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Dr Thomas Sigler is an Associate Professor of Human Geography, with a focus on urban and economic geography. He holds a PhD and MSc from the Pennsylvania State University, and a BA from the University of Southern California. He is Deputy Head of School in the School of the Environment, and is a Guest Professor of Geography at the University of Luxembourg. Dr Sigler has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on topics relating to urban growth and development, economic connectivity, urban planning, and the sharing economy with collaborators in Asia, Europe, Australia and North America. These publications appear in a wide range of academic journals, including Urban Geography, Environment and Planning A, PLoS One, Urban Studies, Regional Studies, Journal of Geography, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), and the Bulletin of Latin American Research. Dr Sigler is an editorial board member of Urban Geography, Finance & Space, Global Networks and Geographical Research.

Peter holds a BSc Honours degree and a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Liverpool in the UK. His first postdoctoral research position was at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research, London UK. He moved to Australia in 2005 and helped Professor Lakhani establish the Molecular Breast Pathology research group and the Brisbane Breast Bank. He is a member of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (Breast Cancer group) and is a Fellow of the Faculty of Science in the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. He holds a joint teaching and research position at UQ, teaching for the Discipline of Pathology on the Faculty of Medicine MD Program and is the Head of the Cancer Theme and Research Group Leader in Cancer Genomics at the UQCCR.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY AUTHORSHIP ALTERATIONS LISTING ME AS SIMPSON-FRASER BELOW ARE INCORRECT. ALL PUBLICATIONS ARE FIONA SIMPSON. MY PROFESSIONAL NAME IS FIONA SIMPSON.

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/the-tricky-business-of-cancer-research/9498246

Our laboratory is involved in cross-discipline research studying endocytosis, cancer, pharmacology and immunology to improve therapies used in cancer treatment.

Dr Laura Simpson Reeves is a Research Fellow in the School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Social Work at The University of Queensland, and a Research Fellow with the Life Course Centre. She is a highly experienced qualitative social researcher with a strong background across the social sciences and humanities. Her research broadly aims to understand social and cultural responses to inequity and disadvantage, with a strong focus on lived experience. Laura works with vulnerable and marginalised groups at the nexus of culture and disadvantage, especially around ethnicity, gender and sexuality, poverty, and experiences of exclusion and discrimination. She has a particular focus and interest in diaspora and issues around belonging, identity, acculturation, and social cohesion/isolation. Her current research explores family inclusion and children's voices, especially in relation to child protection.

I am a passionate researcher with a background in computer science and a strong commitment to leveraging technology for the betterment of society. I hold a PhD in Image Forensics and have had the privilege of conducting postdoctoral research at prestigious institutions such as SUNY Albany and Dartmouth College, where I had the opportunity to collaborate closely with Prof. Hany Farid.

During my postdoc at Dartmouth College, I focused my research efforts on addressing a critical societal issue - real-time child pornography detection. This research not only garnered recognition within the academic community but also earned praise from luminaries like Prof. Ramesh Raskar at MIT, who invited me to share my insights through a talk at MIT.

I primarily works in the area of Cyber Security, Digital Forensics, Privacy and Security Aspects, Homomorphic Encryption and Cloud Computing.

As I continue my research journey, I remain committed to making a positive impact through innovation and collaboration. I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and the potential for technology to create a safer and more inclusive world.

I am an early career postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Ian Frazer's laboratory. I am a self-motivated young scientist with a research focus on cell and cancer biology, genomic instability, tumour immunology, and cellular therapies. I pursued my doctoral studies under the guidance of Prof. Kum Kum Khanna in QIMR Berghofer and conferred in April 2018, from Griffith University. Prior to my PhD, I acquired a Master of Science degree in Biotechnology, awarded in August 2013 from VIT University, India. After my PhD, I perused my first postdoctoral research experience under the supervision of Prof. Rajiv Khanna at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. Throughout my PhD studies, my research was focused on the development of novelcombinatorial therapeutic strategies against aggressive solid cancers . I have a strong interest in understanding the relationship between cancer signalling pathways and tumour microenvironment in aggressive malignancies.

Ashish Sinha, Professor of Marketing at UQ Business School and Visiting Professor of Marketing & Research Fellow at the Indian School of Business. He has previously held senior leadership positions in both industry and academia, including Academic Dean of Executive Education (ISB), Associate Dean (Research), Interim Dean and Acting Head of Economics at UTS Business School, and Professor and Head of School of Marketing at University of New South Wales (UNSW); Vice President, Analytics Insights group at IRI, Chicago, USA.

As the Academic Dean of ExecED at ISB, he led the digital transformaiton of the Executive Education culminating in the ExecED program being ranked Financial Times #38 in the world for Custom Programs. In the role of ADR and the defacto co-Internal Dean, he led the transformation of the UTS Business School into an externally-engaged research powerhouse, that culminated in the school being ranked in the top 3 Business Schools in Australia as per ERA 2018.

He currently holds or previously held visiting appointments at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hong Kong Polytech University and University of Alberta.

His work has appeared in many academic and trade journals, including Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the Journal of Retailing, Marketing Letters, the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, the Journal of Business Research, European Marketing Journal, Industrial Marketing Management and Australasian Marketing Journal.

He is also a recipient of many academic awards including Davidson Award for Best Journal of Retailing Paper and is twice runner-up for the Gary Lilien Practice Award for the significant impact that his work has made to the practice of business. He is the winner of the 2013 ANZMAC Distinguished Researcher Award and became an ANZMAC Fellow in 2016.

He has supervised to completion 10 PhD students, several of them hold senior academic & practitioner positions, and are recipents of academic awards including, 2016 ANZMAC Layton Best Dissertation Award and a 2022 finalist for the AMA (American Marketing Association)/Howard Best Dissertation Award.

I am Senior Lecturer in the School of Languages and Cultures at The University of Queensland (UQ).

My research interests lie within the broad areas of pragmatics and discourse analysis, particularly, the pragmatics of social interaction (face-to-face and online), identity construction, humour, (im)politeness, getting acquainted and family talk. I have been working with different types of data, including naturally-occurring conversations, reality television discourse, qualitative interviews, corpora and social media.

I am Associate Editor in the Journal of Pragmatics and the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics journal, and an Editorial Board member in Advances in (Im)politeness Studies (book series), Springer.

I regularly review grant applications and I am a member of:

• College of Experts, European Science Foundation (from 2021)
• Review College, FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders) (2024-2027)

I'm originally from Lithuania, where I graduated from BA in English Philology and MA in English Studies. While at university, I spent part of my study period in Spain (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Quebec (Université de Montréal). After teaching two years at Vilnius University, in 2012 I started my PhD in Linguistics at the IPrA Research Center at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. After my PhD studies, I joined UQ as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and then in a continuing position as Lecturer.

I've always loved languages, maybe because I've always been surrounded by a variety of them. I'm a native speaker of Lithuanian (lietuvių) and Russian (русский), I spent many years studying and then also teaching English and I also have a certificate for teaching Spanish as a foreign language (español como lengua extranjera ELE). Due to my study/research relocations, I can also communicate (sometimes extremely poorly) in Dutch (nederlands), French (français) and Portuguese (português), and at the moment I'm struggling with Modern Greek (ελληνικά) and Japanese (日本語)!

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Programme contribution (current)

Convenor of Master of Applied Linguistics programme

Convenor of Discourse Discussion Group (DDG): Data analysis sessions and Membership categorisation analysis (MCA) reading group

• Fridays, 12 pm - 2 pm;
• Interested in joining or would like to find out more? Fill in the EoI form or contact me via email.

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Course contribution/Teaching areas:

UQ (undergraduate):

• Digital Discourse and Social Media (SLAT3030)

UQ (postgraduate):

• Language, Culture and Communication (SLAT7899)
• Structure of Language (SLAT7705)

Other/past:

• Communicating Across Cultures: Theory and Practice (COMU1002)
• Collaborations: Relating and Working Together (HUMN2500)
• Language Awareness & Cross-Cultural Competence for the Global Workplace (COMU2040)
• Independent Reading Course (SLAT7897)
• Dissertation (SLAT7853)
• English as a Second Language (Vilnius University)
• Academic English (reading, writing, presentations) (Vilnius University)
• Stylistics (Vilnius University)

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Supervision (MA & PhD):

PhD (current)

• Chilmeg Elden (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): The establishment and management of interpersonal relationships in early encounters between Australian and Japanese language exchange partners
• Zhiyi Liu (principal supervisor; with Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang and Prof Ping Chen): Relationship management in everyday Mainland Chinese and Chinese-Australian family talk
• Andrea Rodriguez (principal supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): The role of categorical membership and accountability in the negotiation of action ascription
• Nicholas Hugman (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): Footballer identity, humour, and the digital interactional domain
• Chantima Wangsomchok (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh): Conversational humour in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) workplaces

PhD (completed)

• (2023) Amir Sheikhan (associate supervisor; with Prof Michael Haugh and Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang): Conversational humour in intercultural initial interactions in English

MA (current)

MA (completed)

• (2025) Marlene Valdés Fuentes: “Mamá, por favor, ¿me dejas que me ponga ahí?: A multimodal analysis of a toddler’s requests in Spanish family interactions
• (2023) Yeisy Vanessa Maldonado Ramirez: Reporting offence to friends in Spanish: A pragmatic analysis of moral grounds and impolite behaviour
• (2023) Shea-Lea Wheeler: A discourse study of fictional self-presentation in Dungeons & Dragons gameplay
• (2021) Zhiyi Liu: Constructing identities of a mother and an older sister/adult child: Membership categorization analysis of Chinese-Australian family talk
• (2021) Maria Nagao: English teachers of young learners in Japan: A discourse analytical study on identity construction
• (2021) Shupei Ni: Relational work in video game live-streaming interactions: Case studies of jocular abuse and joint fantasizing
• (2021) Andrea Rodriguez: “Ay no, I do feel exhausted”: Interactional co-construction and interpersonal management of complaints in Spanish phone conversations between friends and relatives
• (2020) Duyen Hong Ngoc Luong: Teaching English as a foreign language in Vietnam: Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the English-only approach and code-switching in the classroom

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Forthcoming publications:

Journal articles

Special Issues

• Sinkeviciute, Valeria and Andrea Rodriguez (eds). (2026 forthcoming). Rules of engagement: Relationships and socialisation practices in family discourse.

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Projects (current & past):

• 2022-present: "Family talk in multilingual Australia"
  • 2025 (February-April): "‘Who we are’ in multilingual Australia: Language and identity construction in family talk" funded by a Fellowship at the Leibniz-Institute for the German Language (IDS), Mannheim, Germany
  • 2023: "Talking families into being: Analysing family interactions in Australian multilingual context" funded by Research Fund, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
  • 2022: "‘Who we are’ in multilingual Brisbane: Family talk in Spanish and Russian speech communities" funded by HASS Enabler Funding Scheme (HASS EFS), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (UQ)
• 2021: "Conversational humour in multilingual Australia: A closer look at Tennant Creek’s Indigenous and Brisbane’s Spanish speech communities" (with Dr Samantha Disbray and Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang) funded by Strategic Researh Initiative Fund (SRIF), School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
• 2021: ""I'm nearly old enough to be your mother": Using membership categorisation analysis to explore identity construction in getting acquainted interactions" funded by ECR Support Scheme, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
• 2020-2021: "The co-construction and negotiation of multilingual and multicultural identities in Australia: A case study of online interactions" funded by Targeted Research Support Scheme, School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)
• 2019-2022 (CI: Assoc. Prof Marta Dynel): "FUNGRESSION: Humour and impoliteness on social media" funded by National Science Centre (Poland) (2018/30/E/HS2/00644)
• 2018-2019 (with Dr Wei-Lin Melody Chang): "How far can an Aussie joke travel? Intercultural perspectives on Australian humour" funded by Strategic Research Initiative Fund (SRIF), School of Languages and Cultures (UQ)

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Forthcoming conference presentations/talks:

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Edited special issues/volumes:

• Sinkeviciute, Valeria (ed). 2024. Advances in the study of social action in online interaction. Internet Pragmatics https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.7.1
• Haugh, Michael and Valeria Sinkeviciute (eds.). 2021. The pragmatics of initial interactions: Cross-cultural and intercultural perspectives. Journal of Pragmatics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics/special-issue/10DB1P3LJJ8
• Sinkeviciute, Valeria (ed.). 2019. The interplay between humour and identity construction. Journal of Pragmatics 152. https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-pragmatics/vol/152/suppl/C
• Dynel, Marta and Valeria Sinkeviciute (eds.). 2017. Conversational humour: Spotlight on languages and cultures. Language & Communication 55. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02715309/55?sdc=1

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Reviews of my monograph "Conversational humour and (im)politeness: A pragmatics analysis of social interaction":

• Yang, N. (2022). Book review: Sinkeviciute, Valeria.2019. Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Journal of Politeness Research 18(2): 451-455. https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2020-0015
• Tsami, V. & Saloustrou, V. (2021). Book review: Sinkeviciute, Valeria.(2018). Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. The European Journal of Humour Research 9(3): 179-183. https://europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/544/556
• Murphy, J. (2021). Review of Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness: A Pragmatic Analysis of Social Interaction, Valeria Sinkeviciute. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2019). 274 pp. ISBN 9789027262110 (e-book). Journal of Pragmatics 183: 105-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.07.010
• Krendel, A. (2020). Review of Conversational Humour and (Im)politeness. Valeria Sinkeviciute, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2019 (e-book), ISBN: 9789027262110. Corpus Pragmatics 4: 479–483.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41701-020-00086-w

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Panel organisation:

• 22-27 June 2025 (with Andrea Rodriguez) - (Cross-)linguistic studies on relationships and socialisation practices in family discourse, at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA2025, Brisbane, Australia
• 9-14 July 2023 (with Andrea Rodriguez) - Membership categorisation and interpersonal relationships in social interaction, at the 18th International Pragmatics Conference, IPrA2023, Brussels, Belgium
• 9-14 June 2019 (with Marta Dynel) - Aggression as (im)politeness on social media, at the 16th International Pragmatics Conference, Hong Kong
• 6-8 February 2019 - Metapragmatic labels and commentary on humorous practices: An (inter-)cultural perspective, at Australian Humour Studies Network conference, Melbourne, Australia
• 1-3 November 2018 - Panel organiser (with Wei-Lin Melody Chang), Doing ‘being ordinary’ in reality television discourse, at 4th International Conference of the American Pragmatics Association (AMPRA), SUNY, Albany, USA
• 16-21 July 2017 – From self to culture: Identity construction in humour-related discourses, at the 15th International Pragmatics Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 26-31 July 2015 – (with Marta Dynel), The Pragmatics of Conversational Humour, at the 14th International Pragmatics Conference, Antwerp, Belgium

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Invited talks/lectures:

• 11 December 2024 - “Tú quieres que yo te dé un premio?”: Acción social y categorías en las conversaciones familiares. Talk at Seminario Permanente de Análisis de la Conversación (SPAC)
• 11-13 October 2024 - Online interaction as multimodal accomplishment of the social order. Plenary talk at the 3rd Interactional Conference on Discourse Pragmatics (ICDP-3)
• 21 January 2021 - Social interaction and identity construction. Guest lecture for postgraduate students at University of Maribor, Slovenia
• 20 January 2021 - Pragmatics and social action. Guest lecture for undergraduate students at University of Maribor, Slovenia
• 14 November 2019 - “Hey BCC this is Australia and we speak and read English”: Linguistic diversity and impoliteness on Brisbane City Council’s Facebook page, invited talk at Linguistics Seminar Series, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland (https://languages-cultures.uq.edu.au/event/session/5365)
• 27 September 2019 - Studying linguistics, what's next? An invited speaker at UQ Linguistics Society's Careers Night.
• 26 May 2017 - Evaluating (im)polite interactional behaviour: From reality television to qualitative interviews, talk at the Research Seminar at the School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland, Australia
• 10 May 2017 - Metapragmatics and humour, guest lecture at The University of Queensland, Australia
• 6 November 2015 - What makes teasing impolite? “Step[ping] over those lines […] you shouldn’t be crossing”, guest lecture at University of Antwerp, Belgium
• 25 November 2014 - “[Sometimes] it’s not particularly funny, [sometimes] it’s just rude”: Getting a laugh and/or taking offence to teasing, talk at the Research Seminar at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
• 6 December 2013 - (Im)politeness in context, guest lecture at University of Antwerp, Belgium

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Journal Referee

Journal of Pragmatics / Pragmatics / Journal of Politeness Research / Discourse Studies / Lingua / Language & Communication / Research on Language and Social Interaction / Internet Pragmatics / Discourse, Context & Media / Contrastive Pragmatics / Pragmatics and Society / Gender, Work & Organization / Sociolinguistic Studies / Pragmatics & Cognition / Journal of English for Academic Purposes / The Sociological Review