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Dr Ashley Paine is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Co-Director of the ATCH Research Centre (Architecture Theory Culture History) at the University of Queensland, Australia. His current research examines the collection, preservation, and reconstruction of buildings in museums, with a particular focus on the work of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. His broader research and teaching interests span architectural history, intersections of art and architecture, as well as historic preservation and adaptive re-use.

Paine was the lead editor of the book, Valuing Architecture: Heritage and the Economics of Culture (2020) published by Valiz as part of the “Studies in Art and Architecture” series. He has also contributed to two other books in this series, as a co-editor of Trading between Architecture and Art: Strategies and Practices of Exchange (2019) and co-author of Pavilion Propositions: Nine Points on an Architectural Phenomenon (2018). He has presented his research in conferences across Australia and New Zealand, Europe and the United States, and published extensively in international books and journals including arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, AA Files, and Future Anterior.

Paine is also a practicing architect, and co-founder of PHAB Architects: a Brisbane-based studio focused on public projects, exhibition design, residential, and heritage buildings.

Dr Anton Pak is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, The University of Queensland. Anton is an applied economist by training and his research interests focus on the behaviour of patients and their choices, utilisation of emergency department services, waiting time modelling, and the economics of digital health. Anton examines empirical questions by utilising health economics theory and concepts and by analysing large panel and cross-sectional datasets (including linked data) using classical econometrics techniques, as well as machine learning methods.

Anton is currently co-leading an Emergency Medicine Foundation funded project “ED waiting time predictions in real-time: development of data acquisition system and performance evaluation of advanced statistical models.”, which is being undertaken in partnership with Princess Alexandra Hospital. Anton has worked extensively on interdisciplinary research with statisticians, mathematical modellers, clinicians, epidemiologists, and public health experts.

Prior to joining the Centre, Anton worked as a Research Fellow in Applied Economics and Data Scientist at James Cook University. His previous experience also includes working as a management consultant and university lecturer.

Anton has a PhD (Economics) from The University of Queensland.

Kenneth Pakenham, PhD, is an Emeritus Professor of clinical and health psychology in the School of Psychology at The University of Queensland, Australia. His research and clinical practice in psychology spans 40+ years. Inspired by the resilience of some people with serious illnesses, he has committed much of his career to investigating the processes that foster personal growth in the context of health adversities, and to translating his findings into interventions that help people live fully with illness. This passion has driven his empirical, theoretical and translational research, curriculum development, and clinical training and supervision. Importantly, his work has included not only the person with chronic illness, but also his or her network, particularly the carer. Through his 200+ publications, over 80 conference presentations, 3 research awards, and more than 3 million dollars of competitive grant funding, he has become a leader in the application of positive health frameworks to several chronic illnesses, and to caregiving in these contexts. His research has helped to inform government policies, particularly those related to carers, and establish interventions and assessment protocols within government and community services. His resilience interventions are being used internationally to make a difference in the lives of people with serious health conditions. The “living fully with illness” theme integrates his early research in stress/coping theory, his mid-career shift to incorporate the rise of positive psychology, and his current and future focus on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Using ACT to extend his research on living fully with illness has also invigorated his teaching. He developed the first ACT university course in Australia. This course integrates training in therapist competencies and self-care skills and shows published empirical evidence of fostering competent and resilient clinicians. Through peer reviewed publications, conference and keynote presentations, and three teaching awards, he has become a leader in integrating training in therapist and self-care competencies into clinical psychology curricula using an ACT framework. He has six teaching awards including two national teaching awards. He has supervised the postgraduate research of 53 students. He has served in many influential professional roles including: Chair of the Registration Committee of the Psychologists Board of Queensland for over 10 years, Director of The University of Queensland Psychology Clinic for 7 years, Honours Convenor for 3 years, and member of the editorial boards for six international journals.

His career-long commitment to ‘practice what you teach’ is epitomised in his recently published memoir The Trauma Banquet: Eating Pain – Feasting on Life.

I am a Research Platform Fellow whose work bridges cognitive psychology, human factors, and organisational psychology. I develop computational models and research platforms that support rigorous investigation of human performance in complex, safety-critical environments.

Examples of my practical areas of research include modelling decision-making in high workload environments; improving the safety and efficiency of unmanned aerial systems operations; understanding the drivers of team resilience; supporting tactical decision-making in military contexts; designing AI tools grounded in cognitive theory; and assessing cognitive training interventions for operational performance.

Chiara is Professor in Veterinary Pathology at the School of Veterinary Science (SVS) of the University of Queensland (UQ). She is a board certified specialist veterinary pathologist (Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Pathology), graduated with a DVM from the University of Teramo (Italy) in 2002 and a PhD in Ultrastructural Pathology in 2006. Before joining UQ in 2012, she has been working as an Assistant Professor in Veterinary Pathology at the University of Teramo (Italy). She has a specific research interest is small animal oncology, in particular canine prostate cancer, and veterinary oncoepidemiology. She is Chair of the canine prostate cancer subgroup at the Oncology Pathology Working Group (OPWG), co-coordinator of the Global Initiative for Veterinary Cancer Surveillance (GIVCS) committee for the establishment of international standards of veterinary cancer registration and team leader of the comparative oncology theme of the Queensland Alliance of One Health Science. She is also member of the board of the Veterinary Cancer Guidelines and Protocols (VCGP) group, member of the Oncology Committee of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) and chair of the ESVP/ECVP DEI task force. She is past President of the Australian Society for Veterinary Pathology and, within UQ SVS, she has been postgraduate coursework coordinator (2014-2017), HDR coordinator (2017-2019) and Director of Research (2019-2021). She is now coordinator of the UQ SVS veterinary pathology postgraduate training program. She has received several academic awards, including SVS awards for research excellence (2017, 2021), best lecturer (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), and UQ award for excellence in HDR supervision (2020). She has published more than 120 papers on international journals, 3 book chapters and numerous abstracts in proceedings of national and international conferences. She has > 15 years expertise in veterinary diagnostic pathology, histopathology, IHC and TEM in multiple species. Since her first academic appointment in 2005, she mentored several postgraduate and undergraduate students in diagnostic investigation of animal cancer and research in canine oncology. Although outside the field of comparative oncology, she also a unique expertise in avian pathology and transmission electron microscopy.

Career Summary: 2009: PhD, University of Michigan, USA with training in cardiac physiology, modelling myocardial ischemia in vivo and in vitro, and development of therapeutic approaches for myocardial ischemia; 2009–2015: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Washington, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, USA with training in stem cell biology, genomics, genome editing, and cell therapeutics for ischemic heart disease; 2015–current: Group Leader, University of Queensland (UQ), Institute for Molecular Bioscience; 2022-current: Associate Professor, UQ; 2018–2021 and 2023-2026: National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow. Dr. Palpant’s research team has expertise in human stem cell biology, computational genomics, and cardiac physiology, which enables them to translate outcomes from cell biology and genomics to disease modelling, drug discovery, and preclinical modelling.

Prof Ben Panizza is the Chairman of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery for Metro South and Director of the Queensland Head and Neck Cancer Centre. He has been active in head and neck cancer management for 27 years. He has created innovative approaches in dealing with malignancies extending to the skull base one of the most anatomically complex regions of the body. He is recognised as a world leader in cutaneous malignancy extending to the temporal bone and perineurial spread of keratinocyte skin cancers, being regularly invited overseas to present. Prof Panizza is active in integrating new treatments with surgery to change treatment paradigms and improve outcomes for patients. He is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland and works collaboratively with basic scientist and has supervised to completion 28 research higher degrees over the last 12 years. He has established an in department clinical trials unit to run clinical trials from proof of principle to phase 3 clinical trials enabling access and rapid translation for his scientific partners at the Princess Alexandra Hospital which has one of Australia's largest head and neck clinics. Prof Panizza is a clinical consultant and advisor to industry (Merck, Sanofi, QBiotics, Decibel Therapeutics) and sits on the governing bodies of both the International Federation of Head and Neck Oncological Societies and The World Federation of Skull Base Societies. He has been the President of the Australian and New Zealand Head and Neck Cancer Society and was the Foundation president of the Australian and New Zealand Skull Base Society. He is active in publishing and sits on the editorial boards of the major head and neck journals (Head Neck, Oral Oncology, Skull Base, ANZ Journal of Surgery).

Dr Kerstin Pannek joined UQ’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2023. Her research program utilises neonatal and pediatric brain MRI to gain insights into normal and abnormal brain development, predict neurodevelopmental outcomes of at-risk infants such as those born very preterm or with fetal growth restriction, and identify brain plasticity in response to intervention in children with cerebral palsy.

Her research expertise is in advanced diffusion MRI and structural connectivity analysis.

I am a passionate neuroscientist, working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS, UQ).

I have always had a deep interest in Medicine and Biology, which brought me to first successfully complete a bachelor degree in Medicine and Surgery in 2013 (University of Insubria, Italy), and then a PhD in Neuroscience in 2019 (Queensland Brain Institute, QBI, UQ). My PhD investigated how the connections of the cerebral cortex develop and evolve in different animal species, with a specific focus on the plasticity of these connections in health and disease.

During my first Postdoctoral experience in the laboratories of Dr Opazo and A/Prof Anggono (QBI, UQ), I worked on a project involving cutting-edge live-cell imaging using a two-photon microscope to investigate how key molecules are distributed in the brain during neuronal plasticity, both in vitro and in vivo, followed by behavioural assays.

Thanks to this experience, I gained unique surgical, behavioural, and imaging expertise that I am now employing to answer questions of brain evolution and development in the laboratories of Dr Fenlon and A/Prof Suárez at SBMS. In my current position I am investigating how the different timing (heterochrony) of developmental processes in brain development can cause dramatic changes in the final brain structure, both in the context of evolution as well as disease.

Dr Chris Papic is a Research Fellow in musculoskeletal injury at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre (University of Queensland) and a Clinical Exercise Physiologist (ESSA) with 10 years of experience in rehabilitation hospital settings. Chris co-leads the 'Knowledge translation, education and implementation' theme for the Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHeR); CIPHeR unites groups of pain researchers across The University of Queensland to work collaboratively toward the single end of cracking the code on pain. Chris is an Early Career Network Collaboration Committee member for the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Chris' research and clinical passion is to optimise care for people with pain after traumatic injury. His research focusses on translation and implementation science projects including: development and implementation of Australian whiplash clinical guidelines with health professionals and insurers; upskilling physiotherapists in delivering integrated psychological and physical care for people after road traffic injury (https://cre-rfrti.centre.uq.edu.au/clinical-trials/picot-clinical-trial); adapting an integrated intervention for stress and pain management from primary care settings to hospital orthopaedic wards; development and evaluation of a simple text message intervention to support recovery after whiplash injury.

Dr. Victor Papin is a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Queensland working in the Hickey Lab. His research focuses on improving crop breeding efficiency through advanced genomic and quantitative genetics approaches. He develops and applies haplotype stacking methodolgy to identify and combine favourable genomic regions that enhance yield, resilience, and sustainability in crops such as chickpea, lentil, and faba bean. Victor’s work bridges applied breeding and theoretical genetics: he designs simulation pipelines to optimise crossing schemes and evaluates genomic selection (GBLUP, FA models, GP) across heterogeneous environments. His ultimate goal is to build integrative, data-driven strategies that enable sustainable genetic improvement under variable climates.

Zoe is a Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. She also currently holds an appointment as a Senior Research Officer with the Mental Health Evaluation Research Stream at Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR), where she leads and manages large-scale evaluation projects that seek to enhance mental health services within Queensland. During her time at QCMHR, she has worked on several state-wide evaluations for Queensland Health - including of their Crisis Support Spaces, Adolescent Day Program and Youth and Adult Step-Up-Step-Down Programs.

Zoe's research work largely focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions that seek to promote positive health behaviours and which improve social and mental health outcomes. Previously, she developed and trialled a behavioural support program (Active Choices) for the Department of Veterans Affairs, with the aim of increasing self-managed physical activity and social connectedness in Australian Defence Force veterans. Zoe has also designed and evaluated a brief motivational intervention for cannabis users (iAx), which is now in routine use at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

In addition to her work as a researcher, Zoe has held roles in health consulting where she assisted State and Federal Government agencies, PHNs and peak bodies to design, implement and review health services, programs and policies.

Zoe's educational background in psychology, having completed a Bachelor of Psychological Science (2013) and Doctor of Philosophy (2020) in this discipline.