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Rebecca Olive joined the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences in 2017. Her work about lifestyle and nature sports contributes to critical cultural, social and historical teaching and research relating to sport, physical cultures, bodies, and health. Rebecca publishes in journals and books across Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Sport Sociology, and Sport History, and has co-edited a book with Holly Thorpe, Women in Action Sport Cultures: Identity, Politics and Experience (2016).

In 2019, she was awarded a DECRA for her project baout human-ocean health, 'Understanding ecological sensibilities in recreational lifestyle sports'. This project explores practices and cultures of ocean swimming and surfing to understand intersections human and environmental health. The project uses ethnographic methods (fieldwork and interviews) to make sense of ocean-swimmers’ and surfers' relationships to sharks, plastics, and localism at a range of urban and regional beaches. You can read more about this work on her Moving Oceans website.

Rebecca also continues focus on issues of equity and diversity and action/lifestyle sports and cultures, in particular women's experiences. Taking a feminist cultural studies approach to theories of power, ethics and pedagogy, she is interested in how we influence cultural change in everyday lived physical cultures towards more inclusive access and participation. Current projects include:

• Bluespaces and health
• Nature sports
• Women in sport, physical activity and leisure practices
• Self-representation on social media – elite athletes, recreational sports and fitness cultures
• Feminist research methods

Will is a pharmacist and an academic at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UQ. Will undertakes research at the intersection of pharmacy practice and bioethics. His research interests include normative ethics, professional responsibility and the philosophy of responsibility. Will also teaches across undergraduate programs for pharmacy, nursing, midwifery and social work. Will’s teaching interests include medicines management and ethical decision-making in the health professions.

Dr Jon Olsen is an Associate Professor & Deputy Director (Research) at the Institute for Social Science, The University of Queensland. He serves as Director of URBANiQ: Urban Intelligence for Healthy & Equitable Places @ The University of Queensland, the AURIN UQ-Node, and leads research focused on place and health inequalities. His work explores how the built and natural environments, along with urban planning policies, influence health outcomes and disparities. Jon is also committed to advancing understanding of the intersections between human health and planetary health.

He is Co-I of the NIHR Global Health Research Unit in Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Inequalities (SEDHI) and the NIHR Public Health Research (PHR) Programme-funded Orienting Policy Towards Inequality Minimising Actions (OPTIMA) project, a systems science approach to 20-minute neighbourhood policy and evaluation.

Jon is Senior Editor of the new journal Urban Transitions, Editorial Board Member of Wellbeing, Space and Society. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow, UK and Honorary Professor at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Rebecca Olson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Queensland, cutting-edge translational qualitative researcher, mentor and award-winning educator with expertise in the sociologies of health and emotions. Her work advances the human aspects of care. It empowers students, teachers and researchers to foreground social and emotional aspects in addressing emerging health challenges through collaborative, interdisciplinary research with in-built impact. As Co-Founder and past Director of SocioHealthLab, she leads an interdisciplinary collective of researchers, health professional educators and practitioners interested in doing health and healthcare differently: more socially aware, more relational, more inclusive and more just. As Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Social Science, she prioritises collaborative, reflexive, creative and emotions-centred practices in higher education. As Joint Editor-in-Chief of Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, Olson fosters dialogue across theory-curious clinician researchers and critical health social scientists. With 100+ scholarly publications – as well as news media and creative video productions – Rebecca is a prolific contributor to public debate. With research interests spanning medicinal cannabis and health professions education to climate anxiety, Olson is internationally renowned for bringing sociological insight to complex challenges related to emotions, wellbeing, healthcare and caregiving.

Emma Olssen is a Koori Aboriginal woman from the Wiradjuri Nation of New South Wales through her mother and grandparents, and a Middle-Eastern Australian through her father's lineage. Born in Muloobinba (Newcastle, NSW), she grew up in Winnam (Wynnum) on Quandamooka Country (Moreton Bay).

Emma has an extensive professional background in leadership, executive management, organisational change, and Indigenous engagement across diverse sectors. As an Indigenous researcher, her work is grounded in Indigenous methodologies and explores the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees across identified and non-identified roles.

Her research examines how organisational structures, workplace cultures, and employment practices shape Indigenous employees' experiences of inclusion, wellbeing, leadership, and career progression. Through qualitative yarning, her work challenges assumptions that representation alone leads to meaningful inclusion and highlights the organisational conditions that enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to thrive in the workplace. Her research contributes to contemporary discussions on Indigenous employment, equity, and organisational transformation.

Hannah is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian (AdvAPD) who holds positions as a Senior Dietitian at The Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service, Knowledge Translation Workforce Development Officer for Metro North Hospital and Health Service, and Honorary Research Fellow within the University of Queensland, Centre for Health Services Research.

Hannah completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2024. Her PhD focused on person-centred care and interprofessional practice in nutrition and food services in rehabilitation, and has been internationally recognised. Hannah published four first-author peer-reviewed articles from her PhD research and has been invited to present her work at national conferences. Hannah has also secured competitive research funding to advance her clinical research program and translate her findings into practice across Queensland hospitals and health services, establishing herself as a promising early-career clinician-researcher. This has been reflected in recent awards, including the Practice-based Evidence in Nutrition Prize from Dietitians Australia (2024).

Hannah’s clinical research program aims to improve nutrition care in rehabilitation populations by harnessing technology, data-driven decision-making, and consumer engagement. Recent projects within this program include co-designing and implementing innovative nutrition education videos: https://metronorth.health.qld.gov.au/news/nutrition-information-for-patients, co-developing quality indicators for rehabilitation nutrition and food services with consumers and multidisciplinary staff, and using body composition measures to inform precision nutrition care.

As a Knowledge Translation Workforce Development Officer and clinically embedded researcher, Hannah is committed to bridging the gap between contemporary research and clinical practice. Hannah leads the Metro North arm of the Allied Health Translating Research into Practice (AH-TRIP) initiative: https://www.health.qld.gov.au/clinical-practice/database-tools/translating-research-into-practice-trip/translating-research-into-practice, which aims to increase knowledge translation capacity among health professionals. Her involvement in various projects reflects this commitment to both knowledge translation and innovation, including contributing to the development and implementation of a new high-value Malnutrition Model of Care and supporting the implementation of interprofessional mealtime enhancement strategies into routine practice.

Dr Natacha Omer is a paediatic oncologist at the Queensland Children's Hospital in Brisbane. She is specialised in solid tumours, with a spacial interest in paediatric and adolescent sarcomas, cancer immunotherapy and molecular oncology. She is undertaking a PhD in immunology studying natural killer (NK) cell immunotherapy in paediatric sarcomas at the Frazer Institute, University of Queensland, in Dr Fernando Guimaraes lab.

About & Research Focus

Associate Professor Sheila Cecily Ommeh is a computational biologist, and biotechnology specialist with over three decades of research leadership spanning infectious disease dynamics, multi-omics, and translational biosecurity at the One Health interface. Her research program focuses on the rational design of next-generation biodetection platforms, point-of-care diagnostics, novel therapeutics, modern livestock vaccine platforms to safeguard animal production systems, biosecurity, and food security and exploring animal biodiversity for resillience.

Career Journey & Scientific Heritage

Born on the slopes of Mount Elgon—an extinct volcano straddling Kenya and Uganda—she grew up on the foothills with her grandmother, a smallholder farmer. Witnessing early on the devastating impacts of infectious diseases and climatic extremes on rural livestock and community livelihoods shaped her dedication to agricultural resilience and veterinary health. She was profoundly inspired and mentored by her late mother, an accomplished scientist and visionary leader who fostered her early career in STEM.

A seasoned research strategist, A/Prof Ommeh brings extensive experience establishing, funding, and directing large-scale, multidisciplinary initiatives across global academic consortia and international research networks. Her leadership unites computational biologists, field researchers, veterinary authorities, and cross-sectoral collaborator seamlessly aligning diverse teams to translate fundamental discovery science into robust research frameworks, policy-informing datasets, and durable institutional research capacity. Her scientific journey over the past 30 years encompasses a comprehensive One Health continuum across leading global research centres:

• Vector-Borne Human Pathogens: Commenced research at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) investigating Leishmania, subsequently advancing to human malaria molecular epidemiology with the KEMRI–Wellcome Trust Research Programme.

• Livestock Genomics & Biodiversity: Transitioned to agricultural biotechnology at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Seoul National University (Republic of Korea) and Paco Tecnologico Padano (Italy), focusing on avian genetics, viral disease resistance, and livestock adaptive resilience.

• Pathogen Surveillance & Wildlife Interfaces: At Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), she led the Animal Biotechnology Research Group at the Institute for Biotechnology Research (IBR). Her work spearheaded research on several indigenous poultry species and emerging livestock species. She also expanded into broad-scale pathogen surveillance, viral genomics, and biodiversity characterization across multi-species ecosystems; including domesticates, wildlife reservoirs, and vector populations with collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China), University of Hasselt (Belgium) and Pirbright institute (UK) among other international collaborations.

Postgraduate Supervision & Student Opportunities

A dedicated academic mentor and educator, A/Prof Ommeh has supervised over 20 Higher Degree by Research Scholars (HDRs) to successful completion.

She actively welcomes prospective PhD, MPhil, and Honours students, as well as postdoctoral fellows, with backgrounds or interests in:

• Computational Biology & Bioinformatics: Genomic pipelines, molecular phylodynamics, and pathogen evolution.

• Molecular Biosecurity & Next-Generation Diagnostics: Translation of molecular and deep-tech sensing platforms for rapid, remote field detection.

• Rational Vaccine & Therapeutic Design: Computational epitope mapping and modern platform engineering for high-impact veterinary diseases.

• One Health & Animal Biodiversity: Exploring adaptive traits, disease tolerance, and resilient emerging protein resources.

Students joining the research group gain hands-on expertise in interdisciplinary computational pipelines, multi-omics, advanced genomic sequencing, and translational animal health biosecurity, benefiting from strong international networks and industry-aligned research environments.

Professor Italo Onederra serves as the Director of the Centre for Future Autonomous Systems and Technologies (FAST) at the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering. He leads a research group focused on improving mineral extraction methods with reduced environmental impact through advanced preconditioning and fragmentation techniques. Recognised internationally as a specialist in explosives and blasting engineering technology, Italo holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) with honours from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Engineering Science and PhD from the University of Queensland. With over 25 years of R&D experience and consulting work in Australia, South America, Africa, and Europe, Italo has demonstrated leadership and impact in both research and industry. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, contributed to technical reports and books, and co-invented novel nitrogen oxide-free explosives based on hydrogen peroxide. Italo is also known for developing fragmentation modelling techniques, which have been incorporated into commercial software used globally by industry and academia, as well as pioneering the use of physics engines in blast movement modelling to improve ore control and maximise recovery.

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 Faith Ong researches events, tourism and hospitality as tools of social change. She studies how festivals, community gatherings and targeted events shape the social inclusivity of places, and what they mean for the communities involved.

Her work centres on enabling full and inclusive participation in events and travel. She has focused on sexually and culturally diverse communities and on people with disabilities, and she continues to examine the signals of inclusion and exclusion at occasions meant to bring people together. Recent publications look at the roles LGBTQ+ events play for queer people, the paradoxes of social dominance within LGBTQ+ events, the impacts of Pride cancellation, and how Australia and China approach event accessibility.

Faith is also an expert on volunteering. She examines its impacts on individuals in tourism and events, including rights-based approaches to mega-event volunteering and the legacies of the Olympic Games. She argues that volunteering strengthens the fabric of societies and helps counter growing loneliness.

Faith has published widely in journals including Tourism Management and Journal of Sustainable Tourism. She supervises research students and is available to the media on accessibility, social inclusion, LGBT events and volunteering.

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).