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Juliana is a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute. Her interdisciplinary research is dedicated to enhancing the sustainability and circularity of mineral resources supply through innovation. Juliana's current work focuses on developing sustainable, circular solutions, such as ore-sand co-production, to address the global sustainability challenges associated with sand supply and conventional mineral waste management.

With a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Universidad del Valle in Colombia and a Master of Science and a PhD in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Juliana's academic background includes a strong emphasis on extractive metallurgy and Life Cycle Assessment approaches for sustainability in mineral resources supply.

Her work experience includes leading applied research projects in collaboration with the mining industry in South America, Europe, and Australia. During her graduate studies, Juliana worked as a part-time Research Assistant in Brazil and later as a full-time Research Assistant at Imperial College London on the Horizon 2020 IMPaCT project from 2019 to 2020. She remained affiliated with the institution as an Honorary Research Associate from 2020 to 2025.

Dr Anuj Sehgal completed his at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh (UK) (2013-2017), where he developed a long-term research passion for investigating the development and function of the immune system. In 2018, Dr Sehgal joined the Mater Research Institute as a Research Officer. Some key highlights of Anuj's work has identified unique associations between macrophages and stem cell niches across the body, including intestinal stem cells (Sehgal et al., 2018, Nat. Comms) and HSC-niches in the bone marrow and peripheral lymphoid organs (Kaur*, Sehgal* et al. 2021 J. Hem. Onco). In 2022, Anuj diverted from academic research to contract clinical trials at the Wesley Research Institute. More recently, Anuj has rejoined UQ as a Flow Cytometry research fellow in the Chappell Lab under the ViceBio team, working on cell mediated immune responses in RSV preclinical and clinical trials.

I specialise in applying risk management and hazard identification methods in the process industries, with applications into systems theory and complexity.

I am a risk specialist, systems thinker and teacher. Over the last 10 years, I have worked in academia, engineering consulting, HSE and risk and compliance, across mining, infrastructure, healthcare and the education industries. I currently focus on risk management research at the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre (MISCH). My research interests are new frontiers of risk management, risk assessment in practice, modelling of accident scenarios and trying to engage with the complexity of socio-technical industrial systems.

Research Interests

> Risk Assessment

Studying how risk assessment is actually performed in industry, to learn how best to support those efforts. This includes deconstructing past, current and emerging hazard identification methods to understanding which methods can best be fitted to specific work contexts. The limitations of risk management are also studied, with a special focus on understanding the quality of risk assessments performed.

> Modelling Accident Scenarios

Accident scenarios, whether emerging from accident investigations or proactively generated from hazard identification methods, are modelled as causal network. The topology of these network representation are interrogated to ask and answer system-level questions for supporting risk treatment decision making.

> Engaging with the complexity of socio-technical industrial systems

As modern industrial systems become more highly connected to each other, society and the internet, predicting their behaviour and controlling their outcomes becomes difficult. It is said that the complexity of these systems is the cause of this difficulty. This research stream is about defining, understanding and engaging with the complexity of such systems, to inform how they may be influenced to be successful.

Karin Sellberg specialises in medical humanities, feminist and queer historiography, contemporary fiction and theories of gender, sexuality, disability,.embodiment and time. She is particularly interested in convergences and communication between feminist and queer fiction, and the intellectual history of science and medicine. She is currently working on transwomen's writing, transgender history, and different ideas of transitioning in trans* studies, feminist philosophy and the fiction of Jeanette Winterson, Angela Carter and Caitlin R. Kiernan.

Karin joined UQ as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in January 2014, and a lecturer in humanities in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry in 2017. Before this she held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh and a postdoctoral teaching fellowship in the English Literature department at the University of Edinburgh. She was also co-director of the Scottish Universities’ International Summer School from 2012 to 2014, and has organised four large international conferences, "Bodies in Movement: Intersecting Discourses of Materiality in the Sciences and the Arts" (University of Edinburgh), "Sensualising Deformity: Communication and Construction of Monstrous Embodiment" (University of Edinburgh), "Technicity, Temporality, Embodiment: the 10th Somatechnics Conference" (SCU/UQ) and the "CSAA Conference 2019: Cultural Transformations".

Hema was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She completed her PhD in Social Psychology, with a concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence, at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2019). She then joined the University of Queensland as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and is now a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology.

Hema's research is guided by a central theme: both social change and the maintenance of the status quo are often achieved through sustained group-based efforts. To this end, Hema conducts research around ongoing social and political issues using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in laboratory, online, and field settings across diverse regions of the world. This research is only possible through close collaboration with mentors, colleagues, and students.

Hema's research interests encompass social change and intergroup relations, social movements and collective action, collective resistance, intergroup solidarity, intergroup conflict and reconciliation. Her work has been published in leading journals, such as the Leadership Quarterly, British Journal of Social Psychology, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, and Political Psychology. She has received awards for her research, including the 2023 Early Career Research Award by the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists. Hema currently serves as an Associate Editor for the British Journal of Social Psychology, and is on the Editorial Boards of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Personality and Social Psychology Review, and Social and Personality Psychology Compass as Consulting Editor.

Dr. Vignesh Selvaprithiviraj is a biomaterials engineer specializing in hydrogel, injectable, and biopolymer formulations. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Rowan Group at the Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN).

He has expertise in polymer processing, functionalization, and characterization of diverse biomaterial formulations for biomedical applications. He has worked extensively on biomaterials such as chitosan, gelatin methacrylate, carrageenan, hyaluronic acid, and bioceramics such as hydroxyapatite and whitlockite. Previously, he has collaborated with pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Stelis Biopharma, supporting their R&D of injectable formulations. He has also mentored master’s thesis works focusing on injectable gels and formulation of bio-inks.

Vignesh’s doctoral thesis at UQ School of Dentistry focused on developing injectable hydrogels for soft tissue expansion and bone regeneration. Vignesh did his placement at Gelomics 3D cell culture technologies, where he later worked as an R&D scientist. He was involved in the R&D of the company’s different product portfolios. He also worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Advanced Spinifex Biofutures Materials Centre- Spinifex Materials for Biomedical Applications, Trioda Wilingi, established in partnership with Bulugudu Limited.

Senior Research Fellow at IMB, University of Queensland in the field of novel antimicrobial discovery, mode of action studies and development. Studying the use of antibiotic-fluorescent probes for detetcing bacterial infections and resistance development.

Previously, a postdoctoral researcher at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University Oxford. Studying dynamics of bacterial cell death during plasmid loss and post segregational killing using single cell approach of microfluidics and fluorescence microscopy.

Strong research professional with a Master of Science (M.Sc.) and Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in Microbiology from University of Delhi, India and a PhD in Biomedical science and Biochemistry from The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Skilled expertise in Microbiology, Biochemistry, Immunology, Molecular Biology, Cellular Biology, and Bioinformatics.

Dr. Jaya Seneviratne is a Senior Lecturer in Periodontology affiliated to the School of Dentistry, University of Queensland, Australia. Currently he serves as the Director of Higher Degree Research. Dr. Seneviratne is an internationally recognized academic and a researcher in the field of dentistry. His track record encompasses over 100 publications in renowned international journals, including all top journals in dental research, 12 book chapters and an edited book “Microbial Biofilms: OMICS Biology, Antimicrobials and Clinical Implications” Taylor & Francis CRC Press, 2017. He has successfully secured over US$ 7.11 million from competitive grants for his research and development work. Dr. Seneviratne served as the Secretary of the IADR-Asia Pacific Region (APR) from 2019-2022. He was also the Chairman of the Session Committee for the 2023 IADR General Meeting in Bogota, Colombia. Previously, he held the key positions as the Chairman of the IADR Constitution Committee and a member of the IADR Fellowship and Membership Committees. Currently, he is an Editorial board member of the Journal of Dental Research and Critical Reviews in Microbiology. Dr. Seneviratne has supervised both undergraduate and postgraduate students, mentoring them excel in their research work. His research mentees have received numerous prestigious awards from the IADR. His primary research interests include oral microbiome, oral biofilms, oral-systemic link and infection control.

Dr Asmerom Sengal MD, PhD is a clinician-scientist and holds a senior postdoctoral position at the Tumour Biology and Therapeutics Lab, MRI- University of Queensland (UQ). Dr Sengal has an outstanding experience in preclinical model development including primary cell lines, patient-derived organoids (PDOs) and patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). Dr Sengal has exceptional skills in vitro and in vivo drug screening and has optimised several assays and protocols for biomarker discovery. He also has excellent experience in biostatistical analyses, automated image analysis, digital pathology, and molecular pathology. He pioneered a novel protocol for organoid culture and isolation of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and immune cells to develop a co-culture of models that represent the tumour micro-environment, a noble platform for drug testing and biomarker discovery

Leonardo Seoane, MD, FACP

Dr. Seoane graduated magna cum laude from Loyola University in New Orleans, with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences. He earned his Doctor of Medicine degree at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in New Orleans, graduating with Alpha Omega Alpha honors, an elite designation recognizing excellence in scholarship and the highest ideals in the profession of medicine. After medical school, he completed an internship at the University of Alabama Birmingham Medical Center and residency in Internal Medicine at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) in New Orleans. He continued his education by completing a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine through a combined LSUHSC and Ochsner Medical Center program. His pursuit of excellence further inspired him to complete a research and clinical fellowship in Lung Transplant at the Ochsner Medical Center where he has been a staff physician since 2002.

Dr. Leonardo Seoane became an Associate Professor with The University of Queensland, School of Medicine in 2009. He served as the Deputy Head of School for Curriculum, Clerkship Director for the Critical Care course, Clerkship Director of the Internal Medicine course, and Clerkship Director for Medical Specialties for The University of Queensland, Ochsner Clinical School located in New Orleans, Louisiana. In addition, he developed the disadvantaged youth rotation and the international Haiti rotation as a component of the Medicine in Society course. His passion for academic medicine and the advancement of medical discovery secured his rapid promotion to Senior Deputy Head of School in 2013 and to the Head of School Position in 2016.

Dr. Seoane was instrumental in implementing The University of Queensland School of Medicine curriculum at the Ochsner Clinical School, facilitating the achievement of accreditation from the Australian Medical Council, Californian State Board of Medicine, and recognition from the New York State Board of Education.

Dr. Seoane has won numerous teaching awards, including the Hurst B. Hatch Award for Outstanding Teacher of the Year seven times from 2004 - 2013, the Ochsner Health System Spirit of Leadership Award for Teaching in 2006, and most recently, the Ochsner Health System Physician Academic Contributor of the Year in 2016. He is regarded as an expert in the management of sepsis and medical education and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences. He has fostered a research partnership between the University of Queensland Burns, Trauma, and Critical Care Research Center and the Ochsner Medical Center Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Palliative Care.

Previous leadership roles held by Dr. Seoane include serving as the Associate Program Director for the Ochsner Medical Center Internal Medicine Residency Program from 2003 - 2012, Medical Director of the Ochsner Medical Center Lung Transplant Program from 2008 - 2012, and Chair of the Sepsis Performance Improvement Committee at the Ochsner Medical Center.

But most important he is a loving husband to his wife Michelle Seoane M.D. who is a pediatrician practicing in the Ochsner Health System and a proud father of Eddy and Leo.

Felix Septianto is a faculty member at the University of Queensland. He earned his PhD from the University of New South Wales and previously taught at the University of Auckland. His research explores how businesses can leverage emotions to increase marketing effectiveness. These insights have been published in Financial Times' Top 50 (FT50) journals and featured in media outlets including the Harvard Business Review.

Felix has been recognised as a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow by the Australian Research Council, a Paul Bourke Award winner by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, an Emerging Marketing Researcher by the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy, and a UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award winner.

Beyond academia, Felix is a co-founder of Accurment, offering behavioural science solutions that turn marketing guesswork into growth, trusted by leading agencies such as Marketforce and Juicebox. He has also served as Research Director at Quest Strategic, a boutique management consulting firm in Indonesia, where he advised global brands including Hush Puppies and Philip Morris International.

Mehdi Serati completed his PhD at The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) through The University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia in Geotechnical Engineering. His core research expertise is in the design and setup of advanced equipment and experiments to test rocks and brittle composites. His area of work is analytical and experimental methods of geotechnical problems, materials testing, rock mechanics, and rock fracture mechanics. He is also the Deputy Manager of the internationally-recognized Large Open Pit Project, which is a collaboration funded by mining companies worldwide aimed at addressing critical gaps in the current understanding of rock slope failures and landslides in large open pit mines (see also https://www.lopproject.com/).

Thaiza Serrano is a Food Engineer with a master’s degree in Food Science and Technology and a joint Ph.D. in Food and Nutrition (UNIRIO, Brazil) and Food Science and Technology (University of California, Davis). Her expertise lies in food chemistry, process optimization, biotechnology, agro-industrial residue valorisation, enzymatic conversion processes, and technological innovation in food systems. Her research integrates principles of food engineering and food science to advance sustainable and efficient food processing strategies. She focuses on the integration of industrial co-products valorisation with the implementation of sustainable approaches for developing next-generation functional food ingredients, enabling cost-effective and resource-efficient bioprocesses.

My research covers some of the basic properties of attention, learning, memory, and decision-making. Much of my work involves the development and testing of formal mathematical models of human cognition.

Dr Jessica Sexton (PhD, MAS, MPH) is a clinical epidemiologist and researcher with over eleven years of field experience and training in healthcare systems, public health, epidemiology, and biostatistics with a special focus on maternal, child, and population health. Dr Sexton is a Senior Research Fellow at the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Stillbirth (CRE), program lead for Data to Drive Change, and the Principal Investigator for a national perinatal data project. Dr Sexton’s expertise in epidemiology is internationally recognized through thirteen peer-reviewed publications, six conference posters, and gave fifteen oral presentations. Dr Sexton is actively engaged in professional networks including the Australasian Epidemiological Association, Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand, Australian Society for Medical Research, and Statistical Society of Australia. As a senior researcher at the CRE, Dr Sexton leads data capture and research and risk prediction and prevention while contributing to improving parent experiences and Safer Baby Bundle expansion.