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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.

Senior anatomical pathologist and cytopathologist at Pathology Queensland, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital with special interest in the fields of head and neck, oral, endocrine pathology and cytopathology. He leads head and neck and oral pathology at Metro North, based on RBWH and as member of RBWH head and neck MDT clinic since 2012. He is also a part time consultant Histopathologist at Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology Brisbane.

His line of research centres on the molecular pathology and translational diagnostics of head and neck malignancies, with a specific focus on identifying novel biomarkers for early detection, prognosis, and therapeutic stratification. Another area is focus on pathology standardization through international collaboration, notably collaborating the HNCLEAR consensus working groups to establish globally accepted criteria for key prognostic indicators like Perineural Invasion (current) and PD-L1 immunohistochemistry on head and neck Scc.

Dr Meng-Wong Taing (Wong) is a registered pharmacist 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 (CMUS), Cochrane Australia, the National Centre for Healthy Ageing, and the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care on the development of National Clinical Practice Guidelines for Dementia 2026. She is also an Affiliate Research Fellow (Global Health) 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 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 corporate finance. His work has been published in leading academic and practitioner journals, such as Organization Science (Financial Times Top-50 (FT-50) Journal list, and UTD-24), Research Policy (FT-50), Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Nature Portfolio - Scientific Reports. Six 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 more than 100 media outlets worldwide, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, 7News, ABC Radio, Harvard Business Review, Yahoo News, International Business Times, and MedicalXpress. By June 2022, it ranked in the top 0.2% of over 21 million research outputs tracked by Altmetric. In recognition of his cross-disciplinary contributions, he received the UQ Business School Cross-Disciplinary Research Award in 2022. Beyond academia, his work has informed policy discussions and has been cited by the World Bank, Bank of Korea, Bank of Finland, Office for National Statistics, Australian Centre for Financial Studies, and Africa CDC.

In terms of service and engagement within the UQ Business School (UQBS), Dr. Tan serves as the Honours Program Leader, also sitting 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), an Associate Editor at the International Review of Financial Analysis, Editorial Board Member at the British Accounting Review (A*), 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. Dr Tan is also a member of the UQ Business School's Digital Finance Research Hub.

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 Tan is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the UQ Business School. He holds a PhD in Finance from the University of New South Wales and a Bachelor of Commerce (First Class Honours) from Monash University.

Eric’s research focuses on investments and fund management, with particular emphasis on institutional investors such as mutual funds and hedge funds. In recent years, his interests have expanded to corporate finance and banking. His work has been presented at leading international conferences, including the American Finance Association (AFA) and the European Finance Association (EFA). He has received numerous research grants from AFAANZ and industry partners, and his research has been recognised with multiple Best Paper awards at the UWA Accounting and Finance Research Forum (2018), FIRN Annual Conference (2017), and New Zealand Finance Colloquium (2016). His publications appear in internationally peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (FT50), Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, European Journal of Operational Research, and the Journal of Portfolio Management. He also serves as a regular referee for leading academic and practitioner journals, including The Review of Financial Studies, The British Accounting Review, and the Financial Analysts Journal.

Eric is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) (Advance HE) and an award-winning educator. In 2024, he received two major teaching awards: Enhancing the First-Year Experience and Excellence in MBA Education. He teaches across undergraduate, postgraduate, and MBA programs with a strong commitment to inclusive, student-centred, and practice-oriented learning that connects academic theory with real-world applications in finance.

Eric also contributes actively to the academic and professional community through leadership and service. He is the chair of the FIRN Asset Management Meeting, convenor of the Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), Health and Safety Representative for UQ Business School, and a member of the BEL Faculty’s Lower Risk Ethics Review Panel. From 2020 to 2025, he also served as Finance PhD Coordinator. Through these roles, he fosters research collaboration, supports student engagement, and strengthens the School and Faculty’s academic environment. Eric is also a member of the UQ Business School's Digital Finance Research Hub.