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Dr Andrew Burke currently works with the UQ Centre for Clinical Research, The University of Queensland and is dual specialist in both infectious diseases and thoracic medicine at The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane. He has diverse clinical experience in low income countries and regional Australia and holds a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (Liverpool) and a Masters in Public Health from the University of Queensland.

Andrew is a principal investigator on a number of industry lead trials for pulmonary NTM infection. He is an associate investigator on the FORMAT study assessing clinical outcomes in pulmonary Mycobacterium abscessus infection and with Professor Jason Roberts of UQCCR is leading the pharmacokinetic sub-studies in this multi-national trial.

Andrew is on the Australian Therapeutic Guidelines writing groups for both antibiotics and respiratory disease. He is current chair of the steering committee of the Australasian Clinical Tuberculosis network (ACTnet) and is on the Queensland Tuberculosis Expert Advisory Group. He is currently undertaking a PhD in the pharmacokinetics of mycobacterial drugs in people with tuberculosis and cystic fibrosis. As part of his PhD he is exploring the role of therapeutic drug montioring in complex mycobacterial infections and sees great potential for Australian and Asia-Pacific researchers to contribute to mycobacterial research through involvement in PK studies.

Professor Burne is a leading Australian researcher in the field of biological psychiatry. Prof. Burne has >150 peer reviewed publications, which have attracted over 8500 citations (H-index 50). His research impact is evident by his 11 papers with >200 citations, with two recognised as Web of Science ‘Highly Cited Papers’. Together with collaborators he has been awarded >$8 million in research funding. Since 2003 he has supervised 17 PhD students, and 28 honours students Prof. Burne has a broad background in behavioural neuroscience, with specific training and expertise in animal models. As a Professorial Research Fellow with the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research and Group Leader at the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) the focus of his research includes cognitive testing in rodent models of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, as well as psychopharmacological studies and research on clinical populations. As a CI on several university- and NHMRC-funded grants, he has helped establish infrastructure at QBI for behavioural assessment and methods of automated operant-based cognitive tests in rodents. Prof. Burne is a past president of Biological Psychiatry Australia, he is the Queensland representative for the Australasian Neuroscience Society, and he is a member of the NHMRC Animal Welfare Committee.

Prof. Burne’s group studies brain development and behaviour in animal models to learn more about neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia. Research is focused on investigating the underlying biological basis for schizophrenia, with the goal of finding public health interventions that will alleviate the burden of this disease. The group has been exploring the impact of developmental vitamin D (DVD) deficiency on brain development, the impact of adult vitamin D deficiency on brain function and behaviour, and the neurobiological affects of having an older father. More recently his group has been focussed on assessing cognitive function in rodents. Prof. Burne’s research is carried out in close collaboration with Professors John McGrath and Darryl Eyles, in a multidisciplinary team. Together they have an integrated research program using a broad range of neuroscientific techniques to explore potential causes of schizophrenia. There is a particular focus on early life, nongenetic risk factors and the team has skills in epidemiology, psychiatry, neuroanatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology and behavioural neuroscience. The Burne group is currently developing animal models related to risk factors for schizophrenia and autism.

A/Prof Lucy Burr is an experienced respiratory physician, training supervisor and clinical trials researcher at Mater Health and Mater Research – University of Queensland (UQ). She has a PhD (2017) in bronchiectasis microbiology and is an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, UQ. She is the Director of Respiratory, Sleep and Cystic Fibrosis medicine at the Mater Hospital, Brisbane.

As well as directing the respiratory clinical service at the Mater, Lucy has an active role in teaching both specialist trainees and medical students. She is a RACP college supervisor and trains one advanced trainee and four basic trainees per year. She directly supervises four medical students in her clinical team per year. Lucy is also currently supervising 5 PhD students, researching diverse fields such as glucose control in cystic fibrosis, asthma, fatigue, IL-22 and the effect of sleep on social cognition.

Lucy is recognised nationally for her clinical work on respiratory infections. She is the chair of the Acute and Critical Care panel for the National COVID-19 clinical evidence taskforce and a member of the guideline leadership group. Additionally, she is the recent chair (2020-2022) of the expert reference group on COVID-19 for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She is a recent (2019- 2021) convenor of the respiratory infectious disease special interest group of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand, the Queensland TSANZ branch president and past president (2017-2020), a recent board director of the TSANZ national body and current Chair of the Australian Bronchiectasis Consortium. Lucy is currently serving on the TSANZ annual scientific meeting and World Bronchiectasis conference steering committees. She is recognised internationally for her work on Cystic Fibrosis (top 1.8% expertscape February 2024) and Bronchiectasis (top 2.2% expertscape February 2024) and has published in high impact clinical journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet Respiratory Medicine, across a range of respiratory and infectious disease subjects, with >1500 citations in the past 5 years.

In addition to her clinical work, Lucy is the custodian and manager of the David Serisier Research biobank at Mater Research, a clinical repository of human samples from patients living with respiratory diseases. Lucy is also an experienced principal investigator on many pharmaceutical studies ranging from phase 1b to phase 4 studies investigating therapeutics for CF, IPF, COPD, COVID, influenza pulmonary hypertension and bronchiectasis. She has designed and lead non-pharmaceutical interventional studies investigating the role of macrolide in modulating inflammation in healthy adults. She is the group leader of the respiratory clinical trials unit at Mater Research, and the program lead for the chronic and integrated care program at Mater Research.

Lucy has a proven track record in collaborative and translational research. She is currently a consultant on 2 peer reviewed external grants totalling $1,306,000, including one involving biobanked samples, and is a chief investigator on a 2021 Ideas grant and a 2021 MRFF grant totalling more than $3 million dollars.

Benjamin Burton's research interests include computational geometry and topology, combinatorics, and information security. He also maintains an active role in gifted-and-talented programmes for secondary school students.

Benjamin Burton's research involves a blend of techniques from pure mathematics and computer science. His main interest is in computational geometry and topology in three and four dimensions, looking at problems such as how a computer can recognise whether a loop of string is knotted, or how it can identify large-scale geometric structures in a three-dimensional space. He is the primary author of the open source software package Regina, which implements state-of-the-art algorithms in this field.

His multi-disciplinary background includes a PhD in geometry and topology, an honours degree in combinatorics, research experience in information security, and three years as a research analyst in the finance industry. He has worked at several universities in Australia and overseas.

He maintains a strong interest in enrichment programmes for gifted and talented high school students, including the Mathematics and Informatics Olympiads and the National Mathematics Summer School. From 1999 until 2008 he directed the Australian training programme for the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), and from 2009 to 2014 he holds a seat on the international IOI Scientific Committee.

Benjamin is an active member of the UQ Ally Network, an award-winning program that supports and celebrates diversity of sexuality, gender and sex at UQ and in the broader community.

Bridget Burton is a Senior Lecturer - Clinical Educator in the University of Queensland Law School. This role, situated in the UQ Pro Bono Centre, supports the school's clinical legal education program, as well as the pro bono contributions of students and law school staff. The UQ Pro Bono Centre facilitates practical, educational and research projects with community partners, focusing on social justice and human rights.

Bridget has 20 years experience as a lawyer in the legal assistance sector. For eight years she was Director of the Human Rights and Civil Law Practice at Caxton Legal Centre where she looked after a substantial team, and undertook anti-discrimination, human rights, and test case legal work. She has experience in law reform on human rights matters, including authoring dozens of submissions and appearing before parliamentary committees. In 2020/21 she co-led a large Australian NGO coalition through the shadow reporting process for the United Nation’s Universal Periodic Review of Australia. She continues to engage in pro bono human rights legal work, is co-deputy chair of the Queensland Law Society's Human Rights and Public Law Policy Committee and is the QLS representative on the Law Council of Australia's National Human Rights Committee.

Andrew is Professor of Business Information Systems in UQ Business School, where is also co-lead of the Future of Health Research Hub (https://business.uq.edu.au/research/research-hubs/future-health) and Chair of the Education Steering Committee of the Queensland Digital Health Centre (https://chsr.centre.uq.edu.au/research/queensland-digital-health-centre). He helped found the UQ's Graduate Certificate in Clinical Informatics and Digital Health (https://medicine.uq.edu.au/gccidh).

Andrew graduated from UQ’s Commerce program in 1998 and worked for several years in IT risk management for one of the Big-4 accounting/consulting firms. He then moved to Georgia State University in Atlanta, USA, to complete his Ph.D., followed by seven years at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he became a tenured Associate Professor. He returned to UQ as Professor in May 2012.

Andrew has taught information systems in undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs, in several counties. He has extensive experience teaching IT governance and control, systems analysis and design, and digital health. He undertakes research in three areas. His first area focuses on how effectively organisations use IT. For example, he has been studying the effective use of electronic health records in health authorities. His second research area focused on improving methods to analyse and design IT systems. For example, he has examined ways to improve the specification of user requirements. His third research stream focuses on improving theories and methods used by researchers in the Information Systems discipline.

He has published in and served on the editorial boards of many journals, including the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Information and Organization, and Academy of Management Discoveries. He has also served as Representative for the Americas for the Association of Information Systems and as International Representative for the Academy of Management (OCIS/CTO Division). He is a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of Australia, served as Editor-in-Chief of MIS Quarterly (2021-2023), and is the current President of the Association for Information Systems (2024-2025).

Sally Butler is a Reader in Art History.

Sally Butler took up the position as lecturer in Art History at the University of Queensland in 2004 after a period as Art History lecturer at the Australian National Univeristy in Canberra. Visual arts industry experience includes working for the Queensland Art Gallery and a number of freelance curating projects, and several years as Associate Editor of Australian Art Collector magazine and one of the edtiors for the Australia and New Zealand Journal of Art. Sally regularly writes for Australian visual arts magazines, maintaining a particular interest in contemporary Australian art, Australian indigenous art and new media art.

Research

Her research interests include cross-cultural critical theory, Australian Indigenous art, Australian contemporary art, photography and new media art. Current research includes: Indigenous art from Far North Queensland, Virtual Reality theory and photography, contemporary Queensland photography, and art and cultural tourism.

Dr Tamara Butler is an Aboriginal woman of the Undumbi people from the Sunshine Coast region of Queensland, Australia and a NHMRC Emerging Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. She works withing the First Nations Cancer and Wellbeing Research Program. Her work is focused on women’s cancers with the goal of improving cancer outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, families, and communities. Broadly Dr Butler’s research interests also include First Nations research methods and process, co-design, wellbeing, and psychosocial aspects of cancer care.

The most important treatment for anxiety disorders is exposure to fear cues. Parents need to support their child to face their fears and meet challenges, yet many struggle with this fundamental process.

Dr Byrne completed a PhD and Masters of Clinical Psychology in child anxiety at Macquarie University in 2015. He has held postdoctoral positions at Yale Child Study Center, as well as psychiatry departments at Westmead Hospital and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Since 2021 he has been a Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at University of Queensland.

His research focusses on unconventional use of psychiatric drugs to treat mental disorders, treatments for anxiety and treatments for children.

The objective of my research is to improve understanding of the genetic etiology and biological mechanisms underlying risk of common psychiatric disorders, particularly those with onset during childhood and adolescence. As a Senior Research Fellow at the Child Health Research Centre, I lead a number of domestic and international collaborations that evaluate the association between polygenic risk scores, environmental variables and behaviour during childhood and adolescence. My group applies innovative statistical methods to large longitudinal datasets with information from infancy through to adulthood and to evaluate genetic and environmental contributions to risk to mental health problems. In addition, our research focuses on the potential clinical utility of polygenic risk scores in psychiatry. I have contributed to major advances in understanding of the etiology of a number of psychiatric disorders, with a major focus on depression

PhD and Honours projects are available in the group. Please contact me for more information.

Dr Cassandra Byrnes (she/her) is a History Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia, and researches histories of gender and sexuality focusing on reproductive rights and control. She is working on a history of reproductive coercion in Australia’s recent past, and how that directly influences our current understandings of laws and social practices. Her past research has examined reproduction regulation in Queensland in the mid-to-late twentieth century, illustrating how political, moral, and social control over contracepting bodies influenced broader attitudes regarding agency and autonomy. She was a National Library of Australia Summer Scholar and a Global Change Scholar at UQ, collaborating with peers in interdisciplinary networks, and has recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship on the interdisciplinary project The Limits of Consent.

Peter Cabot is the Professor and Head of School in the School of Pharmacy. He joined the School staff in this position in 1999 after completing postdoctoral positions at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore USA, The NIH, Baltimore USA and within the School of Pharmacy at UQ.

The primary focus of my research is on the elucidation of the peripheral mechanisms involved in analgesia associated with inflammation. Key discoveries were made in this field that highlighted the importance of the immune system in inflammatory pain. The results of which were published in the notable journals; JBC, PAIN, Nature Medicine and The Journal of Clinical Investigation.