Find an expert

Associate Professor Peter Sutton's research interests are in Engineering Education, Embedded Computing Systems and Reconfigurable Computing

Associate Professor Peter Sutton has worked, studied and taught in the area of computer systems since completing his undergraduate studies in 1990. His particular research interests are in Engineering Education, Embedded System Design Software, Electronic Design Automation, and Reconfigurable Computing Systems.

Matt Sweet is an NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Group Leader, and Director of Higher Degree Research (DHDR) at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He was the founding Director of the IMB Centre for Inflammation and Disease Research (2014-2018), also serving as Deputy Head of the IMB Division of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine during this period. Matt studies innate immunity, the body’s danger sensing system that responds to infection, injury and dysregulated homeostasis, and the role of this system in health and disease. Matt’s research team focuses on manipulating the innate immune system for the development of anti-infective and anti-inflammatory strategies. To do so, his lab characterizes the roles of specific innate immune pattern recognition receptors and their downstream signalling pathways/gene products in inflammatory disease processes, as well as in host responses to bacterial pathogens. He has authored >175 journal articles and book chapters, including in Science (2), Science Translational Medicine, Science Immunology, Nature Immunology, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications (4), PNAS USA (6) and Journal of Experimental Medicine (2), and his career publications have accrued >19,000 citations.

Biography

I was awarded a PhD (The University of Queensland) in 1996 for my research under the supervision of Prof David Hume into gene regulation in macrophages, immune cells with important roles in health and disease. I subsequently undertook a short postdoctoral position in the same laboratory, focusing on the activation of macrophages by pathogen products. I then embarked on a CJ Martin post-doctoral training fellowship with Prof Eddy Liew, FRS at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Returning to The University of Queensland, I had a prominent role within the Cooperative Research Centre for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases (including as UQ node head from 2007-2008) and was appointed as a Group Leader at the IMB in 2007. I have continued fellowship support since this time, including as an ARC Future Fellow, an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow (current, from 2021).

Key discoveries

CpG-containing DNA as an activator of innate immunity, and characterization of the receptor (TLR9) detecting this microbial component.

The IL-1 receptor family member ST2 as a critical regulator of innate immunity and inflammation.

Inflammatory and antimicrobial functions of histone deacetylase enzymes (HDACs) in macrophages.

Effects of the growth factor CSF-1 on inflammatory responses in macrophages.

Mechanisms responsible for divergence in TLR responses between human and mouse macrophages, as well as the functional consequences of such divergence.

TLR-inducible zinc toxicity as an antimicrobial weapon of macrophages and the identification of defects in this pathway in cystic fibrosis.

Host evasion strategies used by the bacterial pathogens Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium and uropathogenic E. coli.

SCIMP as a novel TLR adaptor that mediates TLR tyrosine phosphorylation and selective cytokine outputs.

Genes and pathways associated with the severity of chronic liver disease.

Molecular mechanisms controlling macrophage immunometabolism, as well as associated inflammatory and antimicrobial responses.

Anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activities of the metabolite ribulose-5-phosphate.

Research training

I have supervised or co-supervised 29 completed PhD students and 22 completed honours students, as well as 9 post-doctoral researchers. Many of my former staff and students continue to have active research careers around the world (USA, UK, Europe, Australia), including as independent laboratory heads. I currently supervise 5 PhD students in my laboratory, co-supervise 4 PhD students in other laboratories, and oversee the research activities of 2 post-doctoral researchers in my group. Current and former staff/students have received numerous fellowships and awards during their research careers (e.g. ARC DECRA, NHMRC CJ Martin fellowship, UQ post-doctoral fellowship, Smart State scholarship). I have also examined >25 PhD theses in the fields of innate immunity, inflammation and host defence.

Professional activities

I am an editorial board member of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology and Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, and have served as an editorial board member for several other journals in the past e.g. Immunology and Cell Biology. I have served on NHMRC project grant review panels in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012 (as panel chair) and 2014, NHMRC Ideas panels in 2020 and 2024, NHMRC Investigator panels in 2021 and 2022, as well as a member of the NHMRC RGMS user reference group committee from 2010-2012. I acted as national representative for the Australasian Society of Immunology (ASI) Infection and Immunity special interest group from 2012-2017. At UQ, I served as chair of an animal ethics committee from 2013-2014, and co-organized the UQ Host-Pathogen interaction network from 2007-2010 (prior to the establishment of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre). I am currently Director of Higher Degree by Research at IMB, overseeing HDR student recruitment and training.

I have made extensive contributions to conference organization in my discipline. I co-organized the national TLROZ2009 and TLROZ2012 conferences, I organized the first ever Australasian Society for Immunology (ASI) Infection and Immunity workshop (2009), was chair of the ASI Program Committee and co-organizer of the Infection and Immunity workshop for ASI2017, and I co-organized the annual IMB Inflammation Symposium (2014-2018). I also co-chaired the 2019 World Conference of Inflammation (Sydney, September 2019). In addition, I have been a member of the organizing committee for ASI2009, the 2014 International Cytokine and Interferon Society conference, the Lorne Infection and Immunity conference (2014-2020), and the Brisbane Immunology Group annual meeting (2008 to the present).

Dr Sarah Sweet's research interests are in astrophysics, in the field of galaxy evolution. She received her PhD from the University of Queensland in 2014. Dr Sweet then worked at the Australian National University and at Swinburne University of Technology, before returning to UQ as a Lecturer in Astrophysics in 2020. She was awarded an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship in 2022 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2023.

John Swinson's principal interests are intellectual property law, Internet law, privacy law, AI law, cybersecurity law and the application of law to new technologies.

John graduated from the T.C. Beirne School of Law in 1988 with a University Medal. He also has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in computer science from The University of Queensland and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School where he studied as a Fulbright Fellow and a Frank Knox Scholar. In 1989, John worked as a judge's associate to Justice C W Pincus of the Federal Court of Australia. John is admitted to the NY Bar, and worked as an associate at Kenyon & Kenyon in NYC from September 1991 to January 1997. From 1999 until 2017, John was an adjunct professor at QUT.

John was a partner at the law firm King & Wood Mallesons from 1999 to 2021. He was also Chairman of the auDA Policy Review Panel, which made recommendations to the auDA Board to revise Australia's domain name policies in 2019.

Since 2000, John has been an arbitrator for the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, and has decided over 720 disputes regarding the ownership of domain names.

John commenced as a professor at the T.C. Beirne School of Law in November 2017.

• Art and Humanities teachings in Medical Education Belinda's work will build on knowledge of creative pedagogy and how it can be used in medical training.
• Interprofessioal Education in Medical Simulation Training Interprofessional collaboration in clinical settings improves the quality of patient care. Foundations of collaborative care lie in interprofessional education (IPE) of students, and clinicians. Belinda has been involved in teaching many IPE experiences across the breadth of the health disciplines over the last 10 years.
• Medical Simulation Training Belinda is an experienced medical simulation educator. She is involved across many simulation based learning activities in phase 1 and 2 of the Doctor of Medicine program. Simulation education uses action research to continuously improve the education services provided.

Prof Ala Tabor joined QAAFI's Centre for Animal Science in October 2010, after 18 years of conducting research with the Queensland Government. She is a research focussed academic with a strong background in industry engagement associated with animal health and agricultural biotechnologies. Her research interests are associated with the application of genomic sequence data to improve animal disease management through: 1) the development of molecular diagnostic and genotyping methods to better identify pathogens; and 2) the study of gene function in relation to virulence and host pathogenicity of infectious diseases, to develop new effective vaccines. Areas studied to date include bovine reproductive diseases (in particular bovine genital campylobacteriosis), Australian paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus), cattle tick (Rhipicephalus microplus species complex), and tick-borne diseases (babesiosis and anaplasmosis). Some key outputs of her work include the application of reverse vaccinology for the development of a novel cattle tick vaccine and paralysis tick vaccine (patents pending), and commercialized diagnostic tools for bovine reproductive diseases. Prof Tabor has attained and completed ~$12 million in competitive grants in the last 10 years including the ARC, pharma and industry. Current research includes paralysis tick vaccines/treatments, bovine biomarkers for disease resistance, cattle tick commercial vaccine trials, bioinformatics/genomics of ticks and bovine venereal Campylobacter spp., tick fever genotyping/detection, and diagnostic assay development for bovine genital campylobacteriosis. Her international recognition in her field is exemplified by the invitation to join the BMGF International Cattle Tick Vaccine Consortium (CATVAC, est. 2015), specialist tick editor for the International Journal for Parasitology, Chair for the 9th International Tick and Tick-borne Pathogen (TTP9) conference (with the 1st Asia-Pacific Rickettsia Conference) held for the first time in Australia in 2017, and also international invitations to deliver expert presentations. Her research vision is to translate her research outcomes into viable products and methods for the benefit of cattle producers and pet owners. There are many options for students to pursue Honours, research components of Masters in Biotechnology or Masters in Molecular Biology (through affiliation with SCMB), as well as MPhil and/or PhD programs with Ala's group. Ala together with SCMB's Biotechnology Program Director and SAFS have developed UQ's 'Agricultural Biotechnology-Field of Study' (https://my.uq.edu.au/programs-courses/plan.html?acad_plan=AGBIOX5599&year=2020) within the Master of Biotechnology to start in 2020. She has had a strong focus on diversity, inclusion and gender equity initiatives at the University of Queensland.

Dr Meng-Wong Taing (Wong) is a registered pharmacists and qualified biostatistician. He graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Pharmacy (with Honours Class 1) in 2002, Graduate Certificate in Technology Innovation Management in 2012, PhD in Pharmacy in 2013. After completion of his PhD he worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Translation Research Institute (TRI) investigating novel drug candidates for the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity. In 2014, Wong joined the School of Pharmacy as a Lecturer and was awarded the Dean’s commendation for Research Higher Degree Excellence. He demonstrates a strong commitment to applying advanced statistical methods to health research. With broad expertise in quantitative analysis, he has made significant contributions across diverse disciplines including cell biology, social science, and medical research - leading and supporting collaborative projects that address complex health challenges. His work consistently promotes research transparency, methodological rigour, and interdisciplinary innovation. Wong serves on the editorial board of the BMC Medical Education journal.

Dr. Stephan Tait is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology. Stephan manages large projects in the areas of Municipal Biosolids, Digitalisation of Sewers, and Emissions Reduction in Agro-industries. Stephan's has expertise in wastewater process modelling and control, biogas and biomethane technologies, agro-industrial wastewater management, circular economy technologies, and resource recovery.

Eric is a senior lecturer in finance at the UQ Business School. He holds a PhD in finance from University of New South Wales and Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honours) from Monash University. Eric is currently the postgraduate coordinator for the finance PhD program and being a member for Low and Negligible Risk (LNR) Ethics Review Panel.

Eric’s research interests lie in the areas of investments and fund managements, with a particular focus on institutional investors such as mutual funds and hedge funds. In recent years, he has also developed research interests in the area of corporate finance with emphasis on the role of media coverage and political connection. His research papers have been presented in both domestic and international finance conferences such as the American Finance Association (AFA) and European Finance Association (EFA). He has also been the recipient of numerous AFAANZ, industry, and internal research grants. His research has won the “Best Paper Award” at UWA Accounting and Finance Research Forum (2018), FIRN Annual Conference (2017), and New Zealand Finance Colloquium (2016).

Eric’s research has been published in internationally peer-reviewed finance journals such as the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, European Journal of Operational Research, and Journal of Portfolio Management. He regularly referees manuscripts submitted to leading academic and practitioner journals such as The Review of Financial Studies, The British Accounting Review, Financial Analysts Journal, and others.

Dr Tan is an Associate Professor in Finance at the UQ Business School.

Dr Tan has earned a reputation as a researcher with expertise in capital structure and econometrics. His work has been published in leading academic and practitioner journals, such as Organization Science (Financial Times Top-50 Journal list, and UTD-24), Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Nature Profolio's Scientific Reports. Five of his papers have also been named as the Best Papers at the following five conferences: (1) the Asian Finance Association Conference, (2) the European Real Estate Society Conference, (3) the Western Risk and Insurance Conference; (4) the 6th Behavioural Finance Conference; and (5) the 4th International Conferences on Advances in Business & Law. In addition, he was recently awarded the 2016 Early Career Researcher Excellence in Research Award by the UQ Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, and the 2017 and 2024 Award for Excellence in Research by the UQ Business School.

Dr Tan teaches FINM3403 International Financial Management and FINM7402 Corporate Finance at UQ Business School, and was recently awarded the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2013 and the Commendation for Postgraduate Teaching in 2017. Besides being an inspiring teaching instructor, Dr Tan is also a great research mentor for junior faculty and Ph.D. students. Dr Tan is particularly proud of all of his Ph.D. students, because all of them had at least one chapter of their theses published in an A* journal (ABDC ranked) and/or received at least a research award before their Ph.D. graduation. In addition, his current first-year PhD students have also been awarded a few numerous best paper awards at various prestigious international conferences. In recognition of his contribution to research supervision, he was awarded two research supervision awards in 2020: (1) the UQ Business School Award for Excellence in PhD Supervision; and (2) the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law (BEL) Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research (HDR) Supervision.

His research has been featured in UQ News and over 100 media outlets across the globe, such as Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, 7News, ABC Radio, Yahoo News, International Business Times, MedicalXpress etc. As of 2022 June, his research was ranked in the Top 0.2% of all research outputs (21,383,946) ever tracked by Altmetric. In recognition of his contribution to cross-disciplinary research, he was awarded the Cross-Discipline Research Award by the UQ Business School in 2022.

In terms of service and engagement within the UQ Business School (UQBS), Dr Tan is the Honours Program Leader, who also sits on the UQBS Research Committee and UQBS Education Committee. Dr Tan was a Postgraduate Coordinator for the finance Ph.D. program between 2017 and 2020. Outside UQBS, Dr Tan serves as a Vice President (membership) and a board member for the Asian Finance Association, which is one of the top finance associations in Asia. Dr Tan is currently serving as a Deputy Editor at the Accounting and Finance Journal (ABDC "A" ranked Journal) and a Guest Editor for Pacific-Basin Finance Journal (A) and Accounting and Finance (A). Dr Tan also served as an Associate Editor at the Accounting Research Journal between 2018 and 2021.

His research interests focus on corporate finance, capital structure, and labor economics.