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Desmond Ong is currently a Clinical Academic in the Discipline of Orthodontics at the University of Queensland School of Dentistry, where he is involved in both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Orthodontic Programs.

Desmond is also in full-time specialist orthodontic private practice in Townsville.

Desmond received the Raj Prasad Award from the Australian Society of Orthodontists (SA) in 2016 and is a past winner of the Young Lecturer Award from the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons.

Dr. Ong is an exceptional and driven researcher in the field of Animal Health, and her work revolves around studying pathogen genomes, transcriptomes, and host-associated metagenomes to enhance animals' resistance to diseases and improve their overall health and productivity.

One remarkable aspect of Dr. Ong's expertise is her versatility and enthusiasm for both wet lab and dry lab (bioinformatics) work. She finds equal joy in conducting hands-on experiments in the wet lab and diving into data analysis and computational work in the bioinformatics domain. This multidisciplinary approach empowers her to gain comprehensive insights into her research subjects and tackle complex challenges from various angles. Dr. Ong's vast skillset encompasses molecular biology and expertise in utilizing 2nd and 3rd generation sequencing technologies, along with her proficiency in bioinformatics tools and techniques. This diverse knowledge allows her to explore and employ cutting-edge methodologies, providing her with a unique advantage in her research endeavors.

One of Dr. Ong's significant achievements was conducting the first cattle reproductive tract metagenomic study in Australia. This groundbreaking study likely contributed valuable information about the reproductive health of cattle and opened new avenues for further research in this area. Additionally, her contributions extend to the assembly of complete genomes for multiple pathogens, such as Campylobacter fetus and Bovicola ovis. This accomplishment is instrumental in understanding these pathogens' genetic makeup, evolution, and mechanisms of infection, which is vital in developing targeted strategies to combat diseases affecting animals.

Keywords: Microbiome and Metagenomics, Pathogen genomics, Animal health, PCR, Sequencing, Host-microbe interactions

Dr. Jhoana Opena, a seasoned researcher, joined The University of Queensland as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2021. Dr. Opena has over 18 years of experience in research related to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in vegetables and weed management within rice-based cropping systems across Australia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Lao PDR. Previously, she worked as an Associate Scientist in the Weed Science group at the International Rice Research Institute and was appointed as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños. She successfully completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Agriculture at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, Australia, in 2021. Currently, she is working on an ACIAR project entitled “Weed Management Techniques for Mechanized and Broadcast Lowland Crop Production Systems in Cambodia and Lao PDR.”

Anwar joined the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland in mid 2023 as a lecturer in Fire Safety Engineering. His background is in Structural Fire Engineering, including numerical simulation for performance-based engineering, large-scale analysis of structures in fire, and application of AI and data science for real-time risk mitigation. Anwar has several years of teaching and academic experience in Hong Kong, where he managed and took part in keystone projects including SureFire: Smart Urban Resilience and Firefighting, and the Integrated Safety Engineering knowledge transfer initiative.

James is an ecologist interested in how stressors impact the diversity, stability, and functioning of ecological communities. He is particularly interested in the interactions between species that lead to complex dynamics and in the interactions between multiple stressors that make predicting global change impacts so challenging. He uses a combination of mathematical theory, experimental ecology, and research synthesis in his work. Although much of James' research focuses on fundamental questions in population and community ecology, he is also interested in applied questions in the fields of global change biology, (freshwater) environmental science, and microbiology.

Before joining UQ, James did his PhD at Trinity College Dublin and he then worked for three years as a postdoctroal research at the University of Oxford. In 2024 he was awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council to study how the temporal synchronization of antibiotics and phages impacts the ecology of bacterial communities and the evolution of antimicrobial resistance. He is based in Dr. Andrew Letten's microbial ecology lab in the School of the Enviornment (room 262).

The law of politics, in particular electoral law, is Professor Graeme Orr's primary research expertise. He has authored The Law of Politics (1st edn 2010, 2nd edn 2019) and Ritual and Rhythm in Electoral Systems (2015), co-authored The Law of Deliberative Democracy (2016), co-edited Realising Democracy (2003), Electoral Democracy: Australian Prospects (2011) and The Cambridge Handbook of Deliberative Constitutionalism (2018) and edited 3 symposia on the law of politics. His doctoral thesis explored the nature and regulation of electoral bribery. In the field of the law of politics, he does consultancy and pro bono work, and regular media commentary. Graeme has published over 100 commentary pieces in both the traditional press and online outlets.

Graeme has also published extensively in labour law, the law of negligence and on issues of language and law. Currently he is the legal adviser on the NSW Electoral Commission’s iVote panel and was recently part of the Australian Republican Movement’s Constitutional Advisory Board that drafted a model for an elected Head of State.

An Associate to two judges in the Federal Court of Australia and solicitor of the Queensland Supreme Court, prior to joining UQ Graeme was also an Associate Professor at Griffith University, where he taught for 13 years. In recent times he has been international editor of the Election Law Journal and board member of the Australian Journal of Labour Law. He was formerly managing editor of the Griffith Law Review, columnist with the Alternative Law Journal on sport's links to law, and employment law columnist with the Australian Journal of Administrative Law. He currently authors the entry on Australia for The Annual Register, a 257 year old almanac of world affairs.

He was a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law (2014-24) and has been an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences since 2020 and of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2025.

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 13 PhD students to completion (6 primary supervisor, 7 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.