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Mahen’s research is focused on the improvement of pigeonpea using various breeding tools to develop photoperiod insensitive, short-duration and high yielding varieties for commercialisation. His current work utilises pedigree breeding, hybridisation techniques, rapid generation advancement using speed breeding facility and potential use of advance breeding techniques such as marker assisted selection and gene editing. Thus, development of climate-resilient varieties with improved seed yield and quality, and resistance to biotic/abiotic stresses remain high priority of his crop improvement project.

Researcher Biography

Changing jobs is never easy and moving from work environments as contrasting as academia and industry represents unique challenges. After completing his undergraduate degree then a Master (MBA), Mahen held senior management positions in corporate entities before returning to academia to start PhD. Although this might not be a conventional route, it has given him a unique experience and opportunity to manage a wide variety of complex and multifaceted research projects and to find practical solutions. He is very passionate in working as a research scientist and wanted to develop this career path further.

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Queensland, Australia

Master of Business Administration, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Agriculture, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka

Shazia Sadiq FTSE is a Professor of Computer Science at the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland. Her research focusses on responsible data management and aims to reduce the socio-technical barriers to data driven transformation, by assisting organisations to create, protect and sustain agile data pipelines. Her work has contributed to advancing knowledge on data quality management, scalable data curation and cleaning, and bias mitigation for advanced opaque analytical models and techniques, and process improvements for data-driven organisations. She is part of the Data Science discipline that has received the highest ranking for excellence in research for Australia in every round of ERA. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed publications and attracted $20million in research funding from the Australian Research Council, industry and various national and international funding bodies. She has recieved numerous research awards including Test-of-Time award for influential work on Business Process Compliance, Best Use of Data award from Queensland Government, Distinguished Researcher Award from Women in Tech, and several best paper awards at international conferences. Shazia has been a devoted lecturer for two decades, and an advocate of learning analytics and AI in Education for improving personalized learning and equitable graduate outcomes. In 2012, she received an institutional award for teaching excellence and in 2016 she spearheaded the highly successful Master of Data Science program at UQ, that is helping overcome skill shortages in Queensland for qualified data scientists. She is currently leading UQ's AI Strategy and Capability Development work as the convenor of UQ's AI Research Network that brings together over 100 interdisciplinary researchers. Shazia is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, immediate past chair of the National Committee on Information and Communication Sciences at the Australian Academy of Science 2019-2023, a member of The Australian Research Council College of Experts 2018-2021, and Centre Director for the ARC Industry Transformation Training Centre on Information Resilience 2020-2025.

Rashid Saeed is a Lecturer in Marketing at the UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia. He earned his PhD in Marketing from the University of South Australia (UniSA), where he was a finalist for the Higher Degree Researcher Award at the UniSA Research and Enterprise Awards 2022. He was also the winner and recipient of the People's Choice Award at the UniSA Business Unit's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition, as well as the runner-up and People's Choice recipient at the UniSA Grand Final.

Rashid has approximately 15 years of teaching experience in both Australian and international universities. He has taught different marketing and consumer research courses, including Marketing Management, Consumer Behaviour, Integrated Marketing Communications, Market Research, and Business Research Methods. He is also interested in teaching Business Analytics, having specialised in Mathematics and Statistics during his undergraduate studies. His teaching excellence was recognised with a Teaching Commendation Award in the UniSA Staff Excellence Awards 2021.

His primary research interests include advertising effectiveness, AI in marketing, brand management (such as brand extensions and brand associations), and consumer pro-environmental behaviour. He specialises in experimental design and systematic literature reviews. His research has been published in reputable journals, including the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and Business Strategy and the Environment.

Professor Pankaj Sah is Director of the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at The University of Queensland (UQ). He is renowned for his work in understanding the neural circuitry of the amygdala, an area of the brain that plays a central role in learning and memory formation. Dysfunction of the amygdala leads to a host of anxiety-related disorders. His laboratory uses a combination of molecular tools, electrophysiology, anatomical reconstruction, calcium imaging and behavioural studies to examine the electrophysiological signatures of different brain regions and their impact on disease. Recently, his laboratory has been working with patients undergoing electrode implantation for deep brain stimulation, which is used to treat a variety of disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome and essential tremor. Professor Sah trained in medicine at The University of New South Wales and, after completing his internship, gained a PhD from the Australian National University. Following postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, and UQ, he established his own laboratory at the University of Newcastle in 1994. He then joined the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University as a group leader in 1997. He was recruited to QBI as a founding member in 2003, and has been Director since July 2015. Professor Sah has published over 110 papers in international peer-reviewed journals. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Nature Partner Journal npj Science of Learning, the first journal to bring together the findings of neuroscientists, psychologists, and education researchers to understand how the brain learns.

Dr Narottam Saha is specialized in the area of environmental analytical chemistry and geochemistry, with Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Applied Chemistry and Chemical Technology, a second Masters Degree (Distinction) in Environmental Sciences ( University of East Anglia, UEA, UK), and PhD in geochemistry (The University of Queensland). In his Masters study, Saha received a commonwealth scholarship, one of the most prestigious international scholarship schemes, for Master Degree in Environmental Sciences, with special emphasis on Clumped Isotope geochemistry and climate science. In 2014, Saha received Australia’s federal government scholarship (IPRS) for undertaking his PhD degree. Saha’s research achievements were well recognised with awards of Stanley Gray Fellowship from Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST, UK) for coral reef research and National Science and Information & Communication Technology (NSICT) Fellowship (2010) from Government of Bangladesh for heavy metal pollution research.

His multidisciplinary research experiences include biogeochemistry of heavy metals, assessment of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks for the population exposed to heavy metals, clumped isotopes geochemistry in recovering palaeo-climate history and developing trace element proxies in coral carbonate skeleton to trace historical gradients of inshore coastal water quality. His PhD research highlights the potential of self-referencing rare earth elements over traditional trace elemental proxies for reconstructing marine water quality, degradation of which is considered as one of the major threats in declining the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) coral community. He has been the first to have discovered a noble V/Ca proxy, which is decoupled from other commonly used runoff proxies, for monitoring historical catchment clearing and firing in coastal areas. His discovery has direct relevance to environmental protection for reefs in the GBR through promoting better land management with improved water quality.

Prof Tapan Saha was born in Bangladesh and immigrated to Australia in 1989. Tapan received his PhD from the University of Queensland in 1994. Previously, Tapan obtained a B. Sc in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka in 1982 and a Master of Technology in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in 1985. He has been with the University of Queensland since 1996, where he has been a Professor of Electrical Engineering since 2005. Previously he was an Adjunct Professor of Xi'an Jiaotong University and Hunan University in China. Previously he worked in James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville for two and a half years and in BUET for three and a half years.

Tapan Saha is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineers Australia. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) of Engineers Australia and a Registered Professional Engineer of the State of Queensland (RPEQ). He is on the National Engineering Register (NER). Prof Saha is on the APEC Engineer Register and on the Register of International Professional Engineers.

His current research projects are in the fields of:

• Renewable energy integration to electricity grid
• Smart condition monitoring for transformers and other ageing assets

Prof Saha is actively involved with a number of organisations:

• Leader: Power, Energy and Control Engineering Discipline
• Leader: UQ Solar
• Founding Director: Australasian Transformer Innovation Centre
• Leader: Industry 4.0 UQ Energy TestLab
• IEEE Power & Energy Society Distinguished Lecturer
• ARC College of Expert Member
• Editorial Board Member, IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery
• Editorial Board Member & Consulting Editor, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy
• Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
• Senior Editor, IEEE Access
• Electrical College Board (Engineers Australia) Member (2015-2020)
• CIGRE Australian Panel A2 Member
• IEEE Power & Energy Society Queensland Chapter: Chair (2021-2022)
• Faculty Adviser: IEEE MU Kappa Chapter (UQ)
• Student Counsellor: IEEE PES/DEIS UQ Student Branch
• Member, Queensland Electrical Branch (Engineers Australia, till 2023)

Leanne Sakzewski is an Associate Professor at the Queensland Cerebral Palsy and Rehabilitation Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland. Leanne completed her undergraduate training in the field of occupational therapy at the University of Queensland. Prior to entering research, she practiced as a senior occupational therapist for eighteen years in paediatric rehabilitation and child development. She completed her PhD in 2010 from The University of Queensland in the field of upper limb rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy, and achieved a Dean's Commendation for outstanding Research Higher Degree.

Research interests

Leanne's research interests are in the conduct of randomised clinical trials in the field of cerebral palsy and childhood onset acquired brain injuries. In particular, she has focused on randomised controlled trials of:

* upper limb training approaches for infants and children with unilateral cerebral palsy;

* intensive models of motor training to improve gross motor and manual abilities for children with bilateral cerebral palsy;

* participation-focused intervention to increase physically active leisure for children with cerebral palsy;

* social skills group-based program for adolescents with brain injuries.

Martin is the Head of Physiotherapy within the School of Health and Rehabilitation Science. He teaches into both the undergraduate and graduate entry masters programs. In addition, Martin coordinates the clinical placements across both programs.

Martin has a passion for supporting physiotherapy students throughout their journey, from preclinical studies to clinical placements. He has developed a series of strategies to help support the diverse cohort in thriving as student physiotherapists and gaining a sense of belonging to the profession. Martin has been involved in several curriculum reviews that have focussed on enhancing the student experience, and has initiated strategies that have proactively and reactively supported students (such as student mentoring, early observational placements and student-staff activities). He has a particular passion for supporting students from a culturally and linguistically diverse background.

In research, Martin leads a laboratory investigating neuroplasticity. The human nervous system is no longer thought of has hard-wired, and is in fact capable of rapid change throughout life. This plasticity is important for learning, memory and recovery from brain injury. Martin is interested in using emerging brain stimulation and imaging techniques to "artificially" induce plasticity in the human brain, to ultimately improve the treatment outcomes for various neurological conditions, particularly stroke. These stimulation techniques include transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). A key current focus of Martin's research is investigating the link between sleep and neuroplasticity, and whether the beneficial aspects of sleep (for promoting neuroplasticity) can be artificially induced with brain stimulation.

He completed a BSc in 1994 and received a First Class Honours in Physiology in 1995 from the University of Adelaide. He then completed a Bachelor of Physiotherapy Degree at the University of South Australia. Returning to research in 2005, he undertook a PhD at the University of Adelaide, which he completed in 2009. He was named "Young Scientist of the Year" in 2007 as a result of his PhD research. He was awarded a University of Queensland Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2010, and then a NHMRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 2011 to investigate more intensely how the brains of stroke patients rewire. He has been awarded ~$4M in funding, principally from the NHMRC and US Department of Defence.

Dr Salih Salih has been a Consultant Geriatrician at Princess Alexandra Hospital since 2006, and also consults at Redland Hospital. He supervises basic physician trainees and advanced trainees in geriatric and internal medicine at both PAH and Redland hospitals. In addition to his clinical commitments, Dr Salih is the inaugural Chair of the Bayside Health Research Advisory Group at Redland Hospital. Also a member of the Metro South Research Council, and regularly reviews grant applications submitted for the Metro South Research Support Scheme. Dr Salih has also reviewed grant applications as a member of the NHMRC review panel.

Dr Salih holds Academic Title of Associate professor for the Faculty of Medicine’s PA-Southside Clinical Unit where he has a long-standing conjoint appointment and is Academic Lead at the UQ Redland Hospital site. He has a leading role in the development of the geriatric curriculum and teaching activity, and is involved in education and teaching of medical students across their program from year 1 onward. He is also heavily involved in examining of medical students in their General Medicine and Medicine in Society terms at both Redland and PA Hospitals.

Supervision

Dr Salih supervises research projects for advanced trainees in geriatric medicine, and year 4 medical students completing research projects. He chairs the Research Higher Degree Committee for PhD and MPhil candidates and reviews MPhil research higher degree projects. Dr Salih also supervises and mentors Honours students completing their allied health degree.

Qualifications

Fellow, Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP)

Master of Public Health, The University of Queensland (MPH)

Dr Steve Salisbury is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Queensland, where he is head of the UQ Dinosaur Lab and Chair of First Nations Engagement. He is also Research Associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, Associate Editor for the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and a Scientific Board member of the Jurassic Foundation.

Steve studied biology and geology at the University of Sydney, receiving the Edgeworth David Award for Palaeontology in 1993. He then moved to the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he completed his Honours thesis on fossil crocodilians from Murgon, south-eastern Queensland. Continuing at the UNSW, Steve travelled to Germany and the UK to complete a PhD on crocodilian locomotor evolution. He returned to Australia in 2000 to pursue a life-long dream of searching for Australian dinosaurs, and joined The University of Queensland in 2003 as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

Steve's research focuses on the evolution of Gondwanan continental vertebrates, in particular dinosaurs and crocodilians. He is also interested in vertebrate biomechanics and using extant animals to better understand the anatomy, behaviour and evolution of extinct ones. His field-based research takes him to various parts of Queensland, the Kimberley, New Zealand and Antarctica.

I am Professor, NHMRC Investigator Fellow (EL2) and group leader (Exosome Biology Laboratory) at UQ Centre for Clinical Research. I am nationally and internationally (>20 invitations to international meetings in the last 5 years) acknowledged key opinion leader on Extracellular Vesicle (rated 3th worldwide (Top 0.015%) and 1st in Australia in expertise for “Extracellular Vesicles and Exosomes” on Expertscape) and biomarker discovery (140 publications, and >8000 citations in the last 7 year). I have made a major conceptual contribution to EV biology with diagnostic and therapeutic implications. In the last 8 years, my primary research and commercialisation activities have focused on the identification and validation of biomarkers, and development of In Vitro Multivariate Index Assays for clinically relevant complications (including ovarian cancers, and obstetrical syndromes) and their translation into clinical applications. In Academia, I have pursued these objectives through the development and leadership of clinical translation research teams and facilities, both in Australia and overseas. For example, I had a leadership role in established the Centre for Clinical Diagnostics (CCD). Within the UQCCR, I established an exosome research team to evaluate the clinical utility of extracellular vesicles as liquid biopsies, IVDs and therapeutics. Much of our effort in this field of endeavour has involved optimising isolation methods for extracellular vesicles and their analytical analysis - including the use of protein solution array (e.g. Luminex), mass spectrometry profiling (using MS/MS SWATH) and more recently miRNA analysis.