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Associate Professor Zigan Wang is an economist and interdisciplinary researcher whose work bridges economics, business, and computer science. His research focuses on applied microeconomics, international and environmental economics, political economy, econometrics, and emerging technologies such as computer vision and generative adversarial networks (GANs).

Dr. Wang earned his Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. from Columbia University, following a B.A. from Tsinghua University. He has published in leading economics and business journals including Management Science, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of International Economics, etc. and leading computer science conferences including CVPR and KDD. His recent work explores international economics, corporate finance, econometrics, statistics, computer vision and knowledge graph. His research has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Bureau van Dijk Prize in Corporate Finance at the UNSW Australian Finance and Banking Conference (2018, 2021) and the Faculty Research Postgraduate Supervision Award at The University of Hong Kong (2021, 2022). Dr. Wang has also secured competitive research grants, such as the Hong Kong General Research Fund (three times) and China National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.

As an active member of professional societies like the American Economic Association, American Finance Association, European Finance Association, Econometric Society, ACM, and IEEE, Dr. Wang welcomes students interested in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of economics, business and computer science.

Besides his pipeline research on foreign exchange and corporate business management, Associate Professor Zigan Wang's current research interests are mainly as follows:

1. Graphical neural network analysis of systematic financial risks in economic networks.
2. Analysis of financial data security and privacy computing across financial institutions.
3. Computational analysis of business- and genomics-related data.

Biography:

Professor Lianzhou Wang FAA FTSE is Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellow at the School of Chemical Engineering, Director of Nanomaterials Centre (Nanomac), and Senior Group Leader of Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. He received his PhD degree from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Before joining UQ in 2004, he has worked at two leading national research institutions (NIMS and AIST) of Japan as a research fellow for five years. Since joining UQ, he has worked as ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow (2006), Senior Lecturer (2007), Associate Professor (2010), Professor (2012-now) and ARC Future Fellow (2012-16), and is now an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow at the Chemical Engineering School and AIBN.

Research:

Professor Wang's research focuses on the synthesis, characterisation and application of semiconductor nanomaterials for use in renewable energy conversion/storage systems including photocatalytsts for solar hydrogen and valuable chemical production, rechargeable batteries and low cost solar cells. In the past 20 years at UQ, as a Chief Investigator, he has attracted a large number of competitive research funds from ARC, CRC, CSIRO and industry. Prof. Wang has contributed 3 edited books, 14 edited book chapters, more than 600 journal publications (including top ranking journals such as Science, Nature Energy, Natue Nanotech, Nature Rev. Mater., Chem. Rev., Chem Soc. Rev., Nature Commmun, Angew. Chem., Adv. Mater., J. Am Chem. Soc., etc.), filed 20 patents and delivered over 130 plenary/keynote/invited presentations. His publications have received >61,000 citations with a H-index of 131 (Google Scholar). Prof. Wang is serving as Editor/Associate Editor/Editorial Board member of more than 10 international journals including Advanced Materials (Wiley Publishing group, Impact factor 32.09). He is named on the list of the Clarivate’ Highly Cited Researchers (Top 0.1% researcher in the world).

Prof. Wang has won a number of prestigious Fellowships/awards including STA Fellowship of Japan, ARC QEII Fellowship of 2006, UQ Research Excellence Award of 2008, Scopus Young Researcher Award of 2011, ARC Future Fellowship of 2012, UQ Research Supervision Award of 2018, ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship of 2019, Research Excellence Award in Chemcial Engieering of 2019, and ARC Industry Laureate Fellowship of 2024.

Prof. Wang is the elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA), the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (FTSE), Academia Europaea (MAE) and Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). On professional services, he serves as the chair of National Committee for Materials Science and Engineering, Australian Academy of Sciences, and the President of Australian Materials Research Society.

Teaching and RHD supervision activities

• Lecturer of second year undergraduate core course CHEE2003 Fluid & Particle Mechanics and fourth year engineering course CHEE4301 Nanomaterials and Their Characterisation
• Research Supervision: 45 RHDs awarded, current supervisor/co-supervisor of ~20 PhD students & 15 Postdoctoral Fellows/Research Fellows/Senior Research Fellows.

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.

Dr Yuan Wang is interested in functional materials and device manufacturing to address biomedical challenges. He is currently an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow at the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, where he collaborates with a multinational medical device manufacturer to develop advanced manufacturing solutions for personalised medical devices.

Yuan's research has attracted >3300 peer citations from 79 countries. 54.5% of his papers are the global top 10% most cited papers, and 97% were published in Q1 journals including 10 in prestigious Nature-indexed journals. He has published 4 in Adv. Mater. (IF=27.4), 2 in Adv. Energy Mater. (IF=27.8), 2 in J. Am. Chem. Soc. (IF=14.5), 3 in Chem. Eng. J. (IF=13.4), Adv. Funct. Mater. (IF=18.99), ACS Nano (IF=15.8), Biomaterials (IF=12.8), Bioact. Mater. (IF=18), Addit. Manuf. (IF=10.3), Curr. Opin. Solid State Mater. Sci. (IF=12.2), Nano Energy (IF=16.8), Small (IF=13), Nano Today (IF=13.2), J. Magnes. Alloys (IF=15.8), and Acta Biomater. (IF=9.7). He also contributes to his field as a regular reviewer for leading journals such as Prog. Mater. Sci. (IF=33.6) and Adv. Mater (IF=27.4). As the lead/solo CI, Yuan has secured competitive grant funding totalling >$500,000. He has been awarded several research excellence and leadership awards.

Yuan conducted his PhD at UniSQ working on thermoelectrics and graduated in 2020 with the UniSQ Research Excellence Award (supervisor: Prof Zhigang Chen). He obtained his bachelor's degree in Metallurgical Engineering from Northeastern University (China) in 2016, with his third year at UQ where he received the Dean’s Commendation for Academic Excellence Award.

Yuan is a lecturer for two UQ courses, where he has received high SECaT scores for his teaching quality and student engagement. He is also responsible for a variety of supervision and administration/service duties.

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).

Professor James Ward is a Pitjantjatjara and Narungga man, and a national leader in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. He is currently the Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Queensland. As such he leads a research program focused on urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and an infectious diseases research program and associated issues. Having held various roles in Aboriginal public health policy for both government and non-government organisations, in 2007 he was appointed as the Inaugural Program Head of the Aboriginal Program at the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales. In 2012 he moved to Alice Springs to become Deputy Director of the Baker Institutes' Aboriginal Health Program, after which he joined the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. James has been awarded funding applications totalling $23M since 2013; including $7.14M as CIA on NHMRC funded grants and has authored 160 publications. He has led national research projects on health services research http://cre-ash.org.au/participating-sites/clinical-hubs/; in health promotion www.youngdeadlyfree.org.au; and methamphetamines https://wecandothis.com.au/ to name a few.

His work has influenced policy and practice significantly contributing to national guidelines, policy and practice. During 2020 he has contributed to the national COVID—19 response nationally through membership of the Communicable Diseases Network of Australia and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander COVID-19 Taskforce.

Dr Aletha Ward (PhD, MBA, BNurs, RN, GAICD, FACN, MAPNA)

Dr Aletha Ward is a Senior Research Fellow at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Queensland. A highly respected Registered Nurse, academic, and policy leader, she has extensive experience in climate health policy, and health equity. Her work focuses on advancing health outcomes through research, advocacy, and policy reform, particularly in addressing the health impacts of climate change for those most at risk. Dr Ward is currently leading work in climate adaptation within primary healthcare, with a focus on nurse-led interventions.

Aletha has been instrumental in embedding planetary health principles within national nursing curriculum. Dr Ward holds several national leadership roles, including Chair of the Climate and Health Faculty at the Australian College of Nursing, Board Director for the Climate and Health Alliance, and Climate and Health representative for the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association. She has served as an expert witness at Senate inquiries, presented at the World Health Organization, and is widely recognised for her contributions to public health policy in climate and health, both nationally and internationally.

Andrew Ward is an ARC Industry Fellow at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology (ACWEB), at The University of Queensland. He holds a PhD degree from the School of Chemical Engineering (The University of Adelaide) and his thesis focused on the optimisation of halophilic anaerobic digestion of algal biomass. At ACWEB projects he has worked on include Nutrient recovery via electrodialysis and Anammox for both domestic wastewater and agricultural wastewater treatment. He previously received an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to investigate the use of algae and bacterial aggregated flocs for the remediation of wastewater. Andrew has just received and ARC Industry Fellowship to investigate the use of microalgae and its role in energy and nutrient recovery from a circular economy perspective. Andrew has significant industrial experience working with large water utilities and industry partners scaling up research to pilot and demonstration scale. Andrew is currently lead investigator and manages Urban Utilities wastewater microalgae research program.

Prof Ward's research program has focused on adult acute services, including head and neck cancer management, critical care, and general dysphagia management. She conducts research into improving services, evaluating new models of care and new workforce models, digital service delivery models eg., telehealth, as well as clinical training models eg., simulation. Liz is also engaged in exploring the role and benefits of the clinician-researcher workforce within health services.

Prof Ward currently holds a joint position as the Director of the Centre for Functioning and Health (CFAHR), in Metro South Hospital and Health Service, Queensland Health, and, Conjoint Professor with the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland. Her research has a clinical focus with particular emphasis on projects designed to improve patient outcomes within health services. She has published extensively with over 450 publications to date and has a track record of competitive grant funding across a number of research fields. Liz has been awarded multiple UQ teaching awards and has supervised >40 students to successful completion of their research higher degree. In 2014 Liz was awarded the title of Fellow of Speech Pathology Australia in recognition of her contributions to the profession.

Dr David Ward is a Research Fellow in ageing and geriatric medicine at the Centre for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine. David is particularly interested in how people’s experiences, behaviours and health conditions can affect their chances of developing dementia as they grow older. A key component of his research is aimed at understanding the complex links between ageing, frailty and the brain.

David conducted his PhD at the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, University of Tasmania, and graduated in 2015. This work centred on exploring modifiable (e.g. education level) and non-modifiable (e.g. genetics) risks for ageing-related cognitive decline within the Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project. David subsequently held postdoctoral research positions at Population Health Sciences, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE, Bonn Germany)—where he investigated the viability of retinal biomarkers for cognitive functioning, among other topics—and Geriatric Medicine Research, Dalhousie University (Halifax Canada)—where he measured the relationships between frailty and the subsequent risks of mild cognitive impairment and dementia. After returning to Australia and prior to starting at The University of Queensland, David worked for two years as a Team Leader at the Ageing and Aged Care Unit, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (Canberra Australia).

Since 2020 and resulting from David’s international postdoctoral positions, he has published three articles as first-author in world-leading journals: Neurology; the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry; and Annals of Neurology. David has won an award from the Erica Bell Foundation for Excellence in Medical Research and has acted as a peer-review for 15 journals and as an External Grant Assessor for NHMRC Project Grants. David was one of four academic developers who created the Preventing Dementia MOOC (~100,000 completers and ranked 4.9/5.0 on Class Central) and in 2018 was invited to be a guest lecturer at the University of Bonn, Bonn International Graduate School. David is a member of the DEMON Network and is the current Chair of the Network's Frailty and Dementia Special Interest Group.

Nicola Warren is a neuropsychiatrist, Queensland Director of Psychiatry Training and the Mental Health Course Coordinator for the Medical School. In 2018, she established the Neuropsychiatric Service at Metro South Addiction and Mental Health Services focusing on the psychiatric care of those with severe movement disorders, epilepsy and autoimmune encephalitis. She has undertaken a PhD in psychiatric clinical decision making in anti-NMDAR encephalitis and has been an international and national invited speaker in the area of autoimmune encephalitis. Nicola was awarded the Australian fellowship to the World Psychiatric Association 2020 and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Early Career Psychiatrist in 2019.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland
• Fellow of the Aus & NZ College of Psychiatrists (Certificate Consultation Liaison Psychiatry)
• Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, James Cook University

Dr Nicole Warrington is a NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience. She has a strong background in statistical genetics and has been actively working towards understanding the genetic determinants of early life growth. Dr Warrington studied a Bachelor of Science at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, majoring in Mathematical Statistics and Psychology. She then completed an honours degree at The University of Western Australia, where she developed a keen interest for genetics, and was subsequently awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award to complete her PhD in statistical genetics and life-course epidemiology. During her PhD she spent time at the University of Toronto to gain experience in statistical modelling methods for longitudinal growth trajectories and conducted the first genome-wide association study of longitudinal growth trajectories over childhood. After completing her PhD, Dr Warrington started at the University of Queensland and focused on using genetics to inform about the relationship between birth weight and cardio-metabolic diseases in later life. She pioneered a new statistical method to partition genetic effects on birth weight into maternal and fetal components, and combined this method with a causal modelling approach, Mendelian randomization. This method was instrumental in demonstrating the relationship between birth weight and adult hypertension is driven by genetic effects, over-turning 30 years of research into the effects of intrauterine programming. More recently, her research focus has broadened to determine whether rapid weight growth across early life, including fetal development, childhood and adolescence, causally increases risk of cardio-metabolic disease and in doing so, hopes to identify optimal times across the life-course where interventions could reduce the incidence of cardio-metabolic diseases.