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Lisa Samarkovski is a Lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law, and currently teaches taxation law to postgraduate students in the Master of Commerce program.

Dr Selwin Samuel is a dental academic and early-career researcher with a diverse background spanning clinical dentistry, forensic odontology, immunology, and translational biomedical science. He completed his PhD at The University of Queensland, focusing on bone immunology and infectious complications in spinal cord injury, and currently serves as a Course Coordinator and Lecturer at the UQ School of Dentistry.

Rebecca completed her PhD at the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute at the University of Wollongong in June 2018. Her PhD research investigated the role of the heat shock response and inflammation in neurodegenerative diseases with a focus on motor neuron disease (MND). During her PhD, Rebecca undertook an Endeavour Research Fellowship to conduct research at the Institute of Neurology, University College London under the supervision of Prof Linda Greensmith. She has since been recruited to the Neurodegeneration Pathobiology Lab at the Queensland Brain Institute by Dr Adam Walker as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Rebecca is a motivated and passionate MND researcher whose main objective is to find new therapeutics to treat or cure people living with MND.

Macarena holds a Master degree in Public Health and a PhD from the University of Queensland. Prior to her studies in Public health she worked as a physiotherapist in Chile for 4 years. She has particular interest in different mental health and health behaviours during pregnancy and their consequences in the child. Her other interests are related to social determinant of health, health policies and statistics.

I build quantitative systems for understanding how humans move, perform, using data from wearable sensors in real-world conditions.

My work sits at the intersection of machine learning, signal processing, and sports and health science. I develop the analytical infrastructure that makes large-scale, free-living sensor research feasible: pipelines for IMU and GNSS data, predictive models for physical activity and pain dynamics, and validation frameworks for wearable devices.

At UQ, I contribute to the CIPHeR program (NIH/NHMRC-funded), investigating mechanisms of chronic low back pain through longitudinal modelling of movement, sleep, stress, and pain. I also lead Metric Trails, an applied R&D initiative developing high-precision geospatial standards for trail and mountain running.

My background spans academia and industry. Before UQ, I led data science teams at LATAM Airlines and built research programs in wearable analytics and geospatial modelling at Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile, where I supervised 19 postgraduate theses.

I work across disciplines, with physiotherapists, sports scientists, engineers, and clinicians, and across an international network of collaborators in Australia, Chile, Norway and Spain.

Dr Lauren Sanders is a Senior Research Fellow with the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland in the Law and Future of War project. Lauren’s current research focus is on the application of export control, arms trade and sanctions regimes relevant to the export and brokering of trusted autonomous military systems and associated technology. Her broader research and teaching interests include international criminal law, international humanitarian law and domestic counter-terrorism law. She is the editor of UQ's Law and Future of War podcast where she interviews experts in the fields of law and emerging and disruptive technology, military strategy and military affairs.

She completed her initial law studies with The University of Queensland, along with a Bachelor of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies. Her PhD studies were competed at the Australian National University focused on the practical application of universal jurisdiction. She holds an LLM in Legal Practice, Masters in Defence and Strategic Studies and numerous Graduate certificates in military law.

Before returning to The University of Queensland, Lauren spent twenty years as an Australian Army signals officer and legal officer, and has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor and on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, a legal advisor to ADF domestic counter-terrorism operations, and an assistant Inspector-General of the ADF. She is a graduate of the Australian Command and Staff College, and was awarded a Conspicuous Service Cross for her work as the Command Legal Officer within Special Operations Command.

She supports the training of military legal officers with the University of Adelaide's Legal Training Module Level Three (Masters Law Course); and is a reserve legal officer, where she is a member of the Principal Writing Team for the Australian Defence Force’s Law of Armed Conflict Manual, and teaches at the Indo-Pacific Centre for Military Law and the ADF's Military Law Centre.

Lay detail

• Emeritus Professor of Psychology; Affiliate Professor, Medical School
• Former Professor of Cognitive Engineering and Human Factors (Joint appointment: School of Psychology, School of ITEE, School of Clinical Medicine) and Leader, Cognitive Engineering Research Group (CERG)
• Responsible for development and operation of the University of Queensland Usability Laboratory (UQUL).
• Director of ARC Key Centre for Human Factors and Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2004-2007.
• Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA).
• Fellow of the USA-based Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES).
• Fellow of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA)

Background:

• Adjunct Professor, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997-2006.
• Professor of Computer Science (HCI), Swinburne University of Technology, 1997-2001.
• Assistant and then tenured Associate Professor of Psychology, M&IE, and Aviation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1985-1996.

Editorial responsibilities

• Associate Editor, Human Factors in Healthcare, 2021-2023
• Regional Editor, Cognition Technology and Work, 2000-present.
• Consulting Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2005-2011, 2013-2018
• Editorial Board, Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 2005-present.
• Editorial Board, Human Factors, 1986-1997, 2005-2013, 2016-present.
• Associate Editor, Human Factors, 2014-2015.
• Associate Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied: 2012-2013.
• Associate Editor, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2002-2005.

Dr Stephen Sanderson is an expert in nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulation, with a particular interest in fundamental theory and method development. His current research focuses on developing new methods based in response theory for efficient calculation of nonequilibrium steady state properties, with applications in fluid dynamics, energy materials, heat flow, and quantum systems, among others. Previously, Stephen worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the group of Prof. Debra Bernhardt, where his focus was on nonequilibrium thermodynamics and statistical mechanics theory, and improving capacity for molecular dynamics simulation of fluids. He holds undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering and physics and a PhD in physics from James Cook University, during which he developed and applied kinetic Monte-Carlo simulations of charge and exciton dynamics coupled with atomistic molecular dynamics deposition simulations to establish a better understanding of structure-property relationships in organic semiconductors, particularly organic light-emitting diodes.

Saira is a Research Fellow in the Research Alliance for Urban Goori Health (RAUGH) team at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. She has an academic background in pharmacy and public health. Before joining the UQ Poche Centre, she worked at the Centre for Health Service Research and the Dermatology Research Centre.

She has research collaborations with the Psycho-oncology Co-operative Research Group and Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer. Saira’s main research interests are mental health, psycho-oncology, cancer survivorship, healthcare service and system, and evaluation. She has been involved in quantitative and qualitative analyses of various clinical trials and epidemiological research projects on mental health, early detection and treatment of cancer, health service outcomes, and cancer survivorship care.

As a team member of RAUGH, her current research aims to close the gap in life expectancy and promote health equality for urban First Peoples in greater North Brisbane through applied research in key healthcare pathways—across the continuum of care and throughout the lifespan.

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.

A/Prof Damian Santomauro is based at the School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, and leads the Epidemiology and Burden of Disease Research Stream based at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR). He is also an Affiliate Associate Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, where he serves as the Mental Disorders Team Lead and the DisMod-AT Team Lead for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study. Driven by a commitment to improving global mental health, A/Prof Santomauro is responsible for all mental disorder epidemiological and burden estimates reported by the GBD Study and has played a key role in uncovering burden not currently represented by the GBD Study such as burden of binge eating disorder, other specified feeding and eating disorders, and somatoform disorders. He also modelled the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on depressive and anxiety disorders, quantified the excess self-harm mortality among autistic persons globally, and developed a novel cohort method to estimate the burden of depressive and anxiety disorders due to bullying victimization. A/Prof Santomauro also quantified the minimally adequate treatment coverage for depressive disorders globally, and the burden of anxiety disorders that could be averted under ideal treatment coverage conditions. His research continues to inform international mental health policy, helping to ensure that the true extent of mental disorder burden is recognised and averted.

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.