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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.

Dr. Mari Takashima is a critical care nurse, certified health informatician, and early career researcher specialising in clinical epidemiology and applied biostatistics. She is committed to advancing her career as a clinician-researcher, focusing on improving patient care through evidence-based practice and implementation science. Her research interests encompass health services research, invasive medical devices, pediatric respiratory infections, nursing education, and research methodologies.

Anson received his PhD in 2018 from the University of Melbourne and continued his study on the molecular basis of membrane trafficking and protein sorting in the Golgi with Professor Paul Gleeson. In 2020, Dr Tan joined the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland, where he is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research. His research at the Anggono laboratory aims to understand the molecular mechanisms of membrane trafficking in neurons, processes that are essential for synaptic transmission, plasticity, learning and memory, and how their dysregulation led to neurodegenerative diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr Tan was recently awarded the UQ Postdoctoral Researcher Retention Fellowship (University of Queensland, 2022).

Adjunct Research Fellow (Health Services)

Michelle is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow (Health Services) at The Prince Charles Hospital-Northside Clinical Unit, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland (UQ) led by Prof Ian Yang. Michelle is also a Research Fellow (Health Services and Healthy Ageing) at Monash University (Parkville Campus), where she works collaboratively with the Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, the National Centre for Healthy Ageing, and the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care on national clinical practice guidelines. She is also an Affiliate Research Fellow at the Department of Health Service and Population Research, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, UK. Michelle received her PhD in Medicine from The University of Sydney (USYD), focused on a longitudinal research for improving a multidisciplinary publicly funded bariatric surgery service provided by three hospitals integrated with a range of adjunct treatments in highly complex adult patients with clinically severe obesity and multiple comorbidities in New South Wales, Australia. Prior to joining UQ, she was a Research Fellow of Monash University and King’s College London, working on a Medical Research Council (MRC)-funded multi-country multimorbidity project, followed by an appointment as a Research Fellow in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine of the National University of Singapore. She was also a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Unit for Older People at Newcastle University, UK, working in collaboration with academic and practitioner colleagues at The University of Manchester, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and the Department of Health and Social Care England. During her PhD, she worked in several academic roles at USYD and its affiliated hospital. The positions included Research Officer, Research Administrative Officer, Tutor in Diet and Nutrition for Health and Sport, and Clinical Trials Support Administration Assistant.

Research Interests:

Michelle is interested in and can help you with the research areas of health services evaluation and implementation, clinical practice guidelines and health policy development, epidemiology, quantitative research methodologies, biostatistics, multimorbidity, cardiovascular diseases, machine learning, healthy ageing, systematic reviews, endocrinology, surgeries, obesity, metabolic diseases, nutrition and dietetics, clinical trials, mental disorders, osteoarthritis, and sleep-disordered breathing.

Supervision:

Higher Degree Research (HDR) students

Doctor of Medicine (MD) students

Undergraduate students

Professional Memberships:

Guidelines International Network

British Society of Gerontology

NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria (ARC NENC) Multimorbidity, Ageing and Frailty Theme

International Health Literacy Association

Endocrine Society of Australia

Australia Diabetes Society

World Obesity Federation

The Association for the Study of Obesity UK

European Association for the Study of Obesity

Malaysian Society of Geriatric Medicine

Malaysian Healthy Ageing Society

Australian & New Zealand Obesity Society

Malaysian Endocrine and Metabolic Society

Malaysian Diabetes Association

Malaysian Association for the Study of Obesity

Nutrition Society of Malaysia

Research Awards and Grants:

National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grant 2025-2029

The European Association for the Study of Obesity Travel Grant Award 2024

The University of Sydney Postgraduate Research Support Scheme 2020

The University of Sydney Charles Perkins Centre (CPC) Early- and Mid-Career Researcher (EMCR) SEED Grant Award 2019

The Boden Institute Travel Support Scheme (CPC, Sydney School of Medicine, The University of Sydney) 2018

The University of Sydney Postgraduate Research Support Scheme 2018

The University of Sydney Postgraduate Research Support Scheme 2017

Australian Commonwealth Government Research Training Program Scholarships 2017-2020

The University of Sydney’s Sancta Sophia College Entrance Scholarship 2017-2018

The University of Sydney’s Sancta Sophia College Bursary 2017-2018

International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Travel Grant Award for World Diabetes Congress 2011

University Putra Malaysia Graduate Research Fellowship 2010-2011

Nutrition Society of Malaysia Travel Grant Award 2011

International Congress of Nutrition Travel Grant Award 2009

International Congress of Nutrition Distinguished Poster Presenter 2009

20th Intervarsity Biochemistry Conference Best Poster Presenter Award 2009

Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia Scholarship 2009-2011

Languages:

English, Mandarin, Chinese Cantonese, and Malay

Dr. Xin Fu Tan is an ARC Early Career Industry Fellow (2025-2027). Their research interests encompass the areas of electronics manufacturing, hydrogen storage materials, synchrotron radiation techniques, and electron microscopy. Prior to this, Dr. Tan was employed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland, working on an ARC Discovery Project titled "Intermetallic compounds for high-reliability electronic interconnections" (2020-2024). Additionally, Dr. Tan held a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) International Research Fellowship at Kyushu University, contributing to the project "Improving Metal Hydrides to Diversify Energy Storage and Transportation" (2022-2024), as nominated by the Australian Academy of Science (AAS).

Dr. Tan completed their PhD thesis at The University of Queensland, focusing on the development of novel anode materials for lithium-ion batteries, from 2017 to 2020. Between 2010 and 2016, Dr. Tan worked as a Material Scientist at Hydrexia Pty. Ltd., a start-up company specialising in commercialising solid-state hydrogen storage systems based on lab-developed technology from The University of Queensland. They earned a Bachelor's degree (1st class honours) in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at The University of Melbourne and a Master's degree in Advanced Engineering Materials at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. These experiences have endowed Dr. Tan with unique research expertise across various Materials Engineering fields, encompassing both academic and industrial settings.

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.

Dr Qiyang Tan obtained his Bachelor of Materials Science and Engineering in 2014 from South China University of Technology, China. In 2018, he was awarded his PhD degree by The University of Queensland.

Dr Qiyang Tan's research expertise are in the additive manufacturing of metals and MAX phases, high-temperature oxidation of metals, alloy development, thin film characterization, mechanical properties of metals, grain refinement and crystallography. Dr Tan has proposed the Oxide Reinforcement Model, a novel oxidation resistance model to understand the protection capability of the surface oxide layers on metals. Recently, Dr Tan involved in the research of additive manufacturing of metallic and ceramic materials. He has successfully applied the E2EM crystallographic model to identify new grain refiners for various additively manufactured materials including Al, Ti, Cu alloys, steels and γ-TiAl intermetallic alloy. Dr Tan's research hopes are to further apply his fundamental research on grain refinement to develop new refiners for ceramic and metallic-ceramic materials and to improve their processability in additive manufacturing. His research outcomes will also offer materials scientists and engineers a totally new way to fabricated advanced materials using additive manufacturing, therefore to significantly promote the wider application of this cutting-edge manufacturing technology.

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’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.

Main research interests include development and health economics. Current research topics include mental health, health inequality, income insecurity, inequality in opportunity, mortality uncertainty.

I'm a Professor of Cognitive Science at The University of Queensland, originally hailing from Alberta, Canada. I received my BASc in Philosophy and Psychology from The University of Lethbridge, my PhD in Psychology from McMaster University, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at UNSW before joining UQ in 2006.

Much of our work is at the intersection of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, exploring how generative AI can enhance learning and cognition. We're excited about the potential for these tools to provide personalised feedback, correct misconceptions, and create more engaging educational experiences.

But we’re not just focused on AI. We also explore the quirks of human thinking, particularly the biases that shape our judgments in contexts ranging from daily life to high-stakes decision-making. By unraveling these mental shortcuts, we aim to develop strategies that enable clearer thinking, more effective reasoning, and ultimately, wiser choices in the face of complexity and uncertainty.

I've been lucky to work with some truly brilliant students and collaborators over the years. It's a pleasure to come to the lab every day and tackle these fascinating questions together.

Ken Tann is an in-house linguist at the UQ Business School. He specializes in applying linguistic and semiotic techniques to interdisciplinary research, and helps industry professionals add value to their professions through effective communication. His analytical framework has been applied across media, forensic, education and workplace contexts. He is currently supervising PhD research in marketing, finance and aged care.

My research interests are at the intersection of plant developmental genetics, functional genomics, and molecular and systems biology, following my doctoral and postdoctoral training in the USA. The research effort in my group is focused on harnessing transformative genomics technology to understand the genetics of plant development, and to discover regulatory mechanisms coordinating plant growth and development. We utilize a variety of plant species in our research, from the model plant organism Arabidopsis to grain and horticultural crops like wheat, mango, avocado and macadamia. We employ a range of techniques based on high throughout DNA sequencing to explore gene expression, chromatin accessibility and modifications from single cell to whole plant levels, bioinformatics and computational biology tools to infer genetic components of gene regulatory networks, as well as gene editing technology to evaluate phenotipic consequences of perturbations in gene regulatory networks.