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Dr Liviu-Gabriel Bodea is a brain immune cell biologist specialising in the functional interplay between microglia, the brain’s primary resident immune cells, and surrounding cell types, both in health and disease. He is a Research Fellow at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, and is affiliated with the Clem Jones Centre in Ageing Dementia Research, Queensland Brain Institute.

Liviu was awarded his Dr.rer.nat. (PhD) title from the University of Bonn, Germany (2014), working in the group of Prof. Harald Neumann on projects related to microglia physiology. He then relocated to Australia as the Peter Hilton Early Career Fellow in Ageing Dementia Research (2014-2019) to continue his work with Prof. Jürgen Götz on the underlying mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Frontotemporal dementia. He secured major extramural funding for his research (NHMRC Project Grant, NHMRC Ideas Grant, Dementia Australia Research Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship), and since July 2024, he has led the Microglia Metabolic Reprogramming and Proteostasis Research Team within the laboratory of Assoc. Prof. Karin Borges.

Liviu has significant experience in generating and analysing both in vivo and in vitro models (from stable cell lines and primary cultures to genetically modified mice). His work combines various biochemical and molecular techniques, ranging from high-resolution microscopy to omics (transcriptomics, proteomics) and bioorthogonal labelling to analyse newly synthesised proteins.

Liviu has extensive experience in guiding both undergraduate and postgraduate students into the wonders of scientific research :)

Complete List of Published Work: PubMed Bibliography

Funding and Awards

2024-2027 NHMRC Ideas Grant #2030460 (sole CI, ~AU$ 800,000)

2022-2024 Dementia Australia Research Foundation Mid-Carrier Research Fellowship (AU$ 375,000)

2022 The University of Queensland Research Stimulus Fellowship (AU$ 150,000)

2019 Emergency Services Queensland Philanthropic Support (AU$ 25,000)

2018-2021 NHMRC Project Grant #1147569 (CIB, ~AU$ 460,000)

2014-2019 Peter Hilton Early Career Research Fellowship in Ageing Dement (AU$ 500,000)

Research Impact, Leadership and Professional Activities

Dr. Bodea attracted >3,500 citations (h-index 15 @Google Scholar), including 6 articles with >100 citations (Google Scholar) and Web of Science 2x Highly Cited Papers. In 2021, Expertscape recognised Dr. Bodea as one of the top-rated researchers in the field of tauopathy, placing him in the top 0.8% of >142,000 published authors worldwide on tauopathies between 2012 and 2021. Further proving its impact, his work was cited in 22 patents.

Dr. Bodea's study on the microglial TYROBP in late-onset AD (Cell 2013, co-first author, former Highly Cited Publication @Web of Science) represents a milestone in the field, with >1700 citations (Google Scholar). He also revealed the complement-induced neurodegeneration of dopaminergic neurons following peripheral immune stimulation (JNeurosci 2014, first author). More recently, he coordinated studies that centred on the effect of Tau protein (molecule relevant for Alzheimer's disease) on protein synthesis (EMBO J 2019 and Acta Neuropathologica Communications 2021), the use of artificial amino acids and de novo proteome analysis for the investigation of memory (eLife 2020) and microglial physiology (STARProtocols 2023), and the role of neuronal PTEN enzyme in synaptic engulfment by microglia (Acta Neuropathologica 2020). He published authoritative reviews in the Journal of Neurochemistry (2017), Nature Reviews Neurology (2018), Nature Reviews Neuroscience (2018), and Brain Research Bulletin (2021).

Dr. Bodea has been a grant reviewer for Alzheimer’s Australia/Dementia Research Foundation (since 2016), MS Research Australia (since 2019), and NHMRC (since 2021). He was Lead Guest Editor for a Special Research Topic in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience (2023), is a member of the Reviewer Board for Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience and was a member of the Reviewer Board for the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Mental Health section. He is an ad-hoc reviewer for various top-tier publications, ranging from Science to Trends in Cell Biology.

Dr. Bodea has mentored and supervised the daily activity of PhD students (2 completed, 1 current), Honours students (4 completed, all awarded First Class distinctions), 2 research assistants, and >15 other students on smaller projects. His PhD students received awards (e.g., the Alistair Rushworth Fellowship, Merck-QBI Best Student Publication Award, Best Oral Presentation). Both his completed PhD students continue with academic careers: Dr. Joey Benetatos, following a successful post-doctoral training in the Fraenkel Lab (MIT, USA), is currently pursuing his second post-doctoral position in the Prof. Loren Looger group (UCSD, USA), and Dr. Harrison T Evans is holding an Alzheimer's Association Postdoctoral Fellowship and is the Leon Levy Fellow in the Prof. Eric Klann lab (NYU, USA).

Mikael Bodén has a PhD in Computer Science and statistical machine learning from the University of Exeter (UK) but has spent the last decade and a half in biological research environments, including the Institute for Molecular Bioscience/ARC Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics and the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, where he is currently located. He is the director of UQ’s postgraduate program in bioinformatics. Mikael Bodén has supervised 7 postdocs from funding he received from both ARC and NHMRC; he has been the primary advisor for 11 PhD and 3 MPhil graduates; he is currently supervising another 6 PhD students in bioinformatics and computational biology. Mikael Bodén collaborates with researchers in neuroscience, developmental biology, protein engineering and bioeconomy to mention but a few, and contributes expertise in the processing, analysis and integration of biological data; this is exemplified by recent publications in Science, Nature Catalysis, Nature Communications, Cell Systems, Nucleic Acids Research and Bioinformatics.

Human-centred design of digital technology

Marie is an Interaction Design researcher and educator in the School of IT & Electrical Engineering. Her main research interest is in social robotics and design of technology to support teaching and learning. Marie’s research focus is on how we can design technology to support and improve our everyday activities involving teaching and learning. With over 10 years of expertise on design of technology for teaching and learning, Marie collaborates closely with users in co-design and participatory design projects. She works with both quantitative and qualitative methods such as observational and immersive field studies, interviews, iterative design and prototyping. Triangulating results from different methods with the aim of producing design that will impact the users positively and for the long-term. Her research has been recognized with a Digital Disrupter award by Australian Computer Society in 2017. Marie’s expertise on the Technologies Curriculum is also acknowledges by the Department of Education Queensland who invited her for talks and expert advice on new Technology curriculum content.

Marie is a member of ITEE’s External Engagement committee. Marie is very invested in external engagement with industry and schools, she has over 10 ten years of experience from organising outreach programs for primary and high school students in STEM subjects. Marie’s work in the outreach work was awarded in 2011 with a Rising Star by Women in Technology and a Highly commended award for Best Higher Education Program for Ladies by Australian Women in Security in 2020.

Dr. Gry Boe-Hansen graduated with a DVM in 2001 and a PhD in Veterinary Reproduction in 2005 from The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (KVL) Denmark. She took up a position as Assistant Professor at the department of Veterinary Reproduction and Obstetrics at KVL. In 2007 she was appointed at UQ as Lecturer in Veterinary Reproduction at School of Veterinary Sciences. Her overall research theme is causes of and methods to improve suboptimal reproduction in livestock. She is particularly interested in andrology, including venereal disease, with emphasis on genetic and environmental factors affecting reproduction and has published particularly in the field of sperm and semen quality, and biomarkers in relation to fertility. This has involved implementation of reliable, precise and accurate semen quality assays into conventional semen analysis, in both domestic animal semen laboratories and human clinics.

Fiona Bogossian is currently Professor of Practice Education in Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

Fiona is a Registered Nurse and Midwife with clinical, policy, education and research experience in midwifery and neonatal nursing. She has professional qualifications in education, public health and epidemiology, and a strong track record in teaching and research academic mentorship. Fiona is a Churchill Fellow, a Fellow of the Australian College of Midwives and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

As a foundation academic in the UQ School of Nursing & Midwifery (2005-2018), Fiona held leadership roles including Program Director, Director of Research and Director of Research Higher Degrees. Teaching highlights include implementation of the ground-breaking UQ Bachelor of Nursing curriculum, pioneering the first Bachelor of Midwifery program in Queensland and design and implementation of UQ's first practice based electronic portfolio system. Fiona held strategic responsibility for the School research direction, training and performance contributing to Above World Class Ranking of 5 for the field of research ‘nursing’ in 2012 and 2015.

Fiona’s research addresses better perinatal health outcomes and workforce education & development. She has expertise in clinical, health services and education research in particular epidemiology, longitudinal cohort studies, randomised trials, qualitative approaches and mixed methods. She has been Chief and Associate Investigator on $2.9 million of Cat 1 and Cat 4 grants since 2009, and has over 90 peer reviewed publications.

Fiona’s disciplinary research and education leadership is demonstrated at local, state, national and international levels through a long history of ministerial appointments, membership of research foundation grants committees, chairing program accreditation panels, as Sub-Editor for Women & Birth, and more recently as a panel member for the ERA Impact and Engagement Pilot (2107), and the discipline representative on the Universitas 21 Health Sciences Group Executive (2013-2016).

I am a Research Fellow within the Systems Neuroengineering group at the Queensland Brain Institute. I was awarded a PhD in Neuroscience from Macquarie University in 2016 and have undertaken a postdoctoral appointment abroad (2016-2023) at the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany.

I am a neurophysiologist with interests in understanding sensory processing. My research focuses on the different stations along the neuraxis from the periphery to the brain; the initial site of information acquisition and encoding (the dorsal root ganglia), the relay and modulatory center (thalamus) and the penultimate site for sensory perception (the cortex). My goal is to characterise how somatosensory information is routed and transformed within these areas and to understand how this information is altered following disease and dysfunction (e.g. autism, chronic pain).

I obtained my M.Sc. ETH in Biomedical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in 2013, where I utilized concurrent magnetic field monitoring to improve image quality and temporal stability of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). I then moved to Brisbane in 2014, to pursue a PhD at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland under the supervision of Prof. Markus Barth. I investigated contrast mechanisms and signal properties of fMRI focusing on ultra-high field applications. In 2019, I joined A/Prof. Jonathan Polimeni at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Engineering, Massachusetts General Hospital, where I employed ultra-high field MRI to image the blood vessels of the human brain, and better understand their contribution to the fMRI signal. I returned to Brisbane in 2020 and I am currently a Research Fellow at the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology. I am devloping new contrast mechanisms for funtional MRI and I am investigating the effect of the vasculature on the fMRI signal.

Dr Steffen Bollmann joined UQ’s School of Electrical Imaging and Computer Science in 2020 where he leads the Computational Imaging Group. The Group is developing computational methods to extract clinical and biological insights from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The aim is to make cutting-edge algorithms and tools available to a wide range of clinicians and researchers. This will enable better images, faster reconstruction times and the efficient extraction of clinical information to ensure a better understanding of a range of diseases. Dr Bollmann was appointed Artificial Intelligence (AI) lead for imaging at UQ’s Queensland Digital Health Centre (QDHeC) in 2023.

His research expertise is in quantitative susceptibility mapping, image segmentation and software applications to help researchers and clinicians access data and algorithms.

Dr Bollmann completed his PhD on multimodal imaging at the University Children’s Hospital and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland.

In 2014 he joined the Centre for Advanced Imaging at UQ as a National Imaging Facility Fellow, where he pioneered the application of deep learning methods for quantitative imaging techniques, in particular Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping.

In 2019 he joined the Siemens Healthineers collaborations team at the MGH Martinos Center in Boston on a one-year industry exchange where he worked on the translation of fast imaging techniques into clinical applications.

Pascal's research interests are diversified over various aspects of the Earth system, including geology, geomorphology, climate, soil and anthropogenic modifications in the context of spatial data analysis and interpretation.

Pascal holds a BSc in Geography from the University of Hamburg (Germany), a MSc in Earth Sciences from the University of Hamburg (Germany) and a PhD from the Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia). His PhD research on multi-method sediment provenance analysis focussed on the integration of U-Pb thermo- and geochronometer with novel techniques in image analysis and dimension reduction methods. The project was in cooperation with the Geological Survey of Queensland (DoR, GSQ) and the Geological Survey of New South Wales (GSNSW).

Over the last 10 years Pascal has worked with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the context of teaching, academic research and for industry applications. He is proficient on a variety of GIS software platforms including ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro, QGIS and SAGA.

Dr Stephanie Bond obtained a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (Hons) and a Bachelor of Animal Science from the University of Melbourne in 2013, and received her PhD in Veterinary Medical Sciences from the University of Calgary in 2019. She was the first recipient of the Storm Cat Career Development Award (Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation) to be enrolled at a university outside of the USA.

Steph has a diverse background in translational research, with extensive experience in both the scientific and practical aspects of the horse industry. She has publised on a wide range of topics, including the equine respiratory microbiota and mycobiota, exercise physiology, mild equine asthma and various aspects of sports medicine.

Shaun Bond is the Frank Finn Professor of Finance in the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland. Shaun has research interests in the areas of real estate finance and financial economics. Prior to joining the UQ Business School, Shaun was the West Shell Professor of Real Estate in the Department of Finance at the University of Cincinnati and the Director of the UC Real Estate Center. Prior to this he held an appointment in the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. In addition, Shaun has been a visiting professor at the Pennsylvania State University and the George Washington University. Shaun holds a PhD and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Queensland (awarded with First Class Honours).

Ivano is a researcher, consultant, author, and speaker whose work focuses on the managerial and business implications of Cybersecurity.

He is the General Manager of AUSCERT, a not-for-profit organisation affiliated with UQ that delivers cybersecurity services to public and private sector organisations across Australia and New Zealand.

Ivano is also a Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity Management with the UQ Business School and a member of UQ Cyber.

Ivano helps business leaders and executives make evidence-based decisions in cybersecurity. With a professional background in risk and security management, Ivano’s work bridges the gap between technical cybersecurity and its repercussions across organisations. He has advised ministers, policy-makers, board members, and senior executives on strategies, governance structures, policies, and training programs for effective cybersecurity management. Ivano is also an experienced facilitator in the fields of Design Thinking and Design-Led innovation, having run since 2015 more than 50 design-led workshops and longer projects for public and private sector organisations.

Prior to AUSCERT and UQ, Ivano worked as a Research Fellow with the Adam Smith Business School (University of Glasgow) and a Postdoctoral Fellow with the PwC Chair in Digital Economy (QUT). In this role, he worked with public and private sector organisations in projects aimed at facilitate their transition into the Digital Age. Ivano obtained his PhD from QUT in 2016, with a thesis on safety and security management in Australian airports. His academic career includes stints with Bocconi University and SDA Bocconi School of Management (Milan), where he worked as a faculty member and consultant for three years.

He also worked as a Deputy Venue Security Manager at the XX Winter Olympic Games - Turin 2006 and as a Police Officer for the Italian Ministry of Interior.

He has a double MSc in Management of Public Administrations and International Institutions (Bocconi University, Milan) and International Security (Sciences Po, Paris).

A father of one and an eager snowboarder, Ivano loves soccer, American football, and writing novels and poems.

Gaia Boniardi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland. Her primary research focuses on optimising enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR or BioP) systems and phosphorus recovery strategies, with the goal of promoting a circular economy for a more sustainable future. She has published more than 10 papers in international scientific journals and collaborated on several research projects with industry (wastewater and mining sector) regarding phosphorus recovery. As a member of the International Water Association (IWA), she actively participates in international conferences.

Assoc. Prof’s Andrew Bonnell’s research interests include: Modern German and European history. German cultural and intellectual history in social and political context. History of German Social Democracy.

Assoc. Prof. Bonnell holds a BA (Hons) (Sydney), and a PhD (Sydney). He is currently Associate Professor in History at UQ.

His teaching areas include Modern German history, European intellectual history, European fascism and the radical right, Film and history and Nationalism.

Assoc. Prof. Bonnell’s current research projects include Robert Michels and the political discontents of modernity and aspects of the history of German Social Democracy.

He is also the editor (History), Australian Journal of Politics and History.