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Yibo Wang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the URBANiQ node within the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) at UQ. His current research focuses on urban mobility in relation to public health, with particular emphasis on carbon emissions, socio-demographic patterns, travel modes, heat exposure, and accessibility to health services and infrastructure.

Yibo has a strong interdisciplinary background spanning geographic information systems and mechatronic engineering. He obtained a BEng from BUAA, where he was involved in the design and development of LiDAR systems. He subsequently completed a MEng at ANU, further developing technical expertise in machine learning and computer vision. More recently, he was awarded a PhD from UQ with research focusing on the statistical characteristics of carbon emissions generated by urban travel activities and how these emissions are jointly shaped by household characteristics and the built environment.

Yibo’s combined experience in science and engineering has equipped him with expertise in the design, fabrication, and validation of advanced remote sensing systems, as well as in the analysis of large-scale datasets to inform applied research and policy. At ISSR, he continues to integrate and extend these skills, contributing to improved everyday mobility and public health outcomes in urban contexts.

Biography:

Professor Lianzhou Wang FAA FTSE is an Honorary Professor and former Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellow at the School of Chemical Engineering, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland (UQ). 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 ARC Australian Laureate Fellow (2020-25) at the Chemical Engineering School and AIBN. He was also the Director of Nanomaterials Centre (Nanomac), and Senior Group Leader of AIBN until 2025, before moving to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

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 150 plenary/keynote/invited presentations. His publications have received >68,000 citations with a H-index of 138 (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 has been named on the list of the Clarivate’ Highly Cited Researchers (Top 0.1% researcher in the world) numerous times.

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 has served as the chair of National Committee for Materials Science and Engineering, Australian Academy of Sciences, and the President of Australian Materials Research Society between 2022-25.

Shuai Wang is a Research Fellow at ielab, The University of Queensland, working on AI-powered search. He builds systems that find information and answer questions, using large language models and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and he focuses on making those systems faster and cheaper to run. His broader research contributions span federated search optimization and improving model efficiency in IR and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications. His work has been published at premier venues including SIGIR, ECIR, WSDM, and EMNLP. He has served on program committees for SIGIR, ECIR, ICTIR, and TOIS. A lot of his work comes back to one practical question: how do we get good search and reliable answers without depending on expensive, closed commercial AI?

Shuai has published 25+ papers at venues such as SIGIR, WSDM, ECIR, and EMNLP. He coordinates and teaches INFS7410 (Information Retrieval and Web Search) at UQ.

Shuai completed his PhD on automating medical systematic reviews using neural retrieval systems and generative models (thesis: AI-driven Automated Systematic Reviews). His doctoral work encompassed automatic MeSH term suggestion, screening prioritization, seed-driven retrieval methods, and automatic Boolean query formulation.

Education

• PhD, The University of Queensland (2021–2025)
• Master's degree, The University of Queensland (2020–2021)
• Bachelor's degree, The University of Western Australia (2017–2019)

Dr Christie Warburton is a livestock geneticist at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), The University of Queensland. Her research uses quantitative genetics, genomics, and whole‑genome sequence data to improve genetic evaluation and breeding outcomes across beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, and buffalo, with projects spanning Australia and international production systems.

Christie’s work focuses on understanding genomic architecture in multi-breed and multi-subspecies populations, including population stratification, SNP ascertainment bias, and IBS/IBD relationships. She develops and applies methods that improve the accuracy and fairness of genomic predictions in composite, crossbred, and tropically adapted livestock.

She is passionate about mentoring students and working collaboratively on projects that sit at the intersection of advanced statistical genomics and real‑world breeding challenges. Christie welcomes Honours and higher degree research students interested in livestock genomics, breeding program design, and improving the productivity, resilience, and sustainability of global livestock systems.

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.

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 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 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.

Leticia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research Centre, School of Public Health. She is a public health researcher and nutritionist with expertise in women’s health, life course epidemiology, physical function, and chronic disease prevention. Her research focuses on understanding how biological, behavioural, and social factors across the life course influence the health of women and girls, using longitudinal and intergenerational data. Before joining UQ, she specialised in public health nutrition (2015) and paediatric nutrition and dietetics (2017), working across clinical care, community health, nutrition education, and research in Brazil. She is passionate about producing research that informs evidence-based public health policy and contributes to improving health outcomes for women across the lifespan.