Find an expert

Dr Tonkin is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland and Monash University with a background in nutrition and dietetics. She works alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers and remote communities to gain insight into the histories and structural complexities, in particular food environments and food systems, that contribute to the health outcomes experienced by remote community members. Dr Tonkin has substantial experience in food policy research, leading work determining the pathway for translation of a benchmarking approach to support healthy retail in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community food stores into national policy. She is also a nationally recognised expert in dietary assessment in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, leading work related to the Menzies Remote Short-item Dietary Assessment Tool (MRSDAT).

Dr Melinda Toomey, an optometrist and health services researcher, is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Hearing Research (CHEAR), University of Queensland. Currently, she is working on a MRFF-funded project to improve the quality of life for people with dementia and hearing and/or vision impairment. Melinda's research focus is on the development, implementation and evaluation of evidence-based, patient-centred tools and programs using an implementation science approach across a range of healthcare settings.

Melinda completed her PhD at the School of Optometry and Vision Science, UNSW, Sydney, where she was awarded a Dean's Award for Outstanding PhD Thesis. In her PhD thesis entitled, iCaretrack: Improving the Appropriateness of Australian Glaucoma Eyecare Delivery (ImAAGED), Melinda investigated barriers and enablers to care delivery and then developed a program to improve the quality of glaucoma care delivery.

A/Prof Leigh Tooth is a Principal Research Fellow who specialises in research on maternal and child health and general women's health, in particular on women carers, health inequalities and the socio-economic determinants of health, quality of life and comorbidity.

A/Prof Leigh Tooth is currently Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH). She chairs the Data Access Committee of the ALSWH. She is CI on the NHMRC funded Centre for Research Excellence on Women and Non-communicable Disease (CRE WaND): Prevention and Detection (2019–2024). She was CI on the NHMRC funded Mothers and their Children’s Health Study (MatCH) (2014-2018). MatCH is investigating the relationship between mothers’ health history, since 1996, and the family environment to children’s health and development outcomes, including health service utilisation. She is also leading a program of research into health inequalities and the socio-economic determinants of health, and women carers. Her other current research interests are quality of life and comorbidity. Her previous research experiences include a NHMRC Public Health Fellowship (1999-2003), during which she investigated the short and long term functional and community outcomes of people following stroke, and being a NHMRC Fellow with the Longitudinal Studies Unit in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland researching statistical methodology and teaching into the epidemiology program. She has a PhD and first class honours degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Queensland.

Dr Torniainen's main research interests are in the fields of biomedical signal and image processing, biophotonics, and applied spectroscopy. He holds BSc/MSc in Electrical Engineering from Aalto University (Finland, 2015) and a PhD in Applied Physics from University of Eastern Finland (Finland, 2020). He has previously worked with developing preprocessing techniques for EEG/MEG, real-time analysis methods for physiological signals (e.g., ECG/EMG/EDA), and near-infrared spectroscopy based analysis of tissue integrity for musculoskeletal tissues. His current research focus is on machine learning in image processing, analysis, and synthesis of biomedical images acquired using a combination of terahertz imaging, nano-FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy. The purpose of this study is to better understand the interaction between light and multi-layered tissues such as articular cartilage and skin.

Dr Mauro Torres is a Lecturer in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland, and leads a research group working at the interface of engineering and biology. designing living cells so that they behave in reliable, controllable ways

Background

Many of our most important medicines are made by cells, and a growing number of new treatments are living cells. Dr Torres's research changes how cells work by engineering the molecular mechanisms controlling how cells grow, produce therapeutic products, and respond to their surroundings, so they can be put to use more effectively. The same set of tools applies across very different goals: 1) Make biological medicines more efficiently, 2) Build cells that act as effective therapeutics, and 3) Develop tools for controlling gene expression. These goals focus of transforming how we make protein-, cell and gene therapeutics.

Dr Torres holds a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Manchester, and undergraduate in Chemical Engineering. His interdisciplinary background defines his approach to problems spanning the two fields. Before joining UQ, he was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, which supported the establishment of his independent research group at Manchester. His current programme extends these principles to synthetic biology and to the engineering of cells for manufacturing biologics and advanced therapies, with industrial partnership as main focus for translating research into manufacturing settings.

Dr Torres welcomes new academic collaborations and enquiries from prospective research students.

Research areas

• Mammalian synthetic biology including designing genetic circuits that confer predictable, controllable behaviour on mammalian cells.
• Metabolic and secretory engineering for reprogramming cellular metabolism and the secretory pathway to improve the production of complex biologics in industrial cell lines.
• Cell engineering for advanced therapies including stem cells for enhancing their immunomodulatory function and therapeutic output.
• Biomanufacturing of cell and gene therapies for improving the production of the cells and viral vectors used in advanced therapeutic products.

Collaboration and supervision

Dr Torres actively seeks new academic collaborations, both within his field and across disciplines, and is particularly interested in working with researchers in immunology, disease biology, clinical translation, bioprocessing, and computational modelling. He also welcomes applications from prospective PhD and MPhil students with backgrounds in engineering, biotechnology, or the molecular life sciences. Enquiries, accompanied by a curriculum vitae and a brief statement of research interests, are warmly received.

​Dr Tosolini is a cell biologist with a focus at the intersection of axonal transport, neurotrophic factors, motor neurons and skeletal muscle, in the context of motor neuron disease (MND)/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). His research to date has focused on utilising the connectivity between skeletal muscle and motor neurons for the enhanced delivery of therapeutic agents to the spinal cord (e.g., viral-mediated gene therapy). Building upon these foundations, his postdoctoral training focused on defining the axonal transport dynamics in a number of different experimental conditions, including stimulation with different neurotrophic factors (e.g., BDNF, GDNF), α motor neuron subtypes (i.e., fast motor neurons vs slow motor neurons), and alterations to such factors in MND/ALS pathology.

Dr Tosolini has joined the laboratories of A/Prof. Shyuan Ngo (AIBN) and Dr. Derek Steyn (SBMS) to undertake a novel project looking at assessing a novel therapeutic compound in mouse models of ALS, and in as well as in ALS patient-derived muscle cultures. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Giovanni Nardo at Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology, Department of Neuroscience, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri IRCCS, Milan, Italy.

​Dr Tosolini completed his PhD in 2015 in the discipline of Anatomy at the School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales (UNSW). His PhD project focused on characterising the connectivity between various skeletal muscles and their innervating motor neuron pools, to optimally deliver agents (e.g., retrograde tracers, virus) to the spinal cord motor neurons via retrograde axonal transport. For the work produced in his PhD, Dr Tosolini was awarded a place on the Faculty of Medicine's Dean's List.

In 2016, Dr Tosolini joined the Schiavo Laboratory at University College London (UCL), UK as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate to undertake a project focused on: 1) understanding factors influencing axonal transport dynamics in distinct in vitro and in vivo models of motor neuron disease (MND)/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and 2) revealing the signalling elements governing neuronal trans-synaptic transfer.

In 2020, Dr Tosolini was awarded a Junior Non-Clinical Post-Doctoral Fellowship by the Motor Neuron Disease Association, UK to expand his work on evaluating axonal transport dynamics in mouse models of motor neuron disease (MND) as well as in diverse human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived motor neurons. This project is a direct continuation of my post-doctoral training in the Schiavo laboratory, and included a novel collaboration with Prof. Rickie Patani (Francis Crick Institute, London, UK), to evaluate axonal transport dynamics of diverse organelles in mouse and human models of MND/ALS.

Professor István Tóth is Chair in Biological Chemistry at The University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia, and Affiliated Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences, UQ. He graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University, Budapest, Hungary and was awarded his PhD for his Alkaloid Chemistry research. Professor Tóth undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at Carleton University, Ottawa Canada before returning to Hungary to work as a Research Associate, then Scientific Group Leader at the Central Research Institute for Chemistry, Hungarian Academy of Science. He joined the School of Pharmacy at the University of London in 1987 as a Senior Lecturer and Royal Society sponsored Senior Research Fellow. He became a Reader in Medicinal Organic Chemistry in 1994 and was awarded a Doctor of Science degree (DSc 1994) for his work in Drug Delivery (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), before relocating to the University of Queensland in 1998 where he has built a productive research group. Professor Tóth was a visiting professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of London (1994-2004) and at the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Science, University of California, San Francisco (2011-2013). Professor Tóth’s major research interests are: drug delivery, immunoadjuvants, carbohydrates, lipids, peptides, nucleosides, and nucleotides. This research has attracted over $85 million in competitive grants, research contracts and investment funds in the past 10 years. Professor Tóth has over 500 peer-reviewed publications, 45 patents, and an excellent track record in research commercialisation. He is a one of key founders of Alchemia, Implicit Bioscience Pty Ltd, Neurotide Pty Ltd and TetraQ (the commercial arm of Centre of Integrated Preclinical Drug Development). Professor Tóth is an elected RACI Fellow and Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. and Feklloiw of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (since 2016) In 2009 he was awarded the Adrian Albert award for sustained and outstanding research in medicinal biochemistry, and a Business/Higher Education Round Table (BHERT) Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Collaborative Research and Development he obtained the Doctor Honoris Causa degree at Semmelweis university budapest Hungary (2019). Professor Tóth was appointed as a member of the ARC College of Experts (2008-2010). He was the founding (2007) then the elected (2008-2009) President of the Australian Chapter of Controlled Release Society.

Stephen Townsend is a lecturer in sport sociocultural studies with the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. Stephen joined HMNS in 2019 after completing his PhD in Sport History. His current research examines social, cultural, and historical aspects of sports concussion.

His previous research has interrogated the ways that racial, religious, gendered, and political ideologies are transmitted through sports media, in addition to digital history epistemologies. He has published widely in academic journals and books, with his most recent publications analysing historical representations on sports concussion in the Australian newspaper press. His teaching and research interests span multiple spheres of sport and culture, as he seeks to critically understand the ways that people have historically constructed and transmitted meaning through sport and physical activity.

Juha Töyräs holds a position of Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland. He is also is the Head of Research and Innovation, Kuopio University Hospital and Wellbeing Services County of North Savo, and Professor of Medical Physics and Engineering, University of Eastern Finland. He has a PhD degree in the field of medical physics and his research is focused on medical devices and sensors, medical imaging, medical signal processing and connective tissue biomechanics. Since 2004, he has been the Vice/Co-Head of the Biophysics of Bone and Cartilage research group and Co-Head of the Sleep Technology and Analytics group since it was founded in January 2017 at the Department of Applied Physics, University of Eastern Finland. The groups are relatively large (three professors, c.20 research fellows and postdocs and >60 PhD students) and productive (>750 full papers and >80 PhD theses during the last 20 years). Professor Töyräs holds research grants from various European and Australian sources. He has published 323 peer-reviewed full scientific papers and numerous abstracts in international scientific meetings. In addition, he has completed supervision of 52 PhD students and number of MSc students. His papers have been cited over 14000 times and his Hirsch-index is 63 (Google Scholar). Currently, Professor Toyras supervises (University of Eastern Finland, The University of Queensland) c.20 PhD-students and number of research fellows in various fields of biomedical engineering. In addition to scientific publications and supervised academic theses, his work has led to patents and commercialization of scientific innovations. One example of this line of research is the development of a forehead EEG-electrode set for emergency medicine. The Bittium BrainStatus EEG-electrode set is patented, CE-approved and currently in global market (https://www.bittium.com/products_services/medical/bittium_brainstatus).

I am Hao Tran, a Teaching Associate in Applied Linguistics at the School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Australia. I joined the University of Queensland (UQ) in early 2019. During my time at UQ, I’ve received the Teaching Award (Tutor) from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) in 2024 and was also shortlisted for the UQ Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Learning and Student Learning (COCSL) (Tutor) in the same year. I'm currently serving as an Associate Editor for TESOL in Context, the official journal of Australian Council for TESOL Associations (ACTA), and also a member of Editorial Board for Technology in Language Teaching and Learning Journal (since 2025). I served as the Review Editor for the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL) (2024-2025) and have been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) since 2021.

I am currently coordinating Academic English and Thesis Writing (WRIT6001), Introduction to Second Language Learning and Teaching (SLAT7001) in the Applied Linguistics Program, and Second Language Learning (SLAT2001) in the English as an International Language (EIL) major. In addition to these courses, I have extensive teaching experience in other Applied Linguistics subjects, including Teaching Languages in a Global Context (SLAT7826), Second Language Acquisition (SLAT7805), Second Language Writing (SLAT7827), and Classroom Second Language Processes: Theory, Research and Practice (SLAT7807).

Regarding my academic background, I hold a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Griffith University (2019) and a Master of Applied Linguistics (TESOL) (Advanced) from the University of Queensland (2013). Before joining UQ as an ongoing Teaching Associate, I also worked as a casual unit coordinator at the University of New England for Research Methods in Applied Linguistics (LING561) and Applied Linguistics Research Practice (LING567). I also worked as a sessional at Griffith University (2016-2017), where I also served as International Student Officer for Griffith University Postgraduate Student Association (GUPSA) during this time.

I am originally from Vietnam, where I completed my Bachelor’s degree in English Language Education at Vinh University and became a tenured English lecturer here. At Vinh University, in addition to my lecturing role in the English Language Pedagogy major in the Department of Foreign Languages, I also served as Convenor for the Joint Program for International Students (including students from Laos and Thailand, 2011-2012), and as Head of the Department Youth Union (2010-2011). As a BA student at Vinh University, I received the Golden Prize at the Vietnam National Teaching Pedagogy Contest (2008) and was named one of the Vietnamese Talents in 2009. I was the top student in the Faculty and among the top students across the university for four consecutive years, and received numerous university and provincial awards for academic excellence and social contributions (e.g., leading international volunteering programs,...).

Funding/ Award:

• Best Article Award 2024 - Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, The Applied Linguistics Association of Australia
• Teaching Excellence Award (Tutor), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS), 2024
• School Values Award (2023) - School of Languages and Cultures Values Award, University of Queensland, Australia
• Griffith University Fully Funded Award for PhD Research (2015-2019), Griffith University, Australia
• Vietnamese Government Fully Funded Award for MA Study (2012-2013), The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), Vietnam
• Vietnamese Youth Talent (2009) - The Central Youth Union of Vietnam
• Golden Prize Award (for "Content" Division) (2008) - Vietnam National Teaching Contest for Pedagogical Students, The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), Vietnam

Grants

• School of Languages and Cultures Grant: Students’ self-regulation of machine learning and generative AI tools for English for Academic Purposes - Lead of the project
• School of Languages and Cultures Grant: AI and Feedback in Academic Writing - Collaborator of the project

Supervision:

I am available for MA thesis supervision. My current research interests include:

• Teacher education including teacher agency, teacher identity, and teacher professional development
• Student engagement and Teacher engagement
• EAP-related teaching and learning, including CALL integration and MT/GenAI-assisted learning
• Language policy and planning
• Vietnamese heritage language