Find an expert

Dr Flavia Santamaria is a biologist whose PhD focused on the impact of translocation on the health (chlamydial disease), tree species selection and movement of radio-tracked koalas relocated from French Island to three forests around Ballarat, Victoria.

She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in the School of Veterinary Science at The University of Queensland, a researcher with the Koala Research-CQ and Senior Lecturer at Central Queensland University.

Dr Santamaria has been collaborating with a team of Australian and international researchers in the field of metabolomics, adrenocortical activity and veterinary applications to successfully design the most suited assay kit for the detection of stress in koalas through fecal analyses as a non-invasive method.

Dr Santamaria's current and future research focus is on:

• the impact of anthropogenic environmental changes on koalas, including the potential pressure caused by environmental stressors on their health

• detection and prevention of disease in koalas

• using the koala as a flagship species in educating communities for sustainability

Dr Viviene Santiago is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Natural Toxins group within the Centre for Animal Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) and is based at the Health and Food Sciences Precinct (Coopers Plains). With a robust foundation in organic and analytical chemistry, her research primarily focuses on natural products chemistry from terrestrial, marine, and microbial sources.

Dr Santiago joined QAAFI as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2023. Her current research involves developing a delivery system for bioactive compounds aimed at reducing enteric methane emissions in cattle and exploring atypical sugars in novel foods such as stingless bee honey. Over the years, she has cultivated a keen interest in utilising liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and molecular networking techniques to investigate chemical diversity from different sources such as natural toxins in certain plants and atypical sugars in stingless bee honey.

Dr Santiago earned her Ph.D. from The University of Queensland, where her dissertation focused on applying advanced molecular networking techniques, such as the Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS), to explore the chemical diversity of Australian microbes. Her academic journey also includes a Master’s and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of the Philippines – Diliman. These academic experiences have equipped her with a comprehensive understanding of natural products chemistry, enabling her to make significant contributions to both academia and industry.

Dr. Yomani Sarathkumara’s research focuses on characterising humoral immune responses to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in EBV-associated diseases.

During her PhD at James Cook University, Australia, she identified novel antibody biomarkers for EBV-associated cancers, including natural killer/T-cell lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma, using well-characterised hospital-based case-control samples from the AsiaLymph study—a large, multicentre epidemiological investigation of lymphoma and related haematologic malignancies conducted across Asia in collaboration with the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI). She also identified antibody markers predictive of clinical responses in EBV-positive lymphoma patients treated with EBV-specific T-cell immunotherapy in Phase I clinical trials conducted by Baylor College of Medicine, USA.

Her Honours research at Northumbria University, UK, focused on identifying antibody responses to a fungal antigen associated with Pigeon Fancier's Lung disease. For her Master’s by Research (MPhil) from 2016–2018, conducted in collaboration with the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and Hokkaido University, Japan, she demonstrated that hantavirus exposure is a major risk factor for developing chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu) in Sri Lanka—a significant public health concern in agricultural communities. This study earned the President’s Award for Scientific Research - 2019 in Sri Lanka.

Following her PhD, Dr. Sarathkumara joined the University of Queensland (UQ) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the supervision of Professor Denise Doolan. Building on her doctoral work, she is currently investigating the potential role of EBV in triggering autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), aiming to identify diagnostic and predictive antibody biomarkers. This work is conducted in collaboration with the University of Texas and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, USA. In parallel, she is also examining antibody responses in individuals with acute EBV infection through a collaboration with UMass Chan Medical School, University of Massachusetts, USA.

Her research integrates high-throughput serological profiling, statistical modelling, and immunoassay development, and is supported by strong international collaborations.

A/Prof Benn Sartorius is an established spatial and global health epidemiologist, with a particular interest in the burden of infectious disease and attributable determinants at sub-national, national and global scales as a tool to help inform and optimise policy at national and subnational scales. Dr Sartorius a principal research fellow in UQ's ODeSI team at University of Queensland, an affiliate professor in Department of Health Metric Sciences at University of Washington and a honorary visiting research fellow at University of Oxfored. Prior to join UQ, Dr Sartorius was the principal investigator for the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project based in the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at University of Oxford.

Dr Sartorius' research has focused on better understanding the spatial-temporal burden and risk factors of multiple IDs, including mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, sexually transmitted infections, neglected tropical diseases such as soil-transmitted helminths and onchocerciasis, vaccine preventable diseases, emerging infectious diseases and more recently focused on antimicrobial resistance. These and other examples highlight the utility of spatial epidemiology to identify higher risk areas that should be prioritised for more targeted, tailored and resource efficient intervention and control measures. However, often spatial risk estimates for IDs are often not produced in-country in settings such as the Pacific, where disease burden is high and local modelling expertise is limited, resulting in use of incomplete/biased data and resulting in inefficient and suboptimal decision-making. I’ve been a collaborator on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project since 2014 and the Scientific Council for the GBD Project since 2015. Dr Sartorius is a member of the WHO Reference Group on Health Statistics (RGHS) and chair of the Age-Specific Mortality Estimation and Life Table Computation task force. Benn's vision, through ODeSI-HERA, is to expand his international profile and leadership in spatial-temporal epidemiology of priority infectious diseases in Australia and the Pacific. This will include spatial epidemiological innovation, and capacity building to improve health outcomes in high-risk and vulnerable sub-populations within the region, and will be co-created with stakeholders in the region to ensure that it aligns with their priorities, and support precision-based decision-making systems to help policy makers optimise resource allocation and guide targeted interventions.

Ian Satchwell is an Adjunct Professor with UQ's Sustainable Minerals Institute. Ian is also an Affiliate of the UQ's Global Centre for Mineral Security and a Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Ian advises business, government and NGOs on minerals, energy and infrastructure policies, practices and governance to facilitate investment and deliver outcomes aligned with sustainable development goals. The focal areas of his research are on:

• Australia’s global investment footprint in minerals exploration, mining and processing and its role in fostering sound governance and sustainability frameworks and performance.
• Building diverse, secure and sustainable supply chains for critical minerals, and Australia’s domestic and global role.
• The geopolitics of menerals and energy, implications for Australia and how it contrbutes to global minerals and energy security.
• Strengthening the contribution of Northern Australia to the nation's strategic interests.

For much of his career, Ian was a senior executive in minerals and energy industry bodies, and a partner in an Australian consulting firm specialising in economics, policy and strategy. He also served on boards and advisory committees of research and policy organisations in Australia, Asia and Canada.

In addition to reseaching and preparing reports on key topics, Ian Satchwell writes regularly for the Lowy Interpreter and ASPI’s The Strategist on minerals and energy policy and geopolitics

Dr Jodi Saunus is a senior fellow who specialises in translational research on metastatic breast cancer. Based at Brisbane’s Translational Research Institute, she was recruited by Mater Research in 2022 to help facilitate patient-focused research at the interface of biomedical R&D and clinical practice.

Dr Saunus has an honours degree in biochemistry and biomedical science, a PhD in breast cancer molecular genetics, and broad post-doctoral experience in immunology, molecular cell biology, pathology informatics, and early-phase investigator-initiated clinical trials. Her current portfolio focuses finding new ways to improve the clinical management of aggressive breast cancer, with a focus on triple-negative breast cancer, and the prevention and treatment of brain metastases. This work spans across multiple disciplines and capabilities, and broadly involves:

• Molecular profiling of patient-donated blood and tumour tissue samples to identify features that can predict treatment response, or represent previously uncharacterised therapeutic targets.
• Using experimental models of breast cancer metastasis to learn about the molecular mechanisms exploited by cancer cells to survive and grow in brain tissue.
• Developing innovative treatment strategies that work differently to conventional cancer drugs, including alpha-particle endoradiotherapy and in-situ vaccination.

With an outstanding network of collaborators from academia and clinical practice, she has secured more than $6M to fund this work and has a track record of publishing in prominent biomedical research journals (e.g., Cancer Research, Nature, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Communications and The Journal of Pathology).

Peripherally, Jodi is a strong proponent of biospecimen banking, and clinician and consumer engagement in translational research.

Katerina is a geologist with a specialization in hyperspectral data analysis as applied to mineral identification and interpretation, with big data integration. She has 15 years of hands-on experience working on both ground-breaking research and commercial activities for greenfield, brownfield and mining projects of various scales around the world. While with Corescan, she pioneered innovation in hyperspectral data acquisition, interpretation, and presentation. She developed and interpreted the results of complex algorithms associated with various mineral hyperspectral signatures. As part of her work, she contributed to geochemical and geotechnical research as applied to hydrothermal mineral alteration patterns associated with several world-class deposits, deposit delineation initiatives, new exploration projects, as well as geoenvironmental studies of acid-rock drainage and mining waste characterization. In her earlier roles, as an exploration geologist, she worked on uranium deposits in Canada, the USA, and Australia, with a focus on the system controls and definition of hydrothermal alteration mineral zonation and spatial patterns. Currently, Katerina is collaborating on several long-term projects with different challenges related to geological and mining industries at the W.H. Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre, SMI including critical minerals research, mineral and textural characterization as applied to mine waste and tailings, as well as development of educational material and short-course delivery. Specific areas of research and interest include:

• Hydrothermal alteration mineralogy and its characterization using high-resolution hyperspectral data in combination with other micro-analytical techniques
• Remote sensing techniques and data interpretation
• Detailed investigation of a variety of geological environments and mineral deposit settings including epithermal, unconformity-associated uranium, orogenic gold, porphyry, skarn, as well as IOCG
• Minerals and mineral groups, their chemical composition and variations, recognizing hydrothermal alteration patterns and identifying vectors to mineralization
• Establishment of new mineralogical and hyperspectral reflectance tools for drill core characterization for various mining applications

Melanie Saward is a proud Bigambul and Wakka Wakka woman. She is a lecturer of Australian Studies in the School of Communication and Arts and has recently (July 2024) been appointed as the coordinator of BlackWords. Her research looks at Indigeneity in romantic comedy fiction with a focus on diversity, intersectionality, and the Australian publishing industry.

Melanie is a writer and editor. Her debut fiction book, Burn, was published in 2023 with Affirm press and her first romantic comedy novel, Love Unleashed, was published in August 2024.

Dr Anne Sawyer is a molecular plant biologist passionate about the development of plant-based solutions to global problems. Her current research focus is the development of RNA sprays to protect plants from fungal pathogens. Dr Sawyer completed her PhD at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland on gene expression in microalgae. Following this, she carried out postdoctoral research at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany on microalgal hydrogen production. Dr Sawyer then returned to Australia to study RNA interference in plants and plant pathogenic fungi. Dr Sawyer has research experience in the fields of biotechnology, molecular biology, microalgal biology, synthetic biology, biochemistry and structural biology.

Professor Nerina Scarinci is the Head of School, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at The University of Queensland. Her main research focus is on the implementation and evaluation of patient- and family-centred care for adults and children with communication disability. Professor Scarinci has clinical and research expertise in the development, implementation, and evaluation of alternative models of allied health service delivery, including group interventions, eHealth, and communication partner training. Professor Scarinci has over 20 years clinical and research experience, with expertise in co-design, patient- and family-centred care, and the evaluation and management of communication disability.

University Profile: Professor Nerina Scarinci is a Professor in Speech Pathology and Director of Higher Degree Reserach Students in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences.

Teaching Themes: Professional Practice and Communication Skills, Children with Special Needs in Communication, Paediatric Speech Pathology, Hearing Impairment, Service Delivery, Professional Issues and Ethics

Research interests: Paediatric and Adult Hearing Impairment, Communication Disability, International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), Third-Party Disability, Family-Centred Care, Early Intervention, Co-Design

Publications: 107 scholarly works, including 86 peer-reviewed journal articles, 10 invited editorials, 2 books, and 9 book chapters. Impact: 1690 citations, H-index = 23, average citations per paper = 21.13, field weighted citation impact = 2.5 (Scopus, August 2022).

Grant funding: Professor Scarinci has attained >$10.2 Million in grant funding, with >$4.12 Million as Chief Investigator and >$6.1 Million as Associate Investigator or Program Lead.

Reviewer: International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology; International Journal of Audiology; Ear & Hearing; Speech, Language and Hearing; Disability & Rehabilitation; Child Language Teaching & Therapy, American Journal of Audiology; BMC Geriatrics; Clinical Interventions in Aging.

Editorial Boards: Associate Editor for International Journal of Audiology; Editorial Consultant for International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.

Professional Memberships: Speech Pathology Australia; The Hanen Centre; Ida Institute.

Broad remote sensing skills across terrestrial and aquatic environments. Working to democratise spatial data access and use. Happiest when producing and delivering automated, operational and validated national and global scale products that can be used by scientists, policy and the public.

Professor Mark Schembri is a prominent microbiologist with experience in combating the global health crisis presented by multi-drug resistant pathogens. Professor Schembri’s expertise on the virulence of bacterial pathogens and his innovative analysis of biofilm formation aims to improve the outcomes of the >400 million individuals that suffer from urinary tract infections each year across the globe.

Through the application of genetic, genomic and functional studies on uropathogenic E. coli, Professor Schembri has identified targets to reduce the virulence of this pathogen, and will pursue the development of life-saving therapeutic and preventative advances with the assistance of NHMRC, MRFF and ARC grants. Professor Schembri has tracked the rapid emergence and global spread of a virulent, drug-resistant E. coli clone and used genome sequencing to understand its evolution and virulence.

Links: Professor Schembri collaborates with national and international research leaders, including in Denmark, where he was a lecturer. Professor Schembri has strong links with other international experts in his field, including at the Pasteur Institute and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge. His research collaborations also span lead groups at UQ and other top Australian institutes, including Griffith and La Trobe Universities.

Membership, Funding and patents: Since 2014, Professor Schembri has been awarded over $15 million in funding from competitive national research funding bodies. He holds provisional patents for the development of novel therapeutic agents and vaccine antigens. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and is regularly invited to speak at international conferences in his field.

Awards and Communication: Professor Schembri was the recipient of the Frank Fenner Award (2010) and the ASM BacPath Oration Award (2019) for his outstanding original research contribution to the study of Infectious Disease. He was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2011-2015) a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow (2016-2020). Professor Schembri is the author of >240 peer-reviewed research manuscripts. He is President of the Australian Society for Microbiology (2022-2026).

I obtained a Diploma in Chemistry from the University of Bern in Switzerland in 1992. Upon receiving the award of an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) I joined The University of Queensland (UQ) in 1993 to carry out research towards a PhD in Biochemistry(supervisors: Assoc. Profs. Peter Nixon and Ron Duggleby). I graduated in 1997 and continued postdoctoral research at UQ under the guidance of Profs John de Jersey, Susan Hamilton and Graeme Hanson. During this period, I was awarded Fellowships from both the Wellcome Trust and UQ. In 2000 I spent several months in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, collaborating with Prof. Geoff Sykes, and later that year I commenced a Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Chemistry Department at Stanford University (advisor: Prof. Edward Solomon). In 2003 I was appointed to a Lectureship in (Bio)Physical Chemistry at UQ. In 2006 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Following the award of a UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award (in 2007) I was promoted to Associate Professor (in 2008), and between 2011 and 2013 I was also on a fractional professorial appointment (50%) at Maynooth University, Ireland. From 2013 to 2017 I held a Future Fellowship from the Australian Research Council, and during this period I was promoted to Full Professor at UQ (2015). I also hold affiliate professorships in the Sustainable Minerals Institute and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, both located at UQ.

I have successfully focused my research on the investigation of enzyme-catalysed reactions, their optimisation for applications in biotechnology and the synthesis of small molecules that mimic their structure and catalytic function (i.e. biomimetics). I advanced understanding of the contribution of metals to enzyme-catalysed reactions and employed state-of-the-art technologies (e.g. cryo-EM, ancestral gene reconstruction) to develop enzyme inhibitors as leads for novel biocides (herbicides, fungicides, antibacterial compounds) and engineer enzymes with enhanced catalytic properties for industrial applications in the advanced manufacturing sector (i.e. cell-free enzyme cascades, next-gen fertilisers). My work into enzyme mechanisms, regulation and engineering received international acclaim evidenced by invitations to provide plenary and keynote lectures and review articles in prestigious journals. I have published over 250 peer-reviewed articles, including over 40 papers in the ACS staple (J. Am. Chem. Soc, ACS Catalysis, ACS Sus. Chem. Eng., Inorg. Chem, Chem. Rev., Acc. Chem. Rev.) as well as landmark studies in Nature, Nature Catalysis, Nature Communications and Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA). For my leadership in enzymology I was awarded a Future Fellowship by the Australian Research Council, a Foundation Research Excellence Award by UQ and, most recently, the prestigious role as Ambassador for the Technical University of Munich (TUM), an honour bestowed upon me also for my leading role in building an extensive network of collaborations between UQ and TUM in the areas of bioengineering and bioeconomy. The network has since evolved into the Global Bioeconomy Alliance.