Find an expert

Katie a health and disability researcher and the Research Lead at the Queensland Centre for Excellence in Intellectual Disability and Autism Health (QCEIDAH). Katie leads research to improve experiences and outcomes for people with intellectual disability and autistic people in the health system.

Katie’s research spans preventive care, primary care, and hospital settings. Katie’s work uses co-design and has strong consumer input across all stages of her research. Katie is driving a research program to transform primary and preventive health. She is currently driving a transformative research program in primary care and preventive health.

Emily Brooks is an endocrinologist and clinician-researcher at the Princess Alexandra Hospital (PAH) and senior lecturer and principal specialty supervisor (medicine) at the Princess Alexandra-Southside Clinical Unit, University of Queensland. Emily completed her physician training in Queensland before undertaking a fellowship in pituitary medicine at St Vincent’s Hospital and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney. She was awarded fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in 2021. She completed her PhD “ Individualisation of immunosuppression in adult kidney transplant recipients” at UQ part-time and this was conferred in 2021.

In her current clinical role, Emily provides inpatient and outpatient care at the PAH to people with endocrinology conditions, including general endocrinology, bone and thyroid conditions, and diabetes mellitus. She has a sub-specialty interest in pituitary conditions and is the pituitary co-lead for the PAH Diabetes and Endocrinology Department. Emily is an emerging leader in endocrinology research, with a growing track record of publications in high-impact peer-reviewed journals. Her current research interests involve pituitary conditions, including hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis conditions, posterior pituitary conditions and pituitary tumours, and osteoporosis. She mentors research higher degree candidates and junior medical doctors completing research projects, as well as physician trainees completing specialty training. Emily’s current research is funded by a Queensland Health Clinical Research Fellowship, Endocrine Society of Australia Post-Doctoral Fellowship, RACP-ESA Research Establishment Fellowship and two MetroSouth Research Support Scheme grants.

I am an ECR and Research Fellow at the Dementia & Neuro Mental Health Research Unit (DNMHRU), University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research (UQCCR). I have a background in psychology and health services research and have been involved in dementia research and service development projects both in Australia and the UK. My PhD (Queensland University of Technology, 2020), “Bereavement without death”: Improving psychosocial support of spousal family carers of people with dementia following placement into residential care, was supported by a Consumer Priority PhD scholarship from the Dementia Australia Research Foundation (DARF). Since then, I have been awarded $3,825,000 as a CI in research grants from both DARF and NHMRC MRFF schemes.

My mixed methods research aims to improve the mental health, emotional well-being, quality of life and quality of care of older Australians living with age-related progressive brain diseases such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease and their family care partners, through innovative high-quality research and knowledge translation activities. My research interests include evaluating psychosocial interventions to support the mental health of people living with dementia and their family carers within both community and residential aged care settings and the application of telehealth modalities to support access to counselling and therapy. I am also interested in improving psychosocial and psychoeducational support for the transition to residential aged care and models of aged care that promote mental health and quality of life. Across all studies, I am interested in the application of implementation science to i) identify barriers and enablers to the implementation of evidence-based interventions and programs, and ii) design and evaluate implementation strategies within health and residential aged care services.

I have a record of collaboration with people impacted by dementia. I am currently the Chair of the UQCCR Consumer and Community Involvement (CCI) Sub-Committee, member of the Faculty of Medicine CCI working group, and Co-ordinator of the CCIG at the DNMHRU. I was previously the Co-ordinator of the Lived Experience Group for the Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration. I am also a member of Dementia Australia’s Researcher and Advocate Training Working Group, the Dementia-Friendly UQCCR Initiative Audit, the UQ Implementation Science Community of Practice, the QBI Ageing Dementia Research Network and Australian Association of Gerontology ECR group.

Research interests

Residential aged care

• Understanding factors that promote and support the mental health of people living with dementia within residential aged care.
• Co-design, development, testing and implementation of a Mental Health Care Indicator Tool for use in Residential Aged Care Facilities (MHICare).
• Understanding models of care that promote quality of life for Indigenous populations living in residential care settings.

Telehealth psychotherapy and counselling programs

• Adaptation, evaluation, and implementation of a tailored telehealth counselling program to support family carers of people with dementia during the transition (pre and post) to residential care placement (RCTM).
• Evaluation and implementation of technology-assisted CBT for people living with dementia and anxiety in community-based settings (Tech-CBT).

Cognitive evaluation in Parkinson’s disease

• Barriers and enablers to cognitive assessment in Parkinson’s disease; evaluation and implementation of the PDCogniCare program.

Dr Sandra Brosda is a Research Fellow within the Surgical Oncology group led by Professor Andrew Barbour.

Dr Brosda was awarded a PhD in bioinformatics and cancer genetics from the University of Queensland in November 2020. Her research focuses on biomarker discovery and intra-tumour heterogeneity and tumour evolution in oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC). In 2021, Dr Brosda was awarded a Cure Cancer Australia PdCCRS grant and an MSH project grant to further investigate tumour evolution to improve precision medicine in OAC.

She has been involved in research projects covering genetics, epigenetics, spatial transcriptomics, radiomics, ctDNA and quality of life assessments in the context of cancer. Overall, her research applies bioinformatics tools and approaches to cancer genomics to improve precision medicine and health outcomes for patients with melanoma, oesophago-gastric cancer and pancreatic cancer.

Denis was a UQ administrator for nearly 25 years; he served as a Senator of UQ for 21 years (elected by the graduates); his connections to various UQ residential colleges spans four decades; he loves teaching Latin and has done so since 1978.

Denis is actively involved in the Alumni Friends of Antiquity and is happy to be contacted any time to discuss things Roman.

Denis' academic interests include the language, literature, history and culture of ancient Rome.

Mary is a musician and researcher in the psychology of music, which involves applying psychological science theory and methods to study human thought, feeling and behaviour in relation to music. Her research conjoins art and science, using neurophysiological, behavioural, quantitative and qualitative techniques, to gain insights into how humans generate and audiences respond to music, and the impact this can have on individuals and groups. Mary's interdisciplinary research includes work in music perception and cognition, human action and interaction through music performance, audience engagement and development, music in the early childhood period, and promoting individual and community wellbeing through active participation in music performance. As a percussionist, Mary has performed with orchestras such as the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and has performed nationally and internationally as a chamber and solo musician.

Stephan Brouwer (ORCiD: 0000-0002-9777-2992) is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland. With expertise in bacterial pathogenesis, encompassing both Gram-negative and Gram-positive human pathogens, his research explores the interaction between infectious disease agents and the human host. Much of his work focuses on understanding and preventing disease caused by the human pathogen Group A Streptococcus (GAS; Streptococcus pyogenes). He is at the forefront of the global effort to characterise a scarlet fever outbreak which began in North Asia in 2011, and his current research themes centre around the emergence of new hypervirulent GAS lineages that pose a major public health threat. Stephan utilises modern molecular technologies to study host-pathogen interactions and identify the genetic requirements for GAS to cause disease, with the aim to pursue the development of life-saving therapeutic and preventative advances. He has published his findings in Top Tier journals and helped to establish a sentinel hospital surveillance system in Australia to monitor the importation of GAS isolates causing epidemic scarlet fever.

Stephan completed his PhD in 2015 at one of Germany’s most respected research institutes, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), where he conducted research on post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. He then moved to Australia to join the group of Prof. Mark Walker at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, where he is working eversince.

Dr Bena Brown is a clinician/researcher who brings her passion for caring for people with cancer and their families to her current role in the FNCWR team, where her focus is on delivering projects that optimise survivorship and cancer health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. These projects include implementing novel models of care such as navigation and health behaviour intervention, optimising communication and access to services through the development and evaluation of culturally responsive resources.

Bena has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, has presented at multiple national and international conferences, and has been awarded over $3.6 million in research grants.

She is also an Advanced Speech Pathologist (Cancer Care) at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital and provides RHD supervision for higher-degree students in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in UQ's Health and Behavioural Sciences Faculty. Bena is a member of the Human Research and Ethics Committees at Metro South Health and serves on State-wide committees for the Queensland Collaborative for Cancer Survivorship and the Clinical Oncological Society of Australia (COSA) Patient-Reported Outcome Working Group.

Outside her research and clinical career, Bena is mum to two boisterous boys, a keen yogi, and passionate student and board member at Vulcana Circus.

Deborah Brown is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and past President of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. Her research interests include philosophy of mind, with a particular focus on philosophical perspectives on pain, the history of philosophy, and applications of critical thinking in education and leadership development programs. Together with neuroscientist, Professor Brian Key, she helped establish UQ's first Neurophilosophy Lab and is on the steering committee for the Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHeR), the largest consortium of pain health researchers in Australasia.

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.

I'm a senior lecturer in marketing at the UQ Business School. My expertise lies in the domain of digital marketing strategy. Study after study suggests that firms and marketers are having difficulty “becoming digital”. I spend my days investigating the nature of the challenge and determining what leading marketing organisations can do to rapidly increase their digital sophistication. Consumers are inundated with meaningless messages and making your brand stand out – in any language, or on any device, is a major challenge. As Australia’s first PhD in digital marketing, I have a long-game perspective on digital transformation. The majority of my research examines how brands can engage with their markets in more meaningful ways. Transferring your business to digital is easy but being human is not. I therefore specialise in studying how consumers respond best to digital communications, with a particular interest in issues of data retention and and privacy. My background is in telecommunications and I have consulted with several firms and government bodies in the areas of digital marketing strategy. I have taught extensively at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. If you’re interested in learning more about the kind of work I do or if you’d like to explore how we might be able to work together, please reach out to me via the contact details listed here.

Riley is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Technology-enabled rehabilitation team at RECOVER Research Injury Centre. Riley joined RECOVER in May 2024.

Riley received his PhD from The University of Queensland in January 2024. His PhD project investigated the feasibility, effectiveness and uptake of digital health physical activity/exercise interventions in for patients living with complex chronic diseases.

Riley's research interests include assessing the influence of digital health exercise interventions for improving exercise adherence and clinical outcomes in chronic disease (sustainable exercise practice), and optimising monitoring tools for exercise interventions.

Professor Brown's research interests focus on physical activity and the prevention and management of chronic illness at a population level. To date, much of her research has been in the areas of obesity and the health and well being of Australian women.

Professor Wendy Brown joined the UQ School of Human Movement Studies in 2000 as the first professor in physical activity and health. Her educational qualifications are in human biology and physiology, exercise physiology, and health and physical education. She has had a diverse career path, working in both secondary and tertiary education, as well as public and private health promotion. Prior to her move to Queensland, she was the Director of the Research Institute for Gender and Health at the University of Newcastle, where she was a founding investigator and manager of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health. This project has been tracking the health of over 40,000 women for ten years. She was also a Chief Investigator on the "10,000 Steps Rockhampton" project which aimed to increase the physical activity levels of a community of approximately 60,000 people. In addition to her teaching and research commitments, she devotes considerable time to professional and policy development through her work with government departments, the National Heart Foundation, and Sports Medicine Australia. In the last five years, she has contributed to research grants with a value of more than $26,000,000, published more than 120 articles in national and international journals, and written numerous research reports.