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In The Ortiz-Barrientos Lab we seek to understand how natural selection drives the origin of traits and new species. We combine empirical and theoretical approaches from across multiple disciplines.

We are located in beautiful Brisbane, Australia, in the School of The Environment at The University of Queensland.

Please explore our pages to learn about research, culture, and the team of scientists that bring their passion and creativity to discovering how nature works.

Dr Rachel Orzech is Honorary Fellow at the School of Music, University of Queensland and Reviews Editor for Musicology Australia. Her monograph Claiming Wagner for France: Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-1944 was published by the University of Rochester Press in 2022. She has previously held positions as Lecturer and Research Fellow at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne, and was Editor of Context: Journal of Music Research between 2015 and 2017.

Rachel's current research examines notions of musical nationalism, exchange and internationalism through the lens of the Australian music publisher Louise Dyer and her Paris-based press Les Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre. She is currently editing two special issues related to this research for the Journal of Musicological Research (co-edited with John Gabriel and Paul Watt) and Musicology Australia.

Dr Osborne, BSc(Hons), MAgSc, PhD is an epidemiologist and toxicologist with research interests in using environmental epidemiology to examine aetiology and pathological pathways of disease. He has worked on a range of projects examining environmental exposures and health outcomes including exposure to metals, pollen, mould, chronic exposures to low levels of chemicals, pesticide and cyanotoxins. He also has experience examining how exposure to the environment may increase health and wellbeing (green/bluespace and solar irradiance and vitamin D).

He has developed skills in the linkage of environmental and population health data in an interdisciplinary context, and has expertise in design, linkage, hypothesis formulation, analysis, interpretation, translation and dissemination.

He has experience in designing and collecting epidemiological data and initiating studies of primary collected data (HealthIron, HealthNuts, Cornwall Housing Study, Survey of Recreational Water Users, Monitoring of Meniere’s Symptoms).

He also has used secondary data from existing cohorts (NHANES, UK Biobank, 1958 Birth Cohort, British Household Survey, Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study, South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration), as well as linkage of previously unconnected “big data” sets in mashups on novel platforms (MEDMI project). He has used traditional statistical methods such as linear/logistic regression, time series analysis, interrupted time series and Cox regression to ascertain associations between exposures and outcomes, as well as integrating confirmatory structured equation modelling with environmental/health data sets to construct conceptual diagrams of associations and assess pathway directions.

He currently researches pollen and health outcomes as well as chronic kidney disease in low to middle income countries.

He has supervised 6 PhD students to completion (2 primary supervisor, 4 co-supervisor) and currently supervises 4 PhD student. He has been associate editor of Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health since 2011 and is on the editorial board of International Journal of Epidemiology and Pediatric Allergy, Immunology and Pulmonology. He is a member of Australasian Epidemiology Association, International Society of Environmental Epidemiology and International Epidemiology Association.

He has previously worked at the Universities of NSW, Sydney, Exeter, Melbourne, Portsmouth, Queensland and Flinders, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the Cancer Council Victoria. He completed his PhD at the School of Population Health, University of Queensland/National Research Centre of Environmental Toxicology working on the toxicology and public health effects of cyanobacterial toxins in southeast Queensland.

My research primarily focuses on population health, social determinants of health, homelessness and housing exclusion, rural health (including rural and remote health workforce), health service research, and Alcohol and Other Drugs research.

I use mixed-methods and co-design approach to explore the lifestyle, health, and health care for marginalised, disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach populations with a primary focus on people who experience homelessness and housing exclusion, people in rural and remote areas, and people engaged in problematic substance use.

I have a growing interest in participatory action research and systems science. As part of my interest in rural health, I also have a growing interest and focus on Aboriginal health and Health services, e-health, and rural workforce recruitment and retention. I also have interest in migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers.

Gary has a range of research interests in the historical and contemporary dimensions of sport. These include Indigenous Australian sport histories, Australian and Pacific aquatic sport, racial stereotyping, sport myth, social memory and sporting histories beyond the written word.

Gary gained his PhD in the field of sport history from the University of Queensland, following joint enrolment in the School of Human Movement Studies and the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics. Dr Osmond teaches in the socio-cultural dimensions of sport and physical activity.

Hs major grants include:

• Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery project (DP230102268 (2023-2025). Torres Strait Islander History: Sport, Culture and Identity. [Gary Osmond, Murray Phillips, Alistair Harvey (UQ)].
• Chief Investigator on an ARC Discovery project (DP190100647: 2020-2023), titled Pride, Resilience and Identity: Reimagining Aboriginal Sport History [Murray Phillips (UQ), Gary Osmond, Barry Judd (Melbourne)].
• ARC Future Fellowship (FT160100212: 2017-21), titled Sport, Stories and Survival: Reframing Indigenous Sport History.
• Chief Investigator on a ARC Linkage digital history project (LP130101031: 2014-2019) titled Creating Histories of the Australian Paralympic Movement: A New Relationship between Researchers and the Community [Murray G. Phillips, Gary Osmond, Tony Naar (Australian Paralympic Committee)].

Dr Ottenhaus is a structural engineer and senior lecturer, with expertise in design of timber connections. Their research interests encompass the theory, analysis, design and performance of timber connections, including detailing for timber durability. Dr Ottenhaus and their team research offsite timber construction using both engineered wood products and light timber framing, design for adaptability, disassembly and reuse, and reversible timber joints.

As part of the ARC Advance Timber Hub, Dr Ottenhaus co-leads Node 3 on Extending Building Life, and project 1.2 on timber connections. They serve as a committee member of TM-010 (Australian Standards technical committee on Timber Structures and Framing), and a steering committee member of the Australian Timber Construction Educator Network.

Dr Ottenhaus has been an invited speaker at the prefabAUS Offsite conference, the Brisbane Architecture and Design Festival, the International Holzbau Forum (Innsbruck, Austria) and has been interviewed by the Guardian, ABC Radio, Built Offsite, and the Holzmagazin.

Fu is a senior lecturer (assistant professor) in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland (UQ). He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University in 2017 and joined UQ in 2018.

With extensive training in econometrics, quantitative methods, and programming, Fu's research interests focus on theoretical and applied econometrics, statistics, and applied economics. His expertise lies in developing robust yet easy-to-implement econometric and statistical methods for causal inference, semi- and non-parametric estimation, analysis of longitudinal (panel) data, and limited dependent variable models. Fu applies these methods to various fields, including empirical industrial organization, labor, and health economics.

David is a passionate and driven scientist with a successful track record in translational commercially focused technical and academic leadership. David has worked in academia and industry at the interface of chemistry, biochemistry and biology. He has successfully designed and developed several oncology nanomedicines and driven them forward into clinical trials.

As Director of the Protein Expression Facility (PEF) within The University of Queensland, David and his team strive to build collaborations and provide excellent service provision with a wide variety of researchers across academia and industry. Through this work we ensure PEF achieves its vision to be a world leader in protein research services and innovative solutions for protein production driving scientific success.

Samantha’s research and postgraduate supervision centres on historical performance practices and performance cultures. Her published output comprises two main strands. First: the influence and reception of German music and musicians in Australasia, 1850–1950 (including itinerant German bands, and the music of J. S. Bach) and the history of listening cultures in Australasia during the first half of the 20th century (including the impact of the gramophone and radio broadcasting). And, second: early modern German court music (in particular the Württemberg Hofkapelle); professional women musicians in the 17th and 18th centuries; the early history of the orchestra and oboe bands (Hautboistenbande); and John Sigismond Cousser (Kusser) and the musical life of early 18th-century Dublin.

She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (from 2012), and has also held visiting fellowships at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany (2004); Clare Hall, University of Cambridge (2007–2008); and, as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow, at the Institut für Musik, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (2009–2010) and the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig, Germany (2018).

In 2011–2017, Samantha was an Associate and (from 2015) International Investigator with the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: Europe 1100–1800. Her monograph, The Well-Travelled Musician: John Sigismond Cousser and Musical Exchange in Baroque Europe (Boydell Press, 2017), was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (2013– 2015). Most recently, she received funding from the Lilburn Trust for hosting a scholarly symposium on Music in Colonial New Zealand Cities (November 2022); an edited volume of the papers is currently in preparation.

From 1994 until 2023, Samantha taught papers on historical performance practice, the history of Western European music of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the history of Western art music in New Zealand, 1850–1950 (including jazz, classical and popular music). She was employed full time at the University of Queensland from 2001 until 2015 (Lecturer–Associate Professor). In 2015 she returned to New Zealand, where she held the positions of Associate Professor (2015–2018) and Professor of Musicology (2019–2024) at the New Zealand School of Music – Te Kōkī.

Samantha has been the editor of numerous scholarly books and works as a freelance indexer; her index for Music at German Courts: Changing Artistic Priorities (Boydell Press, 2011) won the 2012 medal of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers.

Dr Nancy A. Pachana is a clinical geropsychologist, neuropsychologist and Professor of Clinical Geropsychology in the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland. She is Program Lead of the Age Friendly University Initiative at UQ. She is also co-director of the UQ Ageing Mind Initiative, providing a focal point for clinical, translational ageing-related research at UQ. She has an international reputation in the area of geriatric mental health, particularly with her research on late-life anxiety disorders. She is co-developer of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory, a published brief self-report inventory in wide clinical and research use globally, translated into over two dozen languages. She has published over 350 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and books on various topics in the field of ageing, and has been awarded more than $25 million in competitive research funding, primarily in the areas of dementia and mental health in later life. Her research is well-cited cited and she maintains a clear international focus in her collaborations and research interests, which include anxiety in later life, psychological interventions for those with Parkinson’s Disease, nursing home interventions, use of assistance animals in later life, older adults and environmental sustainability, strategies for healthy ageing and healthy retirement, driving safety and dementia, teaching and learning in psychogeriatrics and mental health policy and ageing.

Her edited book, Casebook of Clinical Geropsychology (Oxford University Press, 2010), has proven a popular text for clinical geropsychology training in North America. Her edited book, the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Geropsychology (Oxford University Press, 2014), brings together an international perspective on a wide range of current and emerging topics in the field. Her Encyclopedia of Geropsychology (Springer, 2016) contains nearly 350 entries by international experts. Her text Ageing, A Very Short Introduction (2016), part of the popular Oxford University Press VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION series; this work has recently been translated into Chinese and Vietnamese. Most recently, she has edited Anxiety in older people: Clinical and research perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2021) with longstanding colleague Professor Gerard Byrne (UQ Psychiatry).

Nancy was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2014. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society, and is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including an Australian Davos Connection Future Summit Leadership Award, for leadership on ageing issues in Australia. In 2020 she was named the recipient of the M. Powell Lawton Lifetime Acievement Award, from the American Psychological Association’s Society of Clinical Geropsychology, acknowledging considerable and sustained efforts, in scholarship, publishing, and service, to promote geropsychology in general and the well-being of persons living with dementia in particular.

She serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Psychology and Aging (Q1). Originally from the United States, Nancy was awarded her AB from Princeton University in 1987, her PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1992, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA, Los Angeles, and the Palo Alto Veterans Medical Center, Palo Alto, California. She is an avid bird watcher and photographer and an intrepid traveller.

Dr Jan Packer has a background in Psychology having completed a BA (Hons) at UQ in 1976. Her PhD (Education, QUT, 2004) focussed on motivations for learning in educational leisure settings. She has published broadly in the area of educational psychology over many years. The current major focus of her research is in applying the principles of educational, environmental and positive psychology to understand and facilitate visitor experiences in leisure settings such as museums and other tourist and leisure contexts. Jan was co-editor of the international journal, Visitor Studies from 2005 through 2011.

Dr Rebecca Packer is a Senior Lecturer in Speech Pathology at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences. Dr Packer has attracted over 2.2M in research funding and published over 40 research articles and book chapters with her main focus on the impacts of swallowing disorders in head and neck cancer on survivors and their families.

Dr Junel Padigos is a registered nurse and an early career academic. He finished his PhD from the School of Public Health at The University of Queensland in 2024. In his PhD program, Junel was a recipient of the Australian Government Research Training Program Tuition Fee Offset and Stipend Scholarship, allowing him to complete his research focusing on the role of nurses in antimicrobial optimisation in the intensive care unit. Junel currently works as a Nurse Educator in the Nursing and Midwifery Practice Development Team in the Sunshine Coast. Throughout his nursing career, he has worked in acute care specialties such as emergency, spinal, acute neurosurgery, intensive care, and coronary care. As a qualified educator and a practising nurse, Junel's research interests focus on education, health promotion, knowledge-to-practice translation, and implementation science.