Find an expert

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.

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.

Jenna Ng is a multi-award-winning researcher studying digital media culture, with particular research interests in digital visual culture; creative technologies; AI and algorithmic culture and interactive storytelling. Currently Head of the School of Communication and Arts, she also leads strategic direction, leadership and management of a multi-disciplinary department of over 80 academic staff across art history, drama, journalism, communications, film and television, digital media culture, literature and creative and professional writing.

Ng's publications include the books Understanding Machinima: Essays on Filmmaking in Virtual Worlds (Bloomsbury, 2013), a "Highly Recommended" CHOICE title, and The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie (Amsterdam University Press, 2021), which won an Honourable Mention by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies.

Working across a range of media, Ng also produces innovative creative research outputs with practice-based methodologies. She has produced a second screen installation for theatre performance; multimedia scholarship; video essays; and online open-access collaborative initiatives. Her latest project, a creative research website titled "The New Virtuality" (thenewvirtuality.com), won the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis and the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MECCSA) Practice-Based Research of the Year award, with its video essay winning the Learning on Screen Special Jury Prize (while nominated in the category of "Creative Reuse") and had its debut screening at the InScience Film Festival 2025 in LUX Nijmegen.

Dr Monica Ng is a staff specialist nephrologist and clinician scientist at Metro North Kidney Health Service where she leads the Research Portfolio, Translational Kidney Pathobiology Group and Clinical Trials Unit. Her other appointments includes Clinician Scientist at the Cardiac Drug Discovery laboratory and, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Theme Co-lead of Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research at University of Queensland. Dr Ng's research seeks to improve information available for patient counselling, evaluate druggable targets for kidney disease and apply current-edge technologies (e.g. spatial transcriptomics, nanoparticle flow cytometry) for biomarker discovery in nephrology. These goals are achieved using a range of methodologies including registry data analysis, data linkage, extracellular vesicle analysis and cell culture, and clinical trial techniques.

Dr Ng contributes expertise to national and international steering committees as: Deputy Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology Education and Training Committee, Asia-Pacific Co-Chair of the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles’ Genitourinary Special Interest Group, Member of Australasian Kidney Trials Network Chronic Kidney Disease-Glomerular Disease Working Group and Member of American Society of Nephrology's Editorial Board.

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS) at The University of Queensland, where I teach physiology and lead research that explores how cells respond to stress, injury and disease. My work aims to better understand the molecular and cellular processes that influence health and disease, with a particular focus on areas relevant to cancer, heart disease, neurological conditions and emerging cell-based therapies.

I completed my doctorate at the University of Western Australia in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, where I studied how heart cells respond to signals that can drive abnormal tissue growth. I then undertook postdoctoral training in Singapore at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, part of A*STAR, where my research expanded into understanding how the cytoskeleton, internal structures of cells, help control development and disease.

After returning to Australia, I was supported by national fellowships from the NHMRC and ARC, which enabled me to establish an internationally connected research program. My research brings together cell biology, imaging, computational approaches and emerging technologies to uncover how cells make critical decisions, including whether to survive or die under stress.

Alongside my research and teaching, I contribute to leadership within SBMS as Director of Research and support major research infrastructure initiatives across the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences (HMBS) as Academic Director of Research Infrastructure. I also serve on steering committees for UQ’s Viral Vector Core (VVC) and the Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research (CCVHR), helping to strengthen the platforms and partnerships that support biomedical discovery and translation.

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.

Dr Lyman Tze Kin Ngiam is a bacteriophage biologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology, The University of Queensland. His research focuses on understanding bacteriophage–bacterial pathogen interactions, particularly involving ESKAPE pathogens, with the goal of developing effective phage-based biocontrol and therapeutic strategies to combat the global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis. Central to Dr Ngiam’s work is the study of bacteriophage biology, including phage-bacteria interactions and bacterial defence mechanisms against bacteriophage.

His current research aims to translate fundamental phage biology that can be applied as novel antimicrobial agent. This includes investigating phage optimisation strategies, such as phage training and the use of adjuvants including antibiotics and antimicrobial peptides, to improve phage efficacy and therapeutic potential. In parallel, Dr Ngiam is actively exploring the biotechnological applications of bacteriophages as sustainable bicontrol agent and diagnostics within the agricultural and livestock sectors.

Alongside his phage-based research, Dr Ngiam is also engaged in industry-based multidisciplinary and translational projects within CeASTAR, with strong emphasis on addressing antimicrobial resistance. These projects include development of surveillance tool to monitor AMR in the environment, investigation of novel compounds for disinfection of animal shed and eradication of biofilms in water distrbibution system.

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.

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).

Dr Duc Ngo-Cong is a researcher with strong interdisciplinary expertise in computational mechanics, advanced computational modelling, including both numerical and analytical (theoretical) analyses. His expertise includes CFD simulation of turbulent-multiphase flow in minerals processing equipment, fluid-structure interactions, multiphysics and optimisation.

Duc's current research focuses on CFD and bubble-particle interactions in flotation.

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.