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Dr Michalis Stylianou is a senior lecturer with the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at The University of Queensland. His research interests focus around creating active and healthy schools using comprehensive and coordinated approaches that involve school staff, parents, and the community. Michalis is also a member of the Active Healthy Kids Australia research working group, a collaboration among Australian children’s physical activity and health researchers who advocate for actions to increase the physical activity levels among Australian children using the Physical Activity Report Card for Children and Young People as the core monitoring metric.

I am a biologist interested in the general question of how changes in developmental processes can lead to evolutionary variation and origin of complex traits (such as neural circuits). I study development and evolution of the brain of mammals. My doctoral thesis studied brain regions involved in olfactory and pheromonal communication in mammals. I discovered several events of parallel co-variation of sensory pathways in distantly related species sharing similar ecological niches, as cases of ontogenetic and phylogenetic plasticity. Currently, I study development and evolution of neocortical circuits by following two main lines of research: one aims to determine how early neuronal activity emerges during development and help shape brain connections, and the other one aims to understand what developmental processes led to evolutionary innovations in the mammalian brain. My research combines molecular development (electroporation, CRISPR), transcriptomics, sensory manipulations, neuroanatomy mapping (MRI, stereotaxic tracer injections, confocal and image analysis), optogenetics, and in vivo calcium imaging (multiphoton and widefield) in rodent pups and marsupial joeys.

Angelica is a senior spatial scientist with a strong background in remote sensing and environmental analysis. Her work bridges science and practice, applying spatial technologies to improve land and resource management. She has contributed to research across a wide range of applications — from crop and vegetation monitoring to assessing land use change driven by different sectors.

Her research interests include the evaluation and adoption of remote sensing technologies for crop and vegetation monitoring, tracking native vegetation clearing and regrowth, analysing environmental and production factors that influence crop performance, and developing spatial datasets for yield forecasting, crop phenotyping, and long-term landscape monitoring.

DB’s research interest includes conflict transformation and peacebuilding, the intersection of religion and politics, and populism and nationalism in the Asia Pacific region. Currently, his research is focused on exploring the dilemmas and complexities associated with peacebuilding in authoritarian, populist and nationalist states across South and Southeast Asia. He has conducted research fieldwork across South and Southeast Asia, especially Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, and Myanmar.

He is the author of Combatants to Civilians: Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Maoist Fighters in Nepal's Peace Process (Palgrave, 2018) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Populism in the Asia Pacific (Routledge, 2024) and Reconciliation in Conflict-Affected Communities: Practices and Insights from the Asia Pacific. He has also published his research in scholarly journals such as World Development, Contemporary South Asia, Religion & Politics, Asian Studies Review, Journal of Human Rights, Conflict, Security & Development and Contemporary Politics. He is a Research Member in the ‘Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation into Terrorism’ (AVERT) Research Network at the Deakin University in Melbourne.

Before coming to the academia, he worked with several international organisations for more than ten years in Nepal, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam. Since 2010, he has been actively collaborating with government and non-government organizations and has provided research and consultancy service to several agencies including United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women, ActionAid Myanmar, UNICEF, International Alert UK, Care International and Mercy Corps. In 2022, he supported the Connected Communities team in NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet to develop and implement the evaluation framework and plan for NSW’s Countering Violent Extremism Programme.

Thomas grew up in Germany and joined UQ in 1999 following postgraduate studies in New Zealand. He investigates the mental capacities in young children and in animals to answer fundamental questions about the nature and evolution of the human mind. His research has attracted several awards (incl. from the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, the Australian Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association) and his critically acclaimed books The Gap (e.g. see reviews in Nature, Science or the Wall Street Journal) and The Invention of Tomorrow (A Nature Book Reviews Best Science Pick) have been translated into several languages.

Critical Care Medicine focuses on supporting patients, often with one or multiple organ failures. Based at the largest Australian cardiac hospital, our research investigates better ways to support patients with heart and/or lung failure. We explore technological, pharmacological and engineering advances that could help our patients to live longer and better. Our group is world-renowned for clinically relevant large animal models, including heart failure, respiratory failure (ARDS), heart transplantation, sepsis, cardiogenic shock, and more. All our studies use hospital-grade equipment and follow the same clinical guideline to maximise translation. We actively take on honours, MPhil and PhD students from multi-disciplinary backgrounds (science, engineering, medicine, allied health), with a successful track record in supporting our students to secure their own grants and funding. Students are expected to contribute to other studies of the group. For more information about the group, please visit ccrg.org.au, and email if you are interested to join us.

Dr Adnan Sufian completed his PhD at UNSW Sydney, spending one year as a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the University of Queensland, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London and has also worked as a geotechnical engineer with SMEC Australia. Dr Sufian's field of research is in the area of multi-scale and multi-phase mechanics of granular materials. His research aims to develop tools and guidelines so that geotechnical engineers can better handle, manipulate and construct with granular materials, and this can lead to innovative solutions to geotechnical issues surrounding the development of urban infrastructure. He is also interested in understanding natural phenomena associated with granular geomaterials such as landscapes affected by erosion, mass movement of materials in landslides, and mitigating the spread of contaminants in subsurface flows. Dr Sufian has strong expertise in the development of novel, efficient and rigorous multi-scale computational modelling techniques, including the Discrete Element Method, Computational Fluid Dynamics and Network Models, with a core focus on the interaction of water with soil particles. His research is naturally multidisciplinary and he currently collaborates with physicists, mathematicians and engineers to uncover emergent phenomena from the collective behaviour of granular particles.

Dr Daniel Sullivan is a Clinical Psychologist and Adjunct Lecturer in the Child Health Research Centre, The University of Queensland. In his clinical role, Dr Sullivan leads a program of research to design Australia's first psychology extended scope of practice model of care for limited pharmacotherapy management, with an emphasis on deprescribing hypnotic medicines in the public sector sleep psychology setting (ExPEDiTe Sleep project). As a member of the Let’s Yarn about Sleep group at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Dr Sullivan is working to improve sleep health equity for First Nations Australians through community co-designed, culturally responsive sleep programs which harmonise sleep science with Indigenous Australian perspectives and knowledges about sleep.

Dr Sullivan’s research and clinical expertise is in the behavioural aspects of sleep; he is an Editor of the journal Research Directions: Sleep Psychology (Cambridge University Press) and is board certified by the US-based Board of Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Dr Sullivan completed postgraduate training in sleep at the University of Sydney (MSc), and his PhD in Clinical Psychology at Griffith University, where his doctoral research examined psychological factors involved in sleep-related headaches.

Professor Clair Sullivan is an internationally-recognised leading practising and academic clinical informatician who helps drive digital health transformation in Queensland and globally.

Clair is the Director of the new Queensland Digital Health Centre within the Centre for Health Research at The University of Queensland.

A specialist endocrinologist, Clair graduated with Honours in Medicine from The University of Queensland and earned a Research Doctorate in Medicine from the University of Leeds. In 2014, Clair began a parallel career in the emerging field of digital health and has held significant leadership roles in digital health practice and governance across government and academia. Her work is regularly translated into practice and informs policy in Australia and globally.

Clair is currently Professor of Digital Health at UQ and Conjoint Professor of Community Diabetes at Metro North Health. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology and an Adjunct Professor, School of Health and Biomedical Sciences at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She is Clinical Director for Community Diabetes at Metro North Health.

She is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian College of Health Informatics and the Australasian Institute of Digital Health.

Clair serves on several national advisory boards for digital health. She is the recipient of several awards including the 2021 Premier’s Award for Excellence for her team’s work on the digital response to COVID-19 and the 2022 Telstra Brilliant Connected Women in Digital Health Award.

She has generated over $70M in grant funding and has deep collaborations with government and industry. She is ranked in the top 1% of Medical Informatics researchers globally.

Dr Mitchell Anthony Sullivan is a CJ Martin Early Career Research Fellow, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Mitchell has a postdoctoral position in Professor Josephine Forbes’ Glycation and Diabetes research group at the Translational Research Institute. With a keen interest in the role of the blood-sugar storage molecule glycogen in health and disease, Mitchell has used the techniques he developed in his PhD, supervised by Prof. Robert Gilbert, to examine the important role this molecule has in diseases such as diabetes, Lafora disease and Adult Polyglucosan Body Disease. Currently he is extending this research into the field of diabetic kidney disease, combining the skills and knowledge he obtained in a 2-year postdoctoral position in Toronto with Prof. Berge Minassian, with the kidney expertise of Prof. Forbes. Awards received by Mitchell include the Biochemistry Alumni Prize (2008), awarded to the top ranked student at UQ in 3 biology/biochemistry course and the Chemistry Honours Research Prize (2010), awarded to “the student who, in completing a BSc (Honours) in the field of Chemistry, demonstrated a high level of achievement in the research component of the program and a high potential for independent research.” Mitchell was an organizing committee member for the Annual RACI Polymer Student Symposium (2013) and is currently a member of the Translation Research Institute Mentoring Committee. While less than 3 years from completing his PhD, Mitchell has 23 publication involving collaboration in China, Sweden, Canada, USA and Spain.

Personal statement: “Ever since beginning my research career as an undergraduate, I have thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of being able to pursue research questions I am passionate about. The opportunity to add new information and insights into the shared knowledge pool of the global scientific community is greatly appreciated. I will continue to relish these opportunities and strive to perform research to the best of my ability, with the goal of maximising a beneficial impact. As I advance through my career I will also endeavour to encourage and support my colleagues, helping foster a collaborative and fruitful environment to perform research.”

Nicole Sully is a senior lecturer in the History and Theory of Architecture, and Architectural Design at the University of Queensland, and a member of the ATCH research group. She undertook undergraduate degrees in both Fine Arts and Architecture at the University of Western Australia, and in 2005 was awarded a doctorate for her thesis titled: Architecture and Memory: A Philosophical and Historical Inquiry. She has taught at the University of Western Australia and Curtin University of Technology, in addition to working in architectural practices in Western Australia.

Nicole’s research focuses on the interdisciplinary relationship of architecture and memory; pathologies of place; heritage; modern architecture and more broadly the history of Australian art and architecture. Her work has been published in The Architect, Fabrications, ARQ: Architectural Research Quarterly, and Gillian Pye (ed), Trash Culture: Objects and Obsolescence in Cultural Perspective (with Lee Stickells). In collaboration with Andrew Leach and Antony Moulis, she co-edited Shifting Views: Selected Essays on the Architectural History of Australia and New Zealand, published by the University of Queensland Press in 2008. Most recently, in collaboration with Philip Goldswain and William M. Taylor, she has co-edited Out of Place (Gwalia): Occasional Essays on Australian Regional Communities and Built Environments in Transition, published by the University of Western Australia Press in 2014.

Memberships

• Member, College Art Association
• Past Member, Society of Architectural Historians
• Member, Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand
• Editorial Board, Fabrications: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (2020-26)