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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 avocado tissue culture, gene editing and cryopreservation program. He is a global expert in optimising tissue culture and in vitro technologies for recalcitrant crops. His pioneering work on propagation and cryopreservation of avocado has contributed to global licensees for technology uptake. Chris is passionate to deliver world-first technology platforms for horticultural crop improvement. This innovative tech-development will address critical challenges of traditional breeding, enabling rapid development of future-smart 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 170 publications. Jake is strongly supportive of early career researcher development and is the former 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.

I am a social and developmental psychologist specialising in how social environments shape people’s development. My research focuses on family, peer, school, and community influences on mental health, educational aspirations, and social attitudes.

My work applies advanced statistical methods, including latent class analysis, longitudinal modeling, and moderation-mediation frameworks. I collaborate with schools, clinics, and policymakers to ensure my research has practical applications for improving life outcomes and fostering inclusive social environments.

Through interdisciplinary projects, I aim to bridge psychological research and real-world practice, contributing to healthier, more equitable societies.

Chris O’Donnell obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney. He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Productivity Analysis, an Associate Editor of Empirical Economics, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. His current research is focused on economic and statistical methods for measuring and explaining productivity and efficiency change. He has authored or co-authored three books on this topic. His work has been published in leading economics and econometrics journals, including the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, Econometric Reviews and the European Journal of Operational Research. He has provided in-house training and/or been a consultant for organisations including the World Bank, the Asian Productivity Organisation, the International Rice Research Institute, the Australian Energy Regulator, the New South Wales Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, and the Australian Independent Hospital Pricing Authority.

Dr Martin O’Flahertyis a research fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course located in the Institute for Social Science Research. Martin has made important contributions to the evaluation of nationally significant social policy, often working with the Department of Social Services. Notable highlights include designing the impact evaluation for the $90 million Try, Test, and Learn Fund and leading the evaluation of the Building Capacity in Australia’s Parents trial and the National Community Awareness Raising initiative. He is the quantitative lead for recently announced Community Refugee Integration and Sponsorship Pilot, funded by the Department of Home Affairs, which is investigating the feasibility of alternative settlement pathways for unlinked humanitarian migrants.

Martin’s broader research centres on the intersection of family, health, and disadvantage over the life course, using advanced quantitative methods to unlock causal and longitudinal perspectives on important social problems. Recent work has investigated patterns and determinants of children’s and adolescents’ time-use, including for adolescents with disability and LGBTQ adolescents. He has also led research using state-of-the-art machine learning methodology to study heterogeneous effects of teenage motherhood on later life mental health. Martin’s current research is primarily focussed on understanding the nature, causes of, and solutions to, poverty and financial insecurity among children with disabilities and their families. His work has appeared in leading international journals including Demography, Child Development, and The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health among others.

Neurologist with special interest in electrodiagnosis and neuromuscular disease. Research interests include neuroimmunology, point-of-care ultrasound and the neuropsychiatric interface.

Ass. Prof. Jacinta O’Hagan is an Associate Professor in International Relations in the School of Political Science and International Studies. A former diplomat with the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, Jacinta O’Hagan has held prior appointments at the Australian National University and held visiting fellowships and affiliations at the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and the European University Institute.

Her principal areas of teaching are international history, humanitarianism and culture in world politics. Her research and publications have focused on the role of culture and civilizational in world politics and the politics of humanitarianism, including the role of non-state actors in humanitarianism, and humanitarian diplomacy. She has worked on collaborative projects on the relationship between digital media and political violence and the globalization of international society. Her most recent research and publications have focused on the international humanitarian system, and civilizational politics in international society.

Dr Denis O’Hara is the Program Lead for the Master of Counselling within the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work. He is a chartered psychologist with the British Psychological Society and member of the Psychotherapist and Counsellors Federation of Australia. Dr O’Hara is a past Head of School of Counselling and Psychotherapy at the Australian College of Applied Psychology (ACAP) and is Adjunct Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Dr O’Hara has taught in several universities and colleges both in Australia and overseas across faculties of education, psychology, and counselling. He enjoys research and writing and has published several books and book chapters, and multiple peer reviewed journal articles. Some of his research interests include hope studies, psychological trauma, ADHD, self-differentiation, and psychotherapy integration. One of Dr O'Hara's principal areas of reearch is on hope studies and apart from reports in research papers, a detailed examination of hope can be found in two of his books. The most recent volume is an edited book which provides an examination of hope from multiple perspectives including psychological, sociological, fiction and film, and is entitled “Phoenix Rising from Contemporary Global Society”. A second text is a full examination of hope and its application within the context of counselling and psychotherapy and is entitled " Hope in Counselling and Psychotherapy'.

Shaun O’Leary, BPHTY (Hon), MPHTY (Msk), PhD, is an Associate Professor in Physiotherapy between the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Queensland, and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Physiotherapy Department, in Brisbane, Australia. He is also a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist (as awarded by the Australian College of Physiotherapists (ACP) in 2008). Shaun is a longstanding member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association and Fellow of the ACP. Shaun is across clinical education at all levels of physiotherapy training. He has had a major teaching role in the University of Queensland’s postgraduate specialty Masters of Physiotherapy (Musculoskeletal and Sports Physiotherapy) programs since 2001, and nationally has served the ACP as an examiner, and former council member and Chair of the Fellowships Program Standing Committee. In 2021 Shaun was awarded a Senior Fellowship within the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Shaun has over 130 publications relating to the management of musculoskeletal conditions (including >110 research articles, 6 book chapters, 2 books translated to multiple languages), > 50 conference presentations, nearly AUD$6 million career grant funding, and have delivered over 60 clinical workshops worldwide, and received clinical research awards nationally and internationally, and supervised 13 research higher degrees.

Karina O'Leary is the Interprofessional Conjoint Fellow at the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) Education and Research Alliance. A physiotherapist with extensive experience working within public and private musculoskeletal physiotherapy settings, Karina has also worked within academic settings in education and research roles.

Delivering high quality healthcare needs high functioning interprofessional teams. Karina's focus at STARS and her research is firstly, ensuring health professional students opportunities to develop interprofessional competencies, secondly, developing educators capability to deliver interprofessional work integrated learning opportunities and thirdly designing innovative ways to develop interprofessional practice within healthcare teams.

Karina 's PhD will use an experience based co-design framework to understand interprofessional practice within a local hospital setting, then designing interventions for students, educators and healthcare teams to engance interprofessional practice.

Qualifications

• PhD candidate, The University of Queensland (commenced 2021)
• Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, The University of Queensland (2009)
• Master of Physiotherapy, The University of Queensland (2005)
• BSc (Honours) Physiotherapy, Leeds Metropolitan University (1997)

Awards and Fellowships

• Heath and Behavioural Sciences Faculty Excellence in Clinical and Professional Skill Education Award (2022)

Megan O’Mara is a Professor and Group Leader at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), UQ. Her group uses multiscale modelling techniques to understand how changes in the biochemical environment of the cell membranes alters membrane properties and modulates the function of membrane proteins. She has research interests in multidrug resistance, computational drug design and delivery, biopolymers, and personalized medicine. Megan completed her PhD in biophysics at the Australian National University in 2005 before moving to the University of Calgary, Canada, to take up a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2009, she returned to Australia to join University of Queensland’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences as a UQ Postdoctoral Fellow, before commencing an ARC DECRA in 2012 where she continued her computational work on membrane protein dynamics. In 2015, Megan joined the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University in 2015 as Rita Cornforth Fellow and Senior Lecturer. In 2019 she was promoted to Associate Professor and was Associate Director (Education) of the Research School of Chemistry ANU in 2019-2021. In April 2022 she relocated to AIBN.

A/Prof Liza O'Moore's research interests are in: reinforced and prestressed concrete design, concrete technology, time-dependent properties of concrete and durability of concrete structures.

Liza has over 30 years experience in structural and concrete design. After graduation Liza joined a local consulting firm and worked mainly in the areas of industrial and commercial structural design. Upon completion of her postgraduate research, she joined the Civil Structures group in the Brisbane office of Arup. During her time with Arup as a senior engineer and then associate, she was involved in a number of reinforced concrete design projects undertaken both locally and overseas. In January 2001, Liza joined the academic staff in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland. She is currently teaching in the areas of reinforced concrete and concrete design and applied mechanics. Her research interests are in the areas of creep and shrinkage of concrete structures, durability, high performance concretes, the performance of industrial slabs and pavements and geopolymer concretes. She is a Life Member of the Concrete Institute of Australia and was a member of the National Council (2007-2015) and National Executive (2009-2015). Liza served as the first female National President of the Concrete Institute of Australia (2011-2013).

Liza is also active in the area of Engineering Education. She teaches into first and second year engineering and leads the final year capstone design project. Liza has research interests in the areas of transition and preparedness for first year, graduate competencies and large class teaching. Liza has been awarded School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Awards in 2005 and 2006, EAIT Faculty Teaching Award 2007, and a special EAIT Faculty Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching (2012). In 2010 Liza was awarded a UQ Award for Teaching Excellence, which was followed in 2011 by an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. She was a project team member on the OLT funded “Get set for success: using online self-assessments to motivate first year engineering students”. Liza has undertaken interdisciplinary research in the areas of competence assurance and the use of simulators for CRC – Rail.

Liza has also provided advice on accreditation of VET sector Associate Degrees, and in the curriculum development for new BE (Civil) programs at tertiary level. In 2014 Liza was part of the expert team of national and international experts in Civil Engineering Education advising Charles Sturt University on the development of Australia’s first graduate entry five year Engineering Master’s program commencing in 2016.

I study how people lead, decide, and organize under the most demanding conditions imaginable, and what those environments reveal about leadership and practice more broadly. My research examines how leaders make consequential decisions under uncertainty and time pressure, how embodied skill and expertise develop in operational settings, and how teams sustain coordinated performance when conditions are most demanding. My central argument is that organizations at the edge of their capability show us things about leadership and human coordination that ordinary settings conceal. This work sits at the intersection of practice-process theory and phenomenology, and draws on my twenty-three years of service across the US Army Infantry, the 75th Ranger Regiment, and Special Forces, experience that affords access to empirical settings and practitioner networks rarely available to management researchers. I bring this research and experience directly into the classroom and engagements with industry, government, defense, and law enforcement partners, using what extreme contexts reveal about leadership to help practitioners in any organizational setting decide, lead, and act more effectively.

Dr Patrick (Paddy) O'Regan is a social work lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Social Work at the University of Queensland. Previously, she worked at Griffith University in Australia and was the director of Gestalt Therapy Brisbane.

Paddy began his social work education in Townsville, completing a Bachelor of Social Work in 1991, then extending that knowledge with a Master of Social Policy and a Master of Gestalt Therapy before completing a PhD in 2020. He is known for his extensive experience working alongside those who have been involved in potentially traumatic events, especially in emergency and industrial settings.

Paddy’s research areas are peer support in suicide prevention, working with trauma, contemporary issues in professional education, the ethics of lifelong learning, and social work with migrants and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. His research skill set comprises a wide range of qualitative methodologies.

Anne-Maree O'Rourke is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the UQ Business School and holds a PhD (University of Technology Sydney), a Master of Business Administration (Macquarie Graduate School of Management) and a Bachelor of Commerce (University of New South Wales). She currently teaches Brand Management to undergraduate students and Fundamentals of Advertising to postgraduate students.

She is the Academic Mentor of Newish - UQ's student-led marketing agency.

Anne-Maree brings over 12 years of management and consulting experience in marketing, market research and branding into both her teaching and research, having worked with a vast range of commercial brands and government entities including Kimberly-Clark, Yahoo!, Telstra, FOXTEL, QSuper and The Department of Transport and Main Roads (QLD State Gov.)

Her primary research interests lie in two areas: 1) Brand strategy and management (e.g., brand perceptions, celebrity endorsement, brand purpose, luxury branding) and 2. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the marketplace (e.g., LGBT+ brands, plus-sized consumers, racial stereotypes in service settings).

Her research has been published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, the Journal of Product and Brand Management and Psychology and Marketing. In addition, her work has been presented at international marketing conferences such as the Association of Consumer Research Asia Pacific (ACR-AP), the European Marketing Academy Conference and the Global Marketing Conference. She received the Runner Up Best Competitive Paper Award in Consumer Behavior at ACR-AP 2024.

Anne-Maree sits on the Editorial Review Board of the European Journal of Marketing.