conflict.

Chris O'Brien is a research fellow at QAAFI leading the cryopreservation program. The program involves the conservation of exceptional species such as avocado and macadamia as well as other plants like Gossia spp which are affected by myrtle rust. The lab focuses on developing and optimizing protocols to store plant germplasm in liquid nitrogen. Storing plants in liquid nitrogen is the safest way to ensure long-term ex situ conservation.

Chris is also leading a project looking at avocado genomics/tissue culture propagation technologies to deliver world-first technology platforms for avocado improvement. This innovative tech-development will address critical challenges of traditional breeding, enabling rapid development of future-smart avocado cultivars.

Doctor Jake O’Brien is Senior Research Fellow and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS). His main field of interest is in wastewater-based epidemiology, but he also has interest in developing analytical methods for chemicals of emerging concern within biological and environmental samples. Doctor O'Brien is a strong advocate for collaborative research having co-authored with more than 300 collaborators worldwide on over 150 publications. Jake is strongly supportive of early career researcher development and is currently the chair of the EMCR@UQ Committee. He is also a Chief Investigator of the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program since its establishment in 2016.

Lisa specializes in British Literature of the eighteenth-century. She trained at Melbourne and Brown universities and has held fellowships at various international English departments including Johns Hopkins University and the Free University Berlin.

Her research interests include the history of the novel, marriage plots, sentimental fiction, gothic fiction, theories of enlightenment and secularization and early global literatures.

Lisa has published on topics including the English marriage plot, libertinism, popular anthropology, travel narrative, settler fiction and courtesan memoirs. Her Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Projects include 'Secularisation and British Literature, 1600-1800' and 'The Cultural Impact of Irregular Marriage in the Age of British Colonialism'.

Her most recent book, The Origins of the English Marriage Plot: Literature, Politics and Religion in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2019), offers a new account of why and how marriage became central to the English novel.

She is currently Associate Professor of English Literature in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University. Her most recent work is on the history and theory of the novel and its relation to early global literatures.