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Dr Zhiliang Wang is an ARC Future fellow in The University of Queensland. He has focused on renewable energy conversion processes, including green hydrogen production, carbon dioxide fixation, methane conversion and plastic upcycling. He has accumulated experience in the design of functional materials for achieving sustainable energy utilization and the circular economy. He has published over 110 papers in top-tier journals with over 11,000 citations. Until now, Dr Zhiliang Wang has attracted over $3M research funding. He has been awarded with the J G Russell Award by the Australia Academy of Science, UQ Foundation of Research Excellent Award by UQ and other prizes.

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.

C.M. Wang joined the School of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland (UQ) in January 2017 as the Transport and Main Roads (TMR) Chair Professor of Structural Engineering. He graduated from Monash University in Civil Engineering with a First Class Honours in 1978 and was awarded M.Eng.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the same university in 1980 and 1982, respectively. Prior to joining UQ, Professor Wang held the positions as the Director for the Engineering Science Programme and the Director for the Global Engineering Programme, at the Faculty of Engineering of the National University of Singapore. Additionally, he was the Vice-Dean of Undergraduate Programmes of NUS Faculty of Engineering and the Associate Director of the Centre for Development in Teaching and Learning, NUS. He is also the Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Australia and was elected as Monash Civil Engineering Alumnus of the Year 2015 for his significant contributions to the engineering profession.

Professor Wang is a Chartered Structural Engineer, Fellow of Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, Member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Fellow of Academy of Engineering Singapore, Fellow of Institution of Engineers Singapore, Fellow of Institution of Structural Engineers and Fellow of Society of Floating Solutions (Singapore). He was the Chairman of the IStructE Singapore Regional Group and the IStructE Council Member for 12 years. He was awarded 2009 Lewis Kent Award, 2014 Keith Eaton Award and IES Outstanding Volunteer Awards 2011 and 2008 for his outstanding leadership and significant contributions to IStructE and IES. He is the Immediate Past Chairman of International Steering Committee of EASEC, Vice President of Society of Floating Solutions Singapore, member of International Advisory Committee of RILS and Senior Fellow of PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research, Hong Kong PolyU. He is founding member of International Engineering Science Consortium that comprises 9 premier universities (UC Berkeley, Cornell Univ, Univ of Toronto, Osaka University, KTH Sweden, UCL, NUS, UQ, Auckland Univ).

Professor Wang is a highly sought after keynote speaker in international conferences. He has given over 60 keynote presentations and many seminars on very large floating structures, structural modeling and analysis in many countries. He has won a number of research awards such as 2019 Nishino Medal, 2019 JN Reddy Medal and best paper awards. He has provided consulting services and served as an expert in structures and very large floating structures to many public and private organizations, including JTC Corporation, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, Housing Development Board, Defence Science and Technology Agency, Jurong Consultants, Surbana International and Singapore Cruise Centre.

Dr Wang is currently appointed as Honorary Research Fellow / Lecturer at UQ, double affiliated to RMIT University as Senior Lecturer. She is holding Ph.D in Geography, University of Queensland, Australia, 2018; M.S. in GIS, Northern Illinois University, USA, 2011; B.S. in Urban Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, China, 2009. Before joining UQ in 2015, she worked as a Geographic Information System (GIS) analyst (2011-2012) in Arizona State Government, USA, and a GIS manager (2012-2015) eTour International, a private IT sector in Hawaii, USA. She has been working as an Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2018-2020) and as an Associate Lecturer (2021-2022) at UQ. She was nominated by the Australia Academy of Sciences as the Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 2021. I have been involved in teaching in six courses at UQ: GEOM 2001 Introduction of Geographic Information Analysis (lecturer and course coordinator); GEOM 3003/7002 Spatial Modelling and Analysis (lecturer and course coordinator); GEOM 1001 Fundamentals of Geographic Information and Technologies (lecturer and tutor); GEOG2001 Human Mobility and Migration, GEOG 2205/7205 Global Population Issue, and GEOG 3205 Applied Demography.

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.

I lead the Technology-Driven Drug Discovery (Tech3D) Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ. We believe that the key to solving some of our world's biggest challenges, whether that be in medicine or agriculture, relies on the ability to precision engineer molecules at will. My group harnesses three technological pillars to engineer peptides and proteins, which are computational biology, molecular libraries, and nanotechnology. We aspire to design better drugs, creating next generation biotechnological agents that have real impact. These could be new cancer drugs that harness the body's immune system or new insecticides that are environmentally friendly. In these pursuits, we value advancement, fun, balance, respect, fairness, and integrity.

I have been involved in peptide and protein research for over two decades, and am highly experienced in bioinformatics, chemistry, structural characterization, biophysics, and biochemistry. I trained with experts in peptide and protein characterization: an Honours project with Professor Garry King at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2004), an APA scholarship with Professor David Craik at the University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Brisbane, Australia (2005-2009) and a NHMRC fellowship with Professor Mingjie Zhang at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China (2009-2011) and A/Professor Andreas Hofmann at Griffith University Eskitis Institute, Brisbane, Australia (2011-2012). I returned to the University of Queensland in 2012 to join an industry partnership funded by an ARC linkage grant. I currently hold an ARC Future Fellowship and am responsible for a team of research officers, assistants and postgraduate students.

My research output has been recognised by >30 prizes and awards for leadership, research translation and fundamental research excellence, as well as numerous invitations to speak at academic and pharmaceutical conferences. I have over 100 publications and have been cited by researchers from across the world.

Associate Professor Liguang Wang is an internationally recognised researcher and research leader in mineral processing, with expertise in flotation science and process intensification to enable the efficient recovery of critical minerals essential to the energy transition. His research group has developed patented and patent-pending technologies for flotation process intensification, monitoring and control, translating fundamental scientific advances into practical industrial solutions.

A committed research mentor and training leader, he has supervised more than ten PhD candidates to completion and mentored five postdoctoral research fellows, contributing to the development of highly skilled researchers for academia and industry. His international experience includes a visiting PhD position at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in 2002 and a visiting academic appointment at the University of Cambridge in 2020.

He received his PhD from Virginia Tech in 2006 under the supervision of Professor Roe-Hoan Yoon and was awarded the 2022 ACARP Research and Industry Excellence Award in recognition of his contributions to research and industry.

More details from the lab website.

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 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.

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