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Melissa is no longer active in research, and so is unable to supervise new students.

BIOGRAPHY

Melissa Brown completed her PhD at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne in 1993, on the structure and regulation of genes encoding colony-stimulating factor receptors in human leukaemia.

She then undertook postdoctoral training at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) in London, funded firstly by an EMBO and then by an ICRF postdoctoral fellowship, working on the isolation and characterization of the first breast cancer susceptibility gene, BRCA1.

She joined The University of Queensland in 2000 as a Lecturer and is now a Professor and Executive Dean. In 2005 she undertook a six-month sabbatical at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at The University of Oxford.

The focus of Melissa’s research is cancer genetics, in particular understanding the transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of breast cancer genes and the impact of genetic variants on cancer risk and progression.

Dr Aimee Brownbill is an ARC Early Career Industry Fellow with the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.

Aimee has a PhD in Medicine (Public Health) and has contributed to collaborative applied research informing public health policy for several years. A key focus of her work to-date has been on the commercial determinants of health, particularly the influence of marketing practices on health and wellbeing.

Aimee is currently leading a program of work on digital marketing by harmful industries such as alcohol, gambling and highly processed unhealthy foods, exploring potential avenues for regulation in this space. She has been awarded an ARC Early Career Industry Fellowship to further explore this topic. The project will offer researchers, civil society and government with new methods to examine and monitor digital marketing practices and inform the development of consumer protection measures in the digital era.

Dr. Alex Bruce came to the T.C Beirne School of Law at The University of Queensland from the Australian National University College of Law where he taught full-time between 2004-2020. Before then, Alex worked as a Senior Lawyer with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission managing all aspects of investigation, litigation and case-management in Competition and Consumer Law.

Alex teaches and researches in Competition Law, Consumer Protection Law and Animal Law in Australia, Oxford and Spain and his PhD in law from the Australian National University explored the intersection of Competition & Consumer Law and Philosophies of Animal Ethics. He has written leading texts in all three legal disciplines which are currently prescribed at over 25 Universities across Australia. He has also completed a DPhil in Comparative Theology at the University of Oxford where his thesis explored the relationship between Identity, Contemplation and Spiritual Progression in Patristic Christian Theology and Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy. Alex has twice been conferred the ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Alex is a fully ordained monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition having taken his Bhiksụ (Gelong) vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He has been a monk for 20 years and is a regular speaker at international comparative religion conferences including with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican. Alex also researches and works in the areas of Buddhist Philosophy, Christian Theology, Comparative Ethical Theory (particularly Aristotelian Virtue Ethics), Ancient History & Classics and works with Attic Greek and Classical Tibetan Languages.

Professor Michael Brünig is the Head of School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Queensland (UQ), a role he took over in 2016 but with an interruption from 2019-2021 to lead UQ’s Business School.

Prof Brünig is a strategic thinker, an innovation expert, and an experienced change manager with international experience from Europe, the United States, and Australia. He is passionate about building strong performing teams and has experience in bringing large projects with substantial funding to fruition, igniting entrepreneurial spirit in students and staff, and driving impact from research through partnering, commercialisation and spin-off companies.

Before joining UQ, Prof Brünig worked with the CSIRO. As an executive manager with the organisation, he led an initiative to establish a $140m National Research Flagship on Digital Productivity and later guided the business through a merger to create Data61, a national research powerhouse focusing on data innovation. Professor Brünig started his career in research and development in the automotive industry in Germany and Silicon Valley in the United States after completing his PhD at RWTH Aachen, Germany.

Prof Brünig is a sought-after expert with respect to research translation. He sits on multiple boards as non-executive director, is technical advisor to start-up companies in Australia and is frequently consulted as a subject matter expert. Within UQ, Prof Brünig has helped to create UQ Ventures and UQ Innovate, units that foster entrepreneurship among students and academics and provide the creative environment to be successful.

Under Prof Brünig’s leadership, UQ started multiple significant initiatives, including UQ Cyber, the National Industry 4.0 Energy Testlab, the AI Initiative and with partners the QLD Government AI Hub. He is also highly influential in shaping UQ’s curriculum. He initiated the Bachelor of Computer Science, the Master of Cyber Security that is modelled using the US National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education framework and UQ’s first full online Master of Business Analytics. He also was a key contributor to creating the Graduate Certificate in Clinical Informatics and Digital Health.

Darryn Bryant's research interests are in combinatorics, specifically in graph theory and design theory.

He received his PhD from The University of Queensland in 1993. His current research projects concern fundamental open problems on graph decompositions and a new design theory-based approach to signal sampling via compressed sensing.

Dr Sandra Buchler is the Mary Lee Family Dynamics Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. She is currently undertaking a research project on the life course trajectories of sole parents in Australia. Sandra holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Queensland. Her broader research interest lies in the role of gender ideology and labour market stratification in perpetuating gender inequality. Her areas of research and expertise include life course transitions, families, gender inequality, female labour force participation, gender ideologies, education, qualitative evaluation and quantitative research methods. Sandra was a Lecturer at the University of Bamberg from 2011 to 2013 and a Senior Lecturer at the Goethe University Frankfurt (2014 – 2024).

Dr Buckley’s overall research expertise overlies health behaviour change program development, implementation and evaluation including the translation of theory to evidence-based practice. She has focused on behaviour change research in efforts to reduce adolescent and young adult injury, primarily around the use of alcohol, experience of violence and road-related risk behaviours. Her work takes a focus on promotive factors for wellbeing, particularly through supportive relationships with friends, parents and in schools. She has a strong interest in the way bystanders influence health behaviour.

Dr Buckley has been a chief investigator on funded research projects totalling more than 13 million dollars both in Australia and the United States, including funding from the U.S. Department of Justice and in Australia, leading an ARC-Discovery Project. She was also funded as a co-Director of the Training and Education Core of the University of Michigan Injury Center (one of only 11 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Injury Centers). She has over 85 publications and written 25 large reports for government and industry as well as 14 training manuals/ research products. Her work has been presented widely with over 65 national and international conference presentations and invited talks to government and industry organisations.

Dr Claudia Bull is a Research Fellow in psychiatric epidemiology at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR), University of Queensland. She holds a Bachelor of Nutrition with First Class Honours (2017) and a PhD in Health Services Research from the Griffith University School of Nursing and Midwifery (2022). Claudia's research largely focusses on undertaking complex data analysis using large, linked, population-based administrative datasets to understand equity, patterns of health service use, and outcomes in vulnerable Australian populations. She is particularly interested in the intergenerational and lifetime effects of child abuse and neglect in Australia, as well as understanding how health services can better support Child Protection efforts. Claudia is also well-versed in the development, psychometric evaluation and implementation of PROMs and PREMs for health systems performance measurement. She is internationally recognised for her research related to PROMs and PREMs, having published several seminal and highly cited papers, as well as pioneering methods for consumer engagement in deciding what questions are relevant and important in PROMs and PREMs. Claudia is an inaugural member of the South Australian Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health's Generic PROM Selection Subcommittee, and is currently collaborating internationally with researchers in The Netherlands, Iran, France and Spain to cross-culturally validate an Emergency Department PREM. Claudia's expertise in population-based linked administrative health data analysis, as well as PROMs and PREMs, positions her as a well-rounded and capable researcher. Claudia's international collaborations underscore her ability to work across cultural and geographical boundaries, enriching her research with a global perspective. Moreover, her track record of published research, practical involvement in healthcare initiatives, and ongoing projects reflect a proactive and influential presence in the field.

Dr Nevenka Bulovic is a water resource engineer and her current research focus is on improving the climate resilience of the mining sector in the face of climate change. This work applies state-of-the-art climate models to assess risks to water availability, mine site rehabilitation and pollution risks. Nevenka's other research passion is in using remotely sensed data and novel approaches for improving knowledge on hydroclimate in data sparse regions such as Australia and the Andes.

Henri Burgers is the Head of the Strategy & Entrepreneurship Discipline at The University of Queensland. He obtained his PhD from the RSM Erasmus University, and worked at the Queensland University of Technology prior to joining UQ. His research focuses on the intersection of corporate entrepreneurship, managerial and organisational capabilities, and institutional contexts with the aim of helping individuals and organisations unlock their entrepreneurial potential. He has published in top journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Long Range Planning, and Technovation. He has worked with leading firms, industry associations and governments across the globe. His research received well over 1mln AUD in research funding, including two prestigious grants from the Australian Research Council to improve entrepreneurship and innovation in the natural resources industries.

Henri teaches courses and provides workshops on strategic decision-making and agile innovation for different levels. He has developed and transformed a wide range of Bachelor and Masters and Executive courses and programs to embed more entrepreneurship and strategic decision-making skills in curricula. He was awarded a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy for his teaching. He is a recognised reviewer for numerous journals and grants and serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Business Venturing and Group and Organization Management.

Professor Philip Burgess is a researcher in the field of mental health services research and evaluation. He is a Professor with the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland, based at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research.

Philip holds qualifications in clinical psychology and has over 30 years of experience in the design, analysis and reporting of research projects, including systematic literature reviews, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, studies based on routinely collected administrative health and mental health data, epidemiological survey data, and evaluations of health programs and interventions using observational and quasi-experimental research designs.

Philip’s current role is with the Analysis and Reporting Component of the Australian Mental Health Outcomes and Classification Network (AMHOCN), which leads the design, analysis and reporting of the National Outcomes and Casemix Collection (http://www.amhocn.org/). In this role, he is leading a range of projects designed to improve the measurement of patient- and service-level outcomes in Australia's specialised public sector mental health services.