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Professor Bruno van Swinderen received his PhD in Evolutionary and Population Biology in 1998 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His graduate work was on general anesthesia in a Caenorhabditis elegans model, applying both quantitative genetics and molecular genetic approaches. For his postdoc at The Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in San Diego, California (1999-2003), he switched to Drosophila melanogaster to develop methods of studying perception in the fruit-fly model. He ran a lab at NSI from 2003 to late 2007.

Professor van Swinderen established a new laboratory at the Queensland Brain Institute in February 2008.

Bruno van Swinderen's group use Drosophila as a genetic model system to study mechanisms of perception in the brain and are interested in three phenomena: selective attention, sleep, and general anesthesia. Their focus is on visual perception and how it is affected by these different arousal states. Their current effort is in understanding how sleep regulates selective attention and predictive processing. Toward this goal, they use various novel visual paradigms in a Drosophila molecular genetics context. The lab is also focussed on understanding presynaptic mechamisms of general anaesthesia, with a view to uncovering new strategies to improve recovery from this common medical procedure.

Professor André Van Zundert is the Professor and Chair of Anaesthesiology at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He is the Chair of RBWH 'Burns, Trauma, Critical Care and Research Centre'.

Professor André van Zundert is also the Chair of The University of Queensland 'Centre for Excellence & Innovation in Anaesthesia'. His research interest is in airway management, regional anaesthesia and obstetrics, for which he has received international recognition. He has been greatly acknowledged for his contributions to: 1) Pain Relief in Childbirth (the suggested technique is still practiced all over the world in the labour ward); 2) providing safe and effective airway management using videolaryngoscopy and videolaryngeal mask airways; and 3) Pain therapy. He authored three major standard textbooks in anaesthesia.

Honorary Professor at Queensland Brain Institute. About 400 million general anaesthesia procedures are performed annually worldwide. While anaesthesia is extremely safe, it remains largely unknown why recovery can be delayed or problematic in some patients, especially in elderly people and in those with pre-existing neurological decline. Currently, there are no treatments available to counteract or speed up anaesthesia recovery, which still remains an entirely passive process. Our inability to counteract general anaesthesia has serious secondary consequences, such as increased length of hospital stay, and ongoing complications, including postoperative cognitive dysfunction. Professor van Zundert's interest in promoting research in this area prompted collaboration with the van Swinderen Lab at Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) and was facilitated by his joining as an Honorary Professor. Professor van Zundert’s research focus at QBI is centred on uncovering anaesthesia reversal agents, targeting pre-and post-synaptic neurotransmission receptors.

Luigi Vandi is the Co-Deputy Director for the Centre for Advanced Materials Processing and Manufacturing (AMPAM) and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering. He conducts research in materials science, ranging from advanced manufacturing, in-life performance and end-of life conversion to higher value products. He obtained his PhD on hybrid materials from The University of Queensland, and his MSc from the National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine in France.

His translational research activities have a strong focus on industry relevant projects. His experience in high-performance composites manufacturing for automotive and aerospace applications, includes working at Ferrari F1 Team in Italy, where he was responsible for the manufacture of carbon fibre suspensions and gearbox of the F1 car. In Australia, he played a key role in developing a patented technology as part of a collaborative project with Airbus and CRC-ACS. He is currently responsible for AMPAM’s sustainability theme and leads research in ‘Biocomposites & Circular Economy’. He has secured over $9 million of funding in this field and delivered high impact sustainable solutions. He is the first author of 4 active patents, in the fields of advanced manufacturing, biocomposites and biopolymers, including the development of novel sustainable biocomposite materials that are marine biodegradable biopolymer.

Luigi is driven by solution-based research, and in particular bringing latest innovations in materials science to the benefits of a future circular economy. His goal is to provide an expertise at the crossover between materials science and sustainable development to address the challenges of today’s linear economy.

Luigi lectured 4th year Aerospace Composites (course AERO4300), and 2nd year Engineering Investigation & Statistical Analysis (course CHEE2010)

Eric Vanman is a Professor at the University of Queensland's School of Psychology in Australia. He earned his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1994. Following that, he served as a post-doctoral fellow specialising in cognitive and behavioural neuroscience at USC, then spent a year as a research scientist in the Environmental Psychophysiology Laboratory at Texas A&M. He also held short-term positions at Emory University before being appointed an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University in 2000, where he taught until 2007. He then transitioned from Georgia State as an Associate Professor to his current role. His research centres on the social neuroscience of emotion and intergroup prejudice, utilising various psychophysiological and neuroimaging techniques. Currently, he is focused on projects involving social robots and social media.

Dr Tristan Vanyai's research interests are in the fields of hypersonic propulsion, aerodynamics, combustion visualisation and laser diagnostics, using both experimental and numerical techniques.

Dr Vanyai received his Doctor of Philosophy from The University of Queensland in 2018, after completing a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering (First Class Honours) and Bachelor of Science double degree at Monash University in 2012.

His research focuses on fundamentals of hypersonic propulsion through the scramjet cycle. Robust combustion within low intake compression scramjets is a key technology enabler for hypersonic accelerator vehicles, and can be achieved through utilising techniques such as thermal compression. Dr Vanyai is examining the improvements to scramjet combustion due to thermal compression through experiments in the T4 Stalker Tube facility using advanced optical techniques and comparison with results from numerical simulations.

Dr Antiopi Varelias leads the Transplantation Immunology laboratory at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia and is the Coordinator of the Immunology and Infectious diseases seminar series at the Institute. She was awarded her PhD from The University of Adelaide (Faculty of Medicine) in 2002 and held post-doctoral positions within the University of Adelaide’s Department of Surgery (TQEH) and Haematology/Oncology Unit, TQEH before moving to Brisbane to join the Bone Marrow Transplantation laboratory at QIMR Berghofer in 2008, at the time led by Professor Geoff Hill. Under Professor Hill’s mentorship, she has published many original research articles in peer-reviewed high-ranking journals on graft-versus-host disease and has presented her research findings at many international and national scientific meetings. As a chief investigator, she has been the recipient of funding from the NH&MRC and CCQ and is a member of several professional societies (ASTCT, TTS, TSANZ, AAI, ASI, SMI, ICIS).

Dr Varelias’s research interests focus on improving our fundamental understanding of the pathophysiology of graft-versus-host disease using innovative technologies and pre-clinical models, with the view of translating these findings into clinical practice and thereby provide better transplant outcomes for patients. Current research aims to define the immunological basis that underpins graft-versus-host disease, with an emphasis on cellular, cytokine and microbiome interactions that regulate mucosal immunity during stem cell transplantation.

Associate Professor Paulo Vasconcelos' research is in the fields of: Low-T Geochemistry, Economic Geology and 40Ar/39Ar Geochronology. He received his PhD from The University of California (Berkeley).

Paolo Vasconcelos research interests cover

• Supergene enrichment in ore deposits
• Isotopic dating of weathering processes
• Exploration geochemistry
• Palaeoclimatology and landscape evolution
• Application of K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar and noble gas systematics to ore deposit genesis
• Origin and geochemistry of gem deposits

His chief research projects are in the areas of:

• Weathering Geochronology, Weathering Geochronology and Landscape Evolution
• Mechanisms and timing of silicification in Australia and the genesis of opal deposits
• Cenozoic Magmatism in North East Brazil and in South East Queensland
• U-He, 40Ar/39Ar, and Re-Os as fingerprints of metal sources in orogenic gold deposits
• U-Th/He dating of iron and manganese oxides
• Cosmogenic 3He generation and retention in goethite and hematite
• Hydrothermal vs. supergene origin of orebodies in banded iron formations in the Hamersley iron province, the Quadrilátero Ferrífero iron province, and the Carajás iron province
• Supergene Enrichment in the Kalahari Manganese Fields, South Africa
• Timing of topaz, emerald and gold mineralization
• 40Ar/39Ar geocronological constraints on postulated hominid fossil sites in Cueva Victoria, Spain

Biography:

Associate Professor James Vaughan is the Chemical Engineering Metallurgy Major Lead and Leader of the Hydrometallurgy Research Group. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgical Engineering at McGill University followed by Master of Applied Science and PhD degrees in Materials Engineering at The University of British Columbia in Canada. Before joining UQ, James gained industrial metallurgical process research and development experience with Glencore, Barrick and BHP. While at UQ, James served as Director of the University of Queensland Rio Tinto Bauxite & Alumina Technology Centre and has been Lead Chief Investigator of Australian Research Council Linkage and Discovery Projects. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and the Advanced Materials and Batteries Council (AMBC).

Research:

James' research focuses on the fundamental aspects of leaching, ion exchange and precipitation reactions as well as membrane separations. These projects are of interest to the base metals, precious metals and alumina refining industries as well as in the fabrication of value added materials such as lithium ion battery cathode precursors and zeolites.

Current Projects:

1. Extracting Queensland's rare earth elements sustainably (Queensland Department of Resources)
2. Copper process innovations (UniQuest)
3. New approach for producing zeolites from clay or mine tailings (Zeotech)
4. Inorganic membrane percrystallisation in hydrometallurgy (ARC Discovery)
5. Improving pressure oxidation for refractory gold (Newmont)
6. Effects of solution impurities on gold leaching (Newmont and BHP ARC Linkage)
7. Recycling vanadium catalyst (QEM Critical Minerals Trailblazer)
8. Purification of battery metal solution (Lanxess Critical Minerals Trailblazer)
9. Recycling batteries (V Resource)

Teaching and Learning:

• Hydrometallurgy and Electrometallurgy (METL6204)
• Metal Production and Recycling (METL2201)

Prof. Anand Veeraragavan's research interests are in supersonic combustion of hydrocarbons, hypersonic aerothermodynamics, advanced optical diagnostics for hypersonic flows and microcombustion based portable power. He is the Co-Director for UQ's Centre for Hypersonics. Since 2021, he is an Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, which is a Quartile 1 Journal in Aerospace Engineering (Scimago).

Prof. Anand Veeraragavan joined the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering as a mechanical engineering lecturer in 2012. He was an Mid-Career Advance Queensland Research Fellow (2017-2020) awarded for conducting research in the project entitled

Supersonic Combustion of Hydrocarbon Fuels for High-Mach-Number Axisymmetric Scramjets

Anand graduated with a B.Tech in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-Madras) in 2002. He obtained his MS (2006) and PhD (2009) degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. His Doctoral research, which focused on understanding flame stabilization in microscale combustors, won the best thesis award in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland.

After his PhD, he took up a research appointment as a postdoctoral research associate in the Device Research Lab at MIT where he worked on thermophotovoltaics and nanofluid based volumetric solar absorbers. He next joined GE Energy as a combustion technologist in the US. At GE, he worked primarily on designing the next generation, land based, heavy duty, gas turbine engine combustors focusing on cost, operability, reliability and emissions and also completed his lean Six Sigma Greenbelt certification at GE.

He is currently undertaking world-leading research in the field of hypersonics and supersonic combustion sponsored by Australian DST, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and U.S. Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development (AOARD). This includes leading the Australian effort in prestigious projects such as ground testing and simulations in support of the Boundary Layer Transition/Turbulence (BOLT II) flight test sponsored by the AFOSR.

His research interests include:

• Supersonic combustion of hydrocarbon fuels
• Hypersonic aerothermodynamics
• Optical diagnostics: PLIF for supersonic combustion, FLDI for hypersonic aerothermodynamics, high-speed schlieren
• Micro-combustion driven power systems
• Solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technology development

Dr Martin Veidt's research interests are in applied mechanics covering all aspects of through life support of materials and structures with a special focus on composites such as fibre-reinforced laminates, sandwich structures and hybrid metal fibre laminates. This includes quality assurance and quantitative non-destructive evaluation using conventional, guided wave and non-linear ultrasonics; stress analysis and damage mechanics; and experimental determination of mechanical characteristics of materials and interfaces.

He received his Dr sc techn from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich in 1991 and his Dipl Masch Ing ETH from there in 1986. His current research projects are in the fields of:

• Non-linear ultrasonics
• Ultrasonic manipulation of microbubbles for drug delivery
• Functional composites
• Hybrid composite laminates
• Light weighting

Dr Jemma Venables is a social work lecturer and joined the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at UQ in 2017. Her research explores the policy-practice interface in child, youth and family practice. In particular, Jemma’s research focuses on the intersection of statutory child protection, family support services, domestic and family violence (DFV) and transition from out-of-home care support. Underpinning her research is a key interest in collaboration, inter-agency working and justice. Within the school, Jemma draws on her research and practice experience to teach into undergraduate and post-graduate courses that explore the interface of law, policy and social work practice.

My expertise is in assessing the influence of different environmental factors on the properties of metals. My current work focuses on understanding hydrogen embrittlement of high strength steels and corrosion of metals. I am also involved in hydrogen embrittlement studies of additively manufactured metals, and surface modification of metals via electrochemical processes (electroplating and electropolishing).