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Associate Professor Andries Potgieter is a Principal Research Fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at the University of Queensland. He currently leads and mentor a team of researchers in the areas of seasonal climate forecasting, remote and proximal sensing with applications in the development of crop production outlooks and less risk prone cropping systems across Australia, producing highly cited publications.

With over 30 years of experience, A/Prof Potgieter’s main research interest is in the complex integration of remote sensing technologies, spatial production modelling, climate forecasting systems at a regional scale. In particular, his interest targets agricultural research that enhances the profitability and sustainability of spatial production systems through a better understanding of the linkages and interactions of such systems across a range of spatial (e.g. field, farm, catchment, national), and temporal (i.e. seasons to decades) scales. He is a leader in the field of quantitative eco-physiological systems modelling and has successfully built up a national and international recognised research profile with strong linkages to industry (farmer groups, insurance, seed companies and bulk handlers of commodities) and domestic and national agencies (State governments, ABARES and ABS) as well as international linkages with Ag-Food Canada, Maryland University, USDA, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) including the UN and FAO.

Recent research projects

• Spatial and image analysis modelling specifically, phenotyping of sorghum breeding plots through drones and pheno mobile platforms (funded by ARC Centre of Excellence in Translational Photosynthesis)
• Regional commodity forecasting and crop area estimates for winter and summer crops across the main broad cropping region of Australia (supported by QLD Government)
• Development of a model to predict and determine the Genetic by Environment characterization of Late Maturity Alpha Amylase (LMA) risk across Australia (GRDC funded)

Previous research

• Benchmarking and developing of novel metrics for the Insurance industry for hedging farmer’s risk against crop failures due to water stress within a shire)
• Determining crop water stress within the thermal – crop canopy space at field scale.
• Determining of food insecure “hotspots” for the SIMELSA project that provided a baseline analysis to help identify highly vulnerable regions across eastern Africa and listing of relevant and actionable issues of potentially high impact for research, development and increased investment.

Gilbert Price is a Senior Lecturer in Palaeontology at The University of Queensland. He is a vertebrate palaeoecologist and geochronologist, particularly interested in the evolution and emergence of our planet’s unique ecosystems and fauna, and their response to prehistoric climatic changes. His major research focus has been on the development of palaeoecological models for Australia’s Cenozoic, especially the Quaternary megafauna. Critically, this also involves the production of reliably-dated records for the fossils that he studies. You can follow Gilbert on Twitter (@TheFatWombat) and read his reserach blog at www.diprotodon.com.

Dr David Pullar's research interests are in: Geographical Information Science (Spatial analysis, Spatial modelling languages and frameworks, 3D visualisation, Environmental database applications) and Landscape Modelling (Catchment hydrology, Landuse change, Landscape dynamics).

David Pullar received his PhD from the University of Maine in 1994. His current research projects are in the fields of:

Incorporating Level Set Methods in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for Land-Surface Process ModellingUsing Spatial Simulation to Create a Process Classification of Provincial BioregionsEnvironmental Database Management and IntegrationHis collaborators include:Coastal CRCIntelligent Real-time Imaging and Sensing (IRIS)The Ecology CentreHigh Performance Computing, VisAC Lab

Cassandra is a Senior Research Fellow at QAEHS, joining the group in 2019. She completed her PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2014 where her research focussed on determining how humans are exposed to flame retardants from their indoor environments. Following her PhD she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Environment and Climate Change Canada where she was the principal researcher for the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) Network, researching chemicals of concern in the atmosphere. Following her Postdoctoral Fellowship she worked for the Oil Sands Monitoring Program in Canada, assisting with facilitating a multi-stakeholder funding program for assessing environmental impact of Oil Sands operations, before returning to Australia in 2019.

At QAEHS she is the project lead investigating human exposure to microplastics and developing new methods for detecting micro and nanoplastics in human matrices. Her other research interests include the impact of tyre road wear particles and the chemical additives they contain on urban water ways, and developing novel biomonitoring methods for assessing human exposure to chemicals of concern (e.g. silicone wristbands and breast implants).

Saphira is a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sustainable Finance at The University of Queensland, Australia, and has a PhD in Finance. She is a leading scholar in the field of corporate Paris Compliance measurement and is a leading academic involved in developing science-based emission reduction methodologies.

Saphira's research focuses on tools to measure and verify the efficacy of decarbonisation commitments by corporations and financial institutions, a cross-disciplinary research area of increasing global relevance. During her 4 month secondment at Princeton University in 2019 she co-developed the Rapid Switch Australia project, as part of the Princeton-led Rapid Switch initiative. She now leads the Are You Paris Compliant program, composed of academics from UQ, Oxford and Princeton, which evaluates the alignment of companies and investment portfolios with the Paris Agreement. Saphira is a member of the Technical Working Group of the Science Based Targets initiative for the oil and gas sector, where she continues to advise and develop appropriate methodologies for science-based targets, as well as the Scientific Advisory Group. She has also been a key contributor to the EU climate benchmarking regulation, which her contribution to quantifying the benchmark is still intact after several revisions and is one of the key outcomes of the new regulation. Saphira's research is cross-disciplinary and she has published in high impact journals such Nature Climate Change and Nature Communications, as well as several other highly ranked academic journals. Her 2022 article in Nature Communications has gained global attention and led to a collaborative project with Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages one of the largest funds globally, to evaluate the steel sector on their Paris Compliance. She has ongoing collaborations with numerous industry partners and is a CI on six successful grants (total $780,074.26).

Saphira has received several awards; most recently she received a prestigious Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from the Australian Research Council of over $430,000 AUD for 2024-2027. She was awarded the UQ Business School Excellence in PRME award; she received the “Best Paper Award 2021” from the highly ranked journal Business & Society, and she received the “UQBS Excellence in Innovation” Award for co-leading Australia’s first Carbon Literacy course. She also won the UN Responsible Investment’s essay competition in 2018 (on the integration of responsible investment in financial education); the UQ Business School 2017 Teaching Award (Tutor) and she was a recipient of the prestigious International Post-graduate Research Scholarships for her PhD in 2014. Saphira is passionate about teaching; her teaching evaluations are consistently outstanding, she has participated in four Student-Staff Partnership projects, designed a core first year finance course, has publised two UQ pressbooks and has been actively supervising honours, Masters and PhD students, as well as post-doctorals and student industry projects. She is also a regular panellist at conferences and forums such as the European Commission Conference on Sustainable Finance and the Princeton E-ffiliates Retreat.

Saphira is also the selected UQ academic staff representative for Unisuper (188/211 votes) since 2020; she intensively coached a team of UQ students that won second place in the Global Business Challenge in 2019 ($15,000); she advocated for, and integrated, Environmental, Social and Governance factors in the Student Management Investment Fund and served as ESG advisor prior to co-leading the fund. She serves as a regular reviewer for the top-journals Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability and Nature Communications.

Louisa is a hydrogeologist with twenty years of experience. She has had a diverse career working in research, consulting, and government. Louisa’s main areas of expertise include hydrogeological investigations, impact assessment, groundwater resource management, and contaminated land management. She has worked across a range of sectors including mining, energy, transport, and agriculture and her experience includes developing water resources legislation and policy and leading complex groundwater and surface water investigations for project approvals, operations, and compliance.

Louisa is currently working as a Senior Research Fellow (Hydrogeology) at the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry (CWiMI). The role involves leading the hydrogeological research, training, and consulting services that CWiMI provide to the minerals industry in Australia and globally and working with a team of water resource management specialists to contribute to a range of inter-discplinary projects. She has recently completed a project for The Australian National University developing draft National Guidelines for Groundwater Monitoring in Australia.

Research interest: Monitoring ecosystem health of coral reefs and seagrass habitats, integrating field and remote sensing image datasets, and the developing applied cost-effective mapping and monitoring approaches. Developed approaches have been adopted as standard practice globally, making a difference in conservation of these valuable habitats. The long term monitoring studies at Heron and Moreton Bay formed the basis for the development of mapping and monitoring over time and space at local to global scale. See here major research impact

Major projects:

• Long term monitoring of benthic composition at Heron Reef (2002-ongoing).
• Long term monitoring of seagrass composition and abundance in Moreton bay Marine Park (2000-ongoing).
• Smart Sat CRC Hyperspectral Remote Sensing of Seagrass and Coral Reefs 2023-2027.
• Developement of Underwater Field Spectrometry and Benthic Photo Collection and Analysis
• 3D GBR Habitat Mapping Project 2015 - ongoing:
• Global habitat mapping project 2019-2023 Allen Coral Atlas .

Current position: Associate Professior in Marine Remote Sensing leading the Marine Ecosystem Monitoring Lab. . Academic Director Heron Island Research Station and affiliated researchers with Centre for Marine Science and Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science

Capacity Building and Citizen Science: Capacity: under/post graduate courses; Msc/PhD supervision, workshops/courses; Remote Sensing Educational Toolkit, and online courses (e.g. TNC).Strong supporter of citizen science based projects, as trainer, organiser and advisor for Reef Check Australia, CoralWatch, Great Reef Census and UniDive.

Gideon Rosenbaum's research interests are in the fields of structural geology and tectonics. He is particularly interested in the geodynamics of convergent plate margins.

BSc, Hebrew University, 1997; MSc, Hebrew University, 1999; PhD, Monash University, 2004.

Dr Narottam Saha is specialized in the area of environmental analytical chemistry and geochemistry, with Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Applied Chemistry and Chemical Technology, a second Masters Degree (Distinction) in Environmental Sciences ( University of East Anglia, UEA, UK), and PhD in geochemistry (The University of Queensland). In his Masters study, Saha received a commonwealth scholarship, one of the most prestigious international scholarship schemes, for Master Degree in Environmental Sciences, with special emphasis on Clumped Isotope geochemistry and climate science. In 2014, Saha received Australia’s federal government scholarship (IPRS) for undertaking his PhD degree. Saha’s research achievements were well recognised with awards of Stanley Gray Fellowship from Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST, UK) for coral reef research and National Science and Information & Communication Technology (NSICT) Fellowship (2010) from Government of Bangladesh for heavy metal pollution research.

His multidisciplinary research experiences include biogeochemistry of heavy metals, assessment of carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks for the population exposed to heavy metals, clumped isotopes geochemistry in recovering palaeo-climate history and developing trace element proxies in coral carbonate skeleton to trace historical gradients of inshore coastal water quality. His PhD research highlights the potential of self-referencing rare earth elements over traditional trace elemental proxies for reconstructing marine water quality, degradation of which is considered as one of the major threats in declining the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) coral community. He has been the first to have discovered a noble V/Ca proxy, which is decoupled from other commonly used runoff proxies, for monitoring historical catchment clearing and firing in coastal areas. His discovery has direct relevance to environmental protection for reefs in the GBR through promoting better land management with improved water quality.

Dr Steve Salisbury is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Queensland, where he is head of the UQ Dinosaur Lab and Chair of First Nations Engagement. He is also Research Associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, Associate Editor for the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and a Scientific Board member of the Jurassic Foundation.

Steve studied biology and geology at the University of Sydney, receiving the Edgeworth David Award for Palaeontology in 1993. He then moved to the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he completed his Honours thesis on fossil crocodilians from Murgon, south-eastern Queensland. Continuing at the UNSW, Steve travelled to Germany and the UK to complete a PhD on crocodilian locomotor evolution. He returned to Australia in 2000 to pursue a life-long dream of searching for Australian dinosaurs, and joined The University of Queensland in 2003 as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

Steve's research focuses on the evolution of Gondwanan continental vertebrates, in particular dinosaurs and crocodilians. He is also interested in vertebrate biomechanics and using extant animals to better understand the anatomy, behaviour and evolution of extinct ones. His field-based research takes him to various parts of Queensland, the Kimberley, New Zealand and Antarctica.

Katerina is a geologist with a specialization in hyperspectral data analysis as applied to mineral identification and interpretation, with big data integration. She has 15 years of hands-on experience working on both ground-breaking research and commercial activities for greenfield, brownfield and mining projects of various scales around the world. While with Corescan, she pioneered innovation in hyperspectral data acquisition, interpretation, and presentation. She developed and interpreted the results of complex algorithms associated with various mineral hyperspectral signatures. As part of her work, she contributed to geochemical and geotechnical research as applied to hydrothermal mineral alteration patterns associated with several world-class deposits, deposit delineation initiatives, new exploration projects, as well as geoenvironmental studies of acid-rock drainage and mining waste characterization. In her earlier roles, as an exploration geologist, she worked on uranium deposits in Canada, the USA, and Australia, with a focus on the system controls and definition of hydrothermal alteration mineral zonation and spatial patterns. Currently, Katerina is collaborating on several long-term projects with different challenges related to geological and mining industries at the W.H. Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre, SMI including critical minerals research, mineral and textural characterization as applied to mine waste and tailings, as well as development of educational material and short-course delivery. Specific areas of research and interest include:

• Hydrothermal alteration mineralogy and its characterization using high-resolution hyperspectral data in combination with other micro-analytical techniques
• Remote sensing techniques and data interpretation
• Detailed investigation of a variety of geological environments and mineral deposit settings including epithermal, unconformity-associated uranium, orogenic gold, porphyry, skarn, as well as IOCG
• Minerals and mineral groups, their chemical composition and variations, recognizing hydrothermal alteration patterns and identifying vectors to mineralization
• Establishment of new mineralogical and hyperspectral reflectance tools for drill core characterization for various mining applications

Nicki is a marine conservation scientist in the Centre for Policy Futures and an Adjunt in the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, where she focuses on how conservation and biodiversity outcomes can be improved by interfacing science with policy using novel approaches and decision-support tools. Her expertise is in coastal and marine restoration planning and policy, conservation and impact mitigation at the land-sea interface, and marine biodiversity offsets and net gain policy. She is currently the Regulatory Lead for the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), a partnership between the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), funded by the Commonwealth Reef Trust. She co-leads a National Environmental Science Program (NESP) on de-risking nature repair in Australia. She previously co-led another National Environmental Science Program (NESP) project on identifying and overcoming the legal barriers to marine and coastal restoration.

I am a professional geologist with over 30 years of technical and managerial experience, working for large organisations such as Vale and BHP Billiton, participating and managing complex projects in South America, Australia, and West Africa. Skilled in leading technical services and geological exploration for underground and open pit mines, my career experience includes exploration, mine geology and resource estimations of multiple commodities, geometallurgical studies, mine-to-mill reconciliations, project management and project evaluation.

I have a profound interest in earth sciences and mining. The development and training of junior professionals and geoscientists was one of my passions in the industry. Both interests led me to recently join the academia. My research interests are in the areas of economic geology, exploration geochemistry, geometallurgy and ore body modelling.

Dr Ekaterina Strounina is a Solid State NMR facility manager in the Centre for Advanced Imaging. She has been working in UQ since 2002, specializing in high-field MRI applications and solid-state NMR spectroscopy.

Dr. Ryan Turner is currently the Interim Deputy Director of the Reef Catchments Science Partnership at the University of Queensland (a partnership with the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation). Ryan was previously the Principal Scientist for Water Quality and Investigations in the Department of Environment and Science, and held an Adjunct Associate Professor role at Queensland University of Technology in the Managing for Resilient Landscapes, Institute for Future Environments. For 14 years Ryan managed multimillion dollar water quality monitoring programs assessing the impacts of sediment, nutrient and pesticides loads in numerous catchments along the Queensland coast discharging to the Great Barrier Reef and Moreton Bay. Ryan has been on several steering committees and technical advisory panels, such as the Great Barrier Reef Foundations Technical Advisory Panel. He has published extensively (>60 papers and reports) and led several Queensland Government – Academic collaborative research projects. Ryan previously supervised analytical chemistry (water and soil) and microbiology laboratories in the private and public sector. Ryan has developed numerous methodology and standard operating procedures for analytical and monitoring techniques (water quality, sediments and soils). Ryan’s passion for the future of water security is what keeps him going.

I am a volcano scientist with a passion for understanding how magmatic systems work. I develop high-resolution geochemical techniques to interrogate magmatic crystals and their carrier melts, providing a better understanding of past eruptions as a key for future activity. My team aims to constrain the drivers of volcanic eruptions and the processes leading to the accumulation of metals that are critical for the energy transition.

I joined UQ as a Lecturer in July 2016, after holding a postdoctoral fellowship at Trinity College Dublin. I undertook my postgraduate research in Spain and The Netherlands (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and received my PhD from the University of Zaragoza in December 2013. I was born and raised by the sea, in San Sebastián, and I am fortunate to study a wide range of active and past volcanic systems in different tectonic settings around the world.

With >35 years of experience, more than 100 publications on the subject, Jim has built a reputation in petroleum hydrogeology, unconventional hydrocarbons and carbon storage research. He is currently President of Petroleum Hydrogeology International and is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. He is Science Leader Storage for ANLEC R&D, Chair of the Geotechnical Reference Group for the CTSCo Surat CCS Project and sits on the Science Advisory Committee for the Peter Cook Centre for CCS Research. Previously, Jim was Professorial Chair of Petroleum Hydrodynamics at the University of Queensland with the Centre for Coal Seam Gas. He was General Manager Science for ANLEC R&D with an annual research budget of ~$18 million AUS applied to more than 50 active research projects supporting Australia’s CCS demonstration. He was CSIRO Theme Leader for the Unconventional Petroleum and Geothermal Energy R&D program with more than 50 Full Time Equivalents and an annual budget of ~$16 million/yr AUS. He sat on the Sustainable Energy for the Square Kilometre Array geothermal project control group, the Australian Mirror Committee of ISO for Carbon Capture and Storage and he managed the hydrodynamics and geochemistry discipline group within the Australian Cooperative Research Centre on CO2 (CO2CRC). Recently, Jim’s research has focused on petroleum hydrodynamics of faulted strata and the incorporation of hydrodynamics into seals analysis (both top and fault seal). His research has varied application to conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, geothermal energy, mining and carbon storage. Jim has an interest in measurement, monitoring and verification (MM&V) systems for assessing reservoir and seal performance. He gained practical field experience on the design and implementation of MM&V strategies for SECARB Cranfield, Otway, Frio and In Salah carbon storage projects. Jim has advised the Canadian, New Zealand, Victorian and West Australian governments and Chevron on carbon storage projects and research programs. Jim has had media training whilst at the University of Queensland and CSIRO, he has experience with community engagement, senate estimates inquiries, and he has worked extensively with executive management teams and Boards of Directors. He has >2100 citations, an h-index of 24 and an i10-index of 51 on Google Scholar.

Jim Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jim-underschultz/86/737/553

Jim ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jim_Underschultz

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

Dr David Wainwright is an adjunct research fellow with the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland. Apart from his involvement in research, David also has over 20 years of industry experience as a consulting engineer, focusing on coastal engineering, environmental hydraulics, geomorphology and adaptation to climate change - particularly in the coastal zone.

David’s work typically covers coastal engineering design, coastal geomorphology and land use planning. David is also broadly familiar with key aspects of coastal ecology, local government management, property law and community consultation. His key areas of expertise include risk assessment methods for planning in the face of coastal and flooding hazards and sea level rise, engineering design, numerical modelling, and coastal lagoons. David’s PhD thesis investigated numerical modelling methods to inform management of the entrances to coastal lagoons.

He has been a chartered engineer with Engineers Australia since 2001, with membership in the Civil and Environmental Colleges. David provides regular services to that organisation in interviewing individuals applying for chartered membership and acting as a judge for its biannual Engineering Excellence Awards. David is also a conjoint lecturer with the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle. David is a director of Salients Pty Limited, a consulting company he established in 2015.