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Dr Ran Wang graduated with her PhD in 2015, and after undertaking a postdoc position in Scripps Research, USA returned to Australia in 2017. She is now a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher supported by the prestigious Bushell Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Gastroenterology Society of Australia. Dr Wang is interested to understand the nature of inflammation in gut and lung and investigate the local and systemic impacts of chronic gut inflammation. In addition to a growing track-record in the mucosal immunology field, she is also building an inter-disciplinary research profile in material science and nanotechnology for drug delivery and immune modulation. She is the Associate Editor of Frontier of Cellular and Infection Microbiology Journal since 2018.

Dr Yuan Wang is interested in advanced manufacturing of functional materials to promote sustainable biomedical and energy applications. He is currently an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow in partnership with Cook Medical to develop manufacturing solutions for personalised medical devices.

As lead/solo/co-CI, Yuan has secured competitive grant funding totalling > $1.4M. His research has attracted >3700 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 Nat. Commun., Prog. Mater. Sci. (IF=33.6) and Adv. Mater (IF=27.4). 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 multiple 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 service duties.

Dr Brydon Wang is an author, lawyer, and scholar researching the trustworthy regulation of technology. His work focuses on how we design and govern benevolent data structures and decision-making systems that support human-centric, climate-resilient cities. Dually qualified in law and architecture, Brydon brings more than twenty years of experience across construction, legal practice, and academia. He is currently an Associate Director at KPMG, advising on major infrastructure transactions, and an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Policy Futures at the University of Queensland.

​Brydon’s research investigates how regulation can increase the perceived trustworthiness of decision-makers, particularly in contexts of automated systems and informational asymmetry. His interdisciplinary methods blend doctrinal legal analysis with creative research strategies. He was lead editor of Automating Cities: Design, Construction, Operation and Future Impact (Springer, 2021) and lead editor of the forthcoming Large Floating Solutions (Springer, 2025), a volume exploring sustainable marine infrastructure and governance, that follows on from the previous edited collection Large Floating Structures: Technological Advances (Springer 2015). His work has been featured by the Centre for Digital Built Britain (Cambridge University), The Conversation, ABC Radio National’s Future Tense, and Seeker’s How Close Are We to Living in the Ocean?

Before joining KPMG, Brydon taught contract law, data privacy, and AI regulation at the Queensland University of Technology, where he received the 2024 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Early Career Teaching. He also taught Responsible Data Science in UQ’s Master of Data Science programme. His PhD thesis, The Role of Trustworthiness in Automated Decision-making Systems and the Law, was awarded the 2022 Faculty of Business and Law Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award. His research combines doctrinal legal research with creative research methodologies to explore the governance of automation, digital infrastructure, and smart urban systems. Through his creative research strategies, Brydon has also become an award-winning artist.

​Brydon began his career in architecture and contract administration on award-winning construction projects, before practising as a technology and construction lawyer at Allens Linklaters. He remains passionate about integrating policy, law, and infrastructure to ensure technological systems are designed with trust and transparency at their core.

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.

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.

Nicola Warren is the Head of Psychiatry and the Director of Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR). In 2018, she established the Neuropsychiatric Service at Metro South Health focusing on the psychiatric care of those with severe movement disorders, epilepsy and autoimmune encephalitis and continues working clinically. 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.

Dr Matt Watson is a Lecturer in the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland. Dr Watson teaches Jurisprudence and Administrative Law. His research interests lie primarily in the fields of legal and political philosophy. Dr Watson’s core research areas include multiculturalism and minority rights (with an emphasis on minority language rights and language policy), constitutionalism, the intersection of law and politics, the liberal philosophical tradition, and all aspects of the philosophy of law. Dr Watson is currently working on a research project that enquires into the legal and moral permissibility of taking account of religious and cultural membership in refugee resettlement determinations.

Dr Watson completed his doctoral studies in law at the University of Oxford in 2016. His DPhil thesis, written under the supervision of Professor Leslie Green, inquired into the philosophical foundations of minority language rights. While at Oxford, Dr Watson led tutorials in Jurisprudence.