I am an urban sociologist and an expert in urban community in all its forms. My research encompasses the outer suburbs in Australia, the gentrifying inner city and informal communities in cities in the Global South. My work focuses on how different urban places and spatial logic in the city impact our opportunities to form attachments to neighbourhoods and each other.
Internationally, I have written extensively on urban poverty in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia and I am currently involved in work on climate change and its effects on the urban poor in collaboration with colleagues in Indonesia, Brazil and Solomon Islands. My latest research concerns the impact of climate change and natural disasters on the urban poor. More than 1 billion people live in informal urban settlements or slums. These people are among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. However, adaptation and mitigation policies are being formulated at multiple scales, often without considering the voices of the poor.
I am the Bachelor of Arts Sociology program convenor and an award-winning teacher. I teach courses at all levels in our undergraduate sociology program, including Introduction to Sociology (SOCY1050), An Urban World (SOCY2340) and Advanced Studies in Social Thought: Getting the Big Picture (SOCY3345).
I am also an award-winning photographer (you can see some of my work on my Flickr page.
I am open to proposals from potential Honours and PhD students who share my passion for understanding the social life of cities. Whether you're from Australia, the Global South, or anywhere else in the world, I look forward to the possibility of working together.
Affiliate of Centre for Behavioural and Economic Science
Centre for Unified Behavioural and Economic Science
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Associate Professor/Deputy Associate Dean Research
School of Business
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Associate Professor Gabby Walters has a substantial background in tourism marketing with an emphasis on consumer psychology. Gabby has focused much of her research towards image and reputation management and in particular tourism market recovery following crises and disastrous events. She has conducted numerous consultancies and projects with tourism destinations from different parts of the world seeking to enhance or revitalise their reputations and regain trust among the tourism market as a result one or many critical events.
Her expertise also encompasses advanced methodological approaches to the study of tourist behaviour and in particular lab based research technologies. Gabby has a well-established publication record in tourism and hospitality and currently serves on several editorial boards. She currently serves as is the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Vacation Marketing, an ABDC A Ranked and Q1 Journal.
In 2017 Gabby was awarded the Centre of Australian Universities Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE) Fellows Award. An esteemed accolade that recognises significant contributions to the tourism and hospitality field.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Walweel is an electrophysiologist specializing in calcium-released channels (RyR2) regulation in heart. Walweel's research project is to understand how RyR2 regulates heart contraction and rhythm, how their dysregulation leads to cardiac arrhythmias, and how pharmacological interventions targeting RyR2 restore normal heart rhythm. She is expert in bilayer work, single channel recording and biochemistry. Walweel's discoveries are clinically important for understanding arrhythmia generation in patients with heart failure and CPVT. Dr Walweel works with the purpose to promote human heart research and health. She aims to reduce heart failure burden and death by advancing pathophysiological research and discovering suitable medication to prevent arrhythmias. Over a relatively short time, Dr Walweel's research resulted in notable and meritorious publications in high quality journals (JACC, Circ Res, Mol Pharmacol, J Gen Physiol, J Mol Cell Cardiol and J Biomed Sciences).
Dr Jihong Wang (English name: Lily) has the following NAATI credentials: Certified Interpreter (Mandarin/English), Certified Translator (from English into Chinese) and Certified Translator (from Chinese into English).
She completed a PhD thesis entitled "Working Memory and Signed Language Interpreting" at Macquarie University in 2013 and then worked there as a full-time researcher on a research project regarding the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) for one and a half years. She is working full-time as a Lecturer in the Master of Arts in Translation and Interpreting (MATI) program at The University of Queensland.
Lily conducts empirical and interdisciplinary research on Mandarin/English interpreting, Auslan (Australian Sign Language)/English interpreting, simultaneous interpreting, cognitive processing in interpreting and translation (e.g., cognitive load, processing time/time lag/ear-voice span, working memory), expertise in interpreting, telephone interpreting, machine interpreting versus professional interpreting, interpreting performance assessment, sight translation and deaf signers' working memory capacity.
She uses a wide range of research methods such as questionnaire-based surveys, interviews, experiments, case studies (of authentic simultaneous interpreting data and real-life telephone interpreting data), role-plays (of face-to-face and remote interpreting), corpus (of interpretation data) and microanalysis (i.e., local analysis) to conduct empirical studies on various aspects of interpreting and translation. Moreover, she also employs useful tools such as SPSS, NVivo (for analysing qualitative data such as interviews) and ELAN (for analysing audio- and video-recordings of interpretation data, see https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan) to analyse research data.
She has published a book, some book chapters and many research articles in high-quality journals in Translation and Interpreting Studies, including Interpreting, Target, Perspectives, Meta, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, Translation and Interpreting Studies and The Interpreters' Newsletter.
In October 2019, she gave a presentation entitled 'What goes around comes around: How interpreting practice informs research and vice versa' when she was a visiting scholar at Gallaudet University, Washington DC, United States. Here is the link to the video and transcript:
Dr. Geng Wang is a postdoctoral research fellow specializing in statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland. His research focuses on the developmental origins of health and diseases, Mendelian randomization, the genetic susceptibility of complex traits and diseases, and the advancement of statistical genetics methodologies. Proficient in bioinformatics, statistical genetics, and clinical research, he has a background in clinical medicine and the biotechnology industry.
Dr. Wang obtained his bachelor's degree in clinical medicine and master's degree in internal medicine from Second Military Medical University (Shanghai, China) in 2012 and 2016, respectively. He served as a resident physician at Changzheng Hospital, affiliated with Second Military Medical University, from 2016 to 2017, specialising in rheumatology, before being promoted to an attending doctor. During his time in Shanghai, he was invited to visit the Translational Research Institute (Australia) twice in 2016 and 2017 for bioinformatics training and collaborative research.
Driven by his growing interest in human genetics, Dr. Wang pursued a Ph.D. in statistical genetics with Professor David Evans at the University of Queensland, which he successfully completed in 2023. Since then, he has continued his research in the aforementioned areas, contributing to the field with his diverse background and expertise.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Higher Degree by Research Scholar
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Shuai Wang is a Research Officer (Postdoctoral Researcher) at ielab (led by Professor Guido Zuccon) at The University of Queensland, where he is also completing his PhD. His primary research interests include information retrieval (IR), large language models, and a range of natural language processing (NLP) tasks.
During his PhD, Shuai developed methods to automate medical systematic reviews using neural-based retrieval systems and generative models. His work includes techniques for Automatic MeSH Term Suggestion, Screening Prioritization, Seed-driven methods, and Automatic Boolean Query Formulation. He has also contributed to more effective federated search and improved model efficiency in IR and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tasks.
Shuai’s research has been published in leading IR conferences (SIGIR, ECIR, WSDM) and NLP conferences (EMNLP). He also serves as a Program Committee member for SIGIR, ECIR, ICTIR, and TOIS.
Shuai received his Bachelor’s degree from The University of Western Australia (2017–2019) and his Master’s degree from The University of Queensland (2020–2021).
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Ai Wang has been actively involved in fundamental and applied research into multiphase systems over the last 10 years in mineral and pyro-metallurgical processing. She obtained her doctor degree of Chemical Engineering in the University of Newcastle. Her research involves a combination of experimental measurement, theoretical and computational modelling (e.g. CFD) using either commercial software ANSYS or self-developed codes. Using computationally modelling methods, Dr Ai optimized the structure of flotation column; modelled the collision between particles and bubbles in the presence of turbulence; simulated the diffusion of reactant gas through coke microstructure while reacting with carbon. Using experimental methods, Ai investigated the flow field inside flotation columns using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV); examined the rise dynamics of particle-laden bubbles in pure water and in surfactant solution using high-speed camera. Ai was also involved in gasification of coke in the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under both CO2 and H2O environment wherein she developed image processing algorithms to analysis coke maceral composition and reacted microstructure. A summary of her current and past research can be found in
Examples of Dr Ai’s role as leading researchers includes the following projects: “Optimization of a cyclonic-static micro-bubble flotation column using CFD” with the National Engineering Research Centre of Coal Preparation and Purification (in China); “National 973 Key Basic Research Development Program: Basic Research of Large-Scale Quality Improvement and Utilization of Low-Quality coal" (in China); “Hydrodynamics of Flow Regime Transition in a Reflux Flotation Cell” Project 24 with Australia Research Council, Centre of Excellence for Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals, (in Australia); “Coke Reactivity with CO2 and H20 and Impacts on Coke Microstructure and Gas Diffusion” with the Centre for Ironmaking Materials Research etc. In acknowledgement of her work in the multiphase flow and reacting engineering, Dr Ai is selected to be reviewers for abstracts submitted to the 16th International Conference on Gas–Liquid and Gas–Liquid–Solid Reactor Engineering (GLS-16). She is also the lead guest editor in the Special issue "Recent Advances in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Simulation of Flotation" in the journal Minerals in MDPI publication group. Ai also co-supervised final-year graduate students. Dr Ai was also reviewer for Q1 journals such as “the Colloids and Surfaces A”, “ACS Omega” and Q2 journals such as “materials” and “powders” etc.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Sen Wang is an ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in computer science and data science at the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at UQ. He is also a CI on several health data analytics research grants. Sen has an interest in ICU data and has clinical collaborations with RBWH and Children’s Hospital. Dr Wang received his PhD degree in 2014 and his research interest includes various topics on Feature Selection, Semi-supervised Learning, Deep Learning, Pattern Recognition, Data Mining, and Health Informatics. Since 2010, Dr Wang has published 80+ academic papers in top conferences and journals. Most were published in internationally renowned journals and conferences in the fields of data science, data mining, and machine learning, such as Algorithmica, TNNLS, TMC, TKDE, TCYB, TMM, WWWJ, Signal Processing, ACM TOMM, ACM MM, IJCAI, AAAI, SDM, CIKM, CVPR, ICCV, ICDM, ISWC, ECML-PKDD, PAKDD, ICONIP, ICPADS, and WISE, all CORE A/A* journals and conferences.
Associate Professor Jie Wang completed a PhD in the field of crisis management at the University of Queensland. Her research interests are associated with risk, crisis and disaster management in tourism and hospitality. Her research focuses on how humans perceive and act in relation to risk, crisis and disaster, with the aim of understanding how behaviour changes can improve the resilience of people, organisations and tourism destinations.
Her research on enhancing crisis preparedness won the Outstanding Doctoral Research Award from the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and Emerald Publishing. Dr Wang has also received Early Career Researcher Excellence Award (in Research) from UQ Business School in 2019. She works across disciplinary boundaries including management, strategy, psychology, economics and medicine. She also works with international collaborators from North America, Europe and Asia. She has received an Australian Government grant in 2021 to establish the 'Australia-Indonesia Business Resilience Hub' focusing on tourism thriving and capability building.
Dr Wang has been actively involved in a number of teaching and learning innovation projects. In 2019, she received a Commendation for UQ Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the University of Queensland. In 2018, she received Excellence in Education Award for Enhancing Employability from UQ Faculty of Business, Economics & Law. In 2023, she has been shortlisted for UQ Awards for Excellence in Graduate Research Training, and received a UQ BEL Excellence Award in ‘Research for HDR Supervision’.
I lead the Technology-Driven Drug Discovery (Tech3D) Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ. We believe that the key to solving some of our world's biggest challenges, whether that be in medicine or agriculture, relies on the ability to precision engineer molecules at will. My group harnesses three technological pillars to engineer peptides and proteins, which are computational biology, molecular libraries, and nanotechnology. We aspire to design better drugs, creating next generation biotechnological agents that have real impact. These could be new cancer drugs that harness the body's immune system or new insecticides that are environmentally friendly. In these pursuits, we value advancement, fun, balance, respect, fairness, and integrity.
I have been involved in peptide and protein research for over two decades, and am highly experienced in bioinformatics, chemistry, structural characterization, biophysics, and biochemistry. I trained with experts in peptide and protein characterization: an Honours project with Professor Garry King at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2004), an APA scholarship with Professor David Craik at the University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Brisbane, Australia (2005-2009) and a NHMRC fellowship with Professor Mingjie Zhang at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China (2009-2011) and A/Professor Andreas Hofmann at Griffith University Eskitis Institute, Brisbane, Australia (2011-2012). I returned to the University of Queensland in 2012 to join an industry partnership funded by an ARC linkage grant. I currently hold an ARC Future Fellowship and am responsible for a team of research officers, assistants and postgraduate students.
My research output has been recognised by >30 prizes and awards for leadership, research translation and fundamental research excellence, as well as numerous invitations to speak at academic and pharmaceutical conferences. I have over 100 publications and have been cited by researchers from across the world.