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Professor Leonie Callaway is an Obstetric Physician, with a strong track record in clinical research relating to gestational diabetes, hypertension in pregnancy, medical disorders of pregnancy, clinical trials, clinical studies and epidemiology. Research funding to date has totalled in excess of 12 million dollars. This includes funding for a number of clinical trials and clinical studies as Chief Investigator supported by both the NH&MRC and the Medical Research Futures Fund.

Prof Callaway has a long track record of successful PhD scholar supervision. She has a particular interest in the issues of work life balance and wellbeing for scholars undertaking research higher degrees.

At present, Prof Callaway holds a number of roles including Director of Research within Women’s and Newborn Services at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Executive Director of the Women’s and Children’s Stream for Metro North Hospital and Health Service District and Co-Chair of the Queensland Maternal and Perinatal Quality Council. This work has been supported by qualifications in Executive Leadership and as a Company Director.

Prof Callaway’s past leadership experience is broad, and includes the domains of clinical education, health service delivery and research. Previous roles include Chair of the Board of the Australasian Diabetes in Pregnancy Society, Deputy Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Queensland, Acting Director of Internal Medicine Services at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and Head of the Royal Brisbane Clinical School for the University of Queensland.

Prof Callaway is particularly interested in the role of values such as integrity, respect and compassion, and their importance in workplace culture and wellbeing.

Biography:

Ian Cameron is a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering, an inaugural Senior Fellow of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and ALTC Discipline Scholar in Engineering & ICT. He is also a director and principal consultant at Daesim Technologies, Brisbane. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE).

He completed Chemical Engineering degrees at the University of NSW, and a masters degree at the University of Washington. He worked for 10 years for the CSR Group in diverse industry sectors such as sugar, building materials and industrial chemicals, having roles in process and control system design, plant commissioning, production management and environmental protection.

He obtained his PhD and DIC from Imperial College London in the area of Process Systems Engineering (PSE), and then worked full-time for 3 years as a United Nations (UNIDO) process engineering consultant in Argentina and a further 6 years in Turkey on a part-time basis. He has spent the last 25 years in research, consulting, teaching and learning innovation at The University of Queensland, having received numerous awards including the J.A. Brodie Medal of the Institution of Engineers Australia, the Australian Award for University Teaching in Physical Sciences 2003 and the Prime Minister’s Award for University Teacher of the Year. He was part of the team from UQ Chemical Engineering that won a national AAUT institutional award in 2005 for educational enhancement via project centred curriculum and course innovation.

He has held visiting appointments at Imperial College London, University College London, the Technical University of Denmark, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the University of Edinburgh.

Research:

Ian’s research interests are in Process Systems Engineering, granulation, risk management, intelligent systems and engineering education. He has published over 220 international journal and conference papers in these and related areas.

His current work focuses on innovative methodologies to detect and analyse failures in process systems, including human factors. He also applies systems thinking to innovative design and design tools for higher education curricula in engineering. He has created numerous 4D virtual systems in conjunction with industry that are now deployed and used globally.

He is the co-author of 4 books, including a process systems modelling book used in over 35 countries, as well as a widely used book giving a comprehensive treatment of industrial process risk management based on almost 30 years of research and consultancy work.

Teaching and Learning:

Since arriving at UQ, Ian has been deeply involved in course and curriculum design innovation, having established, and taught, numerous project based courses around process systems engineering. He consults widely to the national and international engineering sector on curriculum design issues. He has recently been involved in educational aspects of Skolkovo Tech, a joint venture between MIT and the Russian government.

Projects:

1. Blended hazard identification methodologies for advanced process diagnosis
2. Resilience engineering: theory and practice
3. Improved decision making via 4D+ virtual learning systems
4. Innovative curricula design tools for higher education

Dr Jennifer Leigh Campbell is an environmental engineer, scientist, and researcher, deeply committed to enriching STEM education with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and connecting people with Country through community-led or codesigned infrastructure, with a particular focus on Nature-Based Solutions (NbS), and blue-green infrastructure (BGI).

As the recipient of the 2022 Queensland Women in STEM Breaking Barriers Award and a 2023 Australian Award for University Teaching citation, Dr Jen's innovative approaches to learning and teaching aim to bring playful curiosity back into STEM fields but also promote inclusivity and diversity. She advocates for integrating project-based learning and undergraduate research into the curriculum to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes. In her previous position at Griffith University, she co-founded the Kungullanji Indigenous Research Program and continues to work with universities and organisations to expand undergraduate research opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Dr Jen's creativity extends beyond traditional research and teaching methods. As a trained LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator, she designs activities that are both meaningful and engaging, proving that learning can be fun and impactful. Driven by a desire to inspire students, empower researchers, and foster a more equitable and diverse STEM community, Jennifer's work transcends conventional approaches. Her commitment to excellence, innovation, and inclusivity makes her an energetic force in STEM education and environmental engineering research.

Gabrielle Campbell (PhD; MCrim) is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Psychology, and National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, University of Queensland. Gabrielle is currently the research manager for the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Meaningful Outcomes in Substance Use Treatment, led by Professor Leanne Hides. She was a previous Australian Public Health Early Career Research Fellowship recipient (2017-2021, #1119992) at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales. From 2012, she established and coordinated the Pain and Opioids IN Treatment prospective cohort study; world-first study examining the benefits and outcomes of pharmaceutical opioids for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP). Gabrielle has over 15 years experince in designing, leading and managing large studies. Gabrielle's research interest include; alcohol and other drugs, chronic pain, opioids and suicide-related behaviours.

Dr Bradley Campbell has over 10 years’ experience in plant biotechnology research and since 2003 has held research positions focused on plant molecular genetics. His research involves the use of genomic tools for crop improvement, with an emphasis on the sustainable production of grain crops. Major focus is on the improvement of crops for food, feed and bio-industrial end-uses. For the past 5 years he has also been involved in hay fever studies, focused on metagenomics of the aerobiome of Australian climates and its links to allergy. Current projects involve the genotyping of the Pacific Islands in vitro taro collection for germplasm preservation and breeding purposes, investigation into infrared spectral cameras and their applicability to taro salinity screening, as well as a comphrehensive bio-geographic analysis of the urban Australian aerobiome and its links to allergic rhinitis.

Dr. Pablo Cañete was awarded a PhD in Immunology in 2019 under Prof. Carola Vinuesa’s supervision at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR), The Australian National University (ANU). During this time he characterised a novel human T cell subset important for modulating antibodies associated with allergic responses. His doctoral research has been recognised by several awards, including the prestigious Dewar Milne prize for immunology, awarded to the most outstanding PhD thesis of Immunology at the JCSMR, ANU. He then continued as a postdoc with Prof. Vinuesa investigating 1) novel tolerance mechanisms and 2) characterising bespoke mouse models of autoimmunity at the Centre for Personalised Immunology. In 2022 he joined Frazer institute with Prof. Di Yu where he hopes to uncover novel approaches for harnessing T cell biology for therapeutic purposes. Pablo’s research vision is to integrate human and mouse immunology together with systems biology with the hope to better understand antibody responses, mechanisms of immune tolerance and autoimmunity.

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Digital Health and Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) interested in the prevention and management of noncommunicable diseases, especially obesity, across the lifecourse.

Through research, I aim to add health to life and equity to health by changing policies and practices to reduce the impact of obesity.

My research program aims to forge a new nexus across dietetics, digital health and public health to improve healthy weight. In my Postdoctoral Fellowship, I have established a new evidence base that supports precision public health approaches to the prevention and management of obesity, including innovate methods of public health surveillance that can use data from sources such as electronic medical records. I trained as a Paediatric Dietitian and have experience as a clinician-researcher working in Queensland's healthcare system, specifically in preventing and managing childhood obesity via clinical, community, and public health programs.

I have used epidemiology, public health informatics, action research, co-design, and ethnographic methods to generate new knowledge in obesity and digital health. I was awarded my PhD (UQ) in November 2020, which developed and validated i-PATHWAY, a clinical model to predict childhood obesity from the first 1,000 days to help guide its prevention. This research was the first of its kind in Australia and uncovered new evidence for risk factors for childhood obesity that are evident from the early years.

At The University of Queensland (UQ), I am a member of the Queensland Digital Health Centre, located within the Centre for Health Services Research (Faculty of Medicine). I established and currently Co-Chair the UQ Digital Health HDR Cohort, which provides research mentorship and support to ~20 PhD, MPhil and Honours research students.

Our team partners closely with multiple healthcare and research organisations across Australia to innovate and translate obesity research into practice, including Health and Wellbeing Queensland (public health and prevention of chronic diseases), Queensland Health (healthcare system) and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (digital health research). I hold an Honorary Appointment with Health and Wellbeing Queensland, and an Affiliate Research Fellow position with the Faculty of Medicine (UQ) to help bridge the gap between obesity research and practice.

David Cantillo studied chemistry at the University of Extremadura, Spain. In 2011, he obtained his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Jose Luis Jimenez at the same university. His PhD work focused on the experimental and theoretical study of 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions of mesoionic compounds. Then, he moved to the University of Graz as a postdoctoral researcher within the group of Prof. C. Oliver Kappe, where he gained experience in flow chemistry. In 2018, he started his independent academic career at the University of Graz as an Assistant Professor and became an Area Leader at the Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH. David has joined the University of Queensland in 2023.

His research group focuses on synthetic organic electrochemistry. In particular, the group explores the use of electrical current to develop novel synthetic methodologies and more sustainable routes for the synthesis of medicines, as well as process scale up using continuous flow technology.

As a cell biologist specialising in molecular and cell biology and stem cell biology, my work focuses on cardiovascular development, stem cell-base disease modelling and pharmaceutical drug discovery. Specifically, I concentrate on ischaemic heart injury and diabetic cardiomyopathy, aiming to develop novel therapeutics to reduce hospitalisations and community health burdens. I have 13 career publications and an h-index of 5 (Web of Science); 83.3% of my publications are in Q1 journals (SciVal). Across my research career, the topic areas in publications include studies in cell biology (4), development biology (3), pharmacology (3), and cardiovascular system-cardiology (2) (Web of Science). In the last five years, 60% of my publications are in the top 10% of journals, and the studies cover biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology (3 outputs), and medicine (2 outputs) (SciVal). I have held leadership roles including member of International Society for Heart Research Australasia Early Career Investigator Committee, member of the Queensland Cardiovascular Research Network (QCVRN) Emerging Leaders Committee, member of the Early-Mid Career Researchers (EMCR) Association for IMB, UQ. I am organising EMCR Session for the 2024 Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand annual scientific meeting, the 2024 QCVRN & Heart Foundation Research Showcase, the 2024 IMB EMCR Retreat meeting, and was organisation committee member for the 2023 Australia Network of Cardiac and Vascular Developmental Biology conference. I review for journals including Stem Cell Reports, Stem Cells, IUBMB Life and co-review for journals including Nature Methods, Cell Stem Cell, Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology. I am a special guest editor for the journal Pathogens on the Special Issue: Innate Immunity against Pathogens.

Shoufeng Cao is a disrupter and transformational advocate for impactful and real-world solutions, with research expertise in digital tranformation and blockchain-based innovative solutions for businesses, supply chains, industries and communites. His current research focuses on developing and demonstrating the transformative application of blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the bushfood industry.

Shoufeng obtained his doctoral degree from The University of Queensland (UQ), with his thesis on system-wide data-driven risk analysis and management in global fresh produce value chains for the strategic competition of "value chain to value chain". He started his postdoc research journeys at UQ and Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where he completed three digital transformation projects in agri-food supply chains and the industry funded by three industry-led CRCs including the CRC for developing Northern Australia (CRCNA), the Food Agility CRC, and the Future Food Systems CRC, and one ARC Indigenous Disovery Project.

His research areas span from the identification of digital transformation strategies in complex multi-industry and multi-region contexts to the design, implementation, and evaluation of blockchain solutions with end users for industrial transformation and real-world disruptive impacts. His completed projects won two Good Design Australia Awards 2020 and one of them was a runner-up of the 2021 ACS Digital Disruptors Awards in the ICT Research Project of the Year Category.

Liang Cao is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland's School of Chemical Engineering (UQ, Australia). He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from UQ in 2021. In 2017, he worked as a research assistant at Tsinghua University before coming to UQ. From 2009 to 2016, he earned master's and bachelor's degrees in Environmental Engineering from Hunan University in China.

Dr Zhe (Selina) Cao is a Research Fellow in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at UQ Business School and an ARC Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology. Her research examines how fragmented worlds can work together. She studies how actors, institutions, and knowledge systems interact and coordinate under conditions of uncertainty, technological disruption, and fragmented authority, with particular interest in how engagement becomes possible across sectors, disciplines, and cultures without erasing difference.

Her work explores fragmentation and coordination at three interconnected levels: institutional, epistemic, and ontological. She investigates how organisations and governance systems coordinate across institutional boundaries, how knowledge travels across disciplines and cultures, and how individuals and organisations engage paradox and persistent tensions in organisational life.

Theoretical Lenses

Her work draws on several streams of organisation and management scholarship, including:

• Ecosystem theory
• Institutional theory and institutional governance
• Process and practice-based perspectives on organisations
• Paradox and tensions in organisational life
• Epistemic infrastructures and knowledge translation across cultures

Empirical Contexts

She investigates these questions in settings where fragmentation is especially visible, including:

• Innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems
• Commercialisation and research translation
• University-industry collaboration
• Interdisciplinary research environments
• Governance of emerging technologies such as synthetic biology and quantum technologies
• Cross-cultural knowledge production and translation in management research

Methodologically, she adopts interpretive, qualitative, and process-oriented approaches, including in-depth fieldwork and comparative case analysis.

Her current empirical projects focus on the commercialisation and governance of synthetic biology and quantum technologies in Australia, with particular attention to translational research infrastructures, stakeholder coordination, and public legitimacy in national innovation initiatives. She also chairs the Commercialisation and Translation Advisory Committee at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology.

Alongside this empirical work, Selina develops conceptual and philosophical research in organisation theory examining how paradox, relational ways of being, and epistemic infrastructures shape how actors engage difference in organisational life.

She holds a PhD in Management and Entrepreneurship from Imperial College London. Her doctoral research examined large-scale digital innovation initiatives in China, drawing on longitudinal fieldwork conducted at Tsinghua University. Prior to academia, she held professional roles at DuPont and PwC in North America, experiences that continue to inform her interest in the lived realities of organisational and institutional change.

My research group specializes in the detection, isolation, identification and evaluation of biologically active small molecules from Nature (natural products). We acquire valuable knowledge on how and why natural products are made, and apply this knowledge to better understand living systems, and solve important scientific and societal challenges.

To achieve these goals we have established specialist capabilities that extend across;

Microbiology – the isolation, characterization and cultivation of bacterial and fungal strains.

Chemistry – the extraction and fractionation of natural extracts, the purification, chemical and spectroscopic characterization, and structure elucidation of natural products, and the use of synthetic and medicinal chemistry to explore bioactive scaffolds.

Biology – to evaluate extracts and natural products against an array of bioassays, leading to new human pharmaceuticals that target such indications as infectious and neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, pain and epilepsy, as well as new animal health products and new crop protection agents.