Dr Heather Stewart has been a journalist for 20 years, including almost a decade with the ABC in news and current affairs and covering content for ABC Radio National. She is a Walkley award winner and two times nominee and her work received a Gold and Bronze Medal in the New York Festival world's best radio documentary and for social equity coverage.
As a media, marketing and communication contractor and consultant in the mining, oil and gas, education, and the not for profile and public sectors in Queensland and Federal government departments she has honed her digital skills preparing integrated marketing communication plans and advertising campaigns and mentored executives in business digital transformation.
in 2016, she received a peer nomination for teaching innovation at TAFE Queensland where she ran two iterations of the Advanced Accelerated Diploma of Marketing positioning mature age student teams with small and medium businesses to create business plans and integrated marketing campaigns.
She completed her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2018 conducting a longitudinal study into the impact of technological change on ABC journalists and journalism while teaching students in media and communication at UQ and QUT.
Joining UQ as a teaching and learning academic in 2006, she has coordinated courses and received a UQ Teaching and Learning Excellence Award. She was the joint winner of the UQ Vice Chancellor's Award, a high commendation in the UQ Trailblazer award for her teaching model empowering students to tell First Nation stories in an informed way. She co-led the United Nations World Press Freedom Day Indigenous Voice Communication for Social Change Forum at UQ in 2010.
She currently is a Post Doc Researcher at The University of Queensland,with Associate Professor Sarah Jane Kelly and Associate Professor Remi Ayoko.
As Chief Investigator she is leading the Digital First Business Transformation Project and the Rapid Transition to Online Learning study with partners in eight regions. She is the leader of a team in a bilateral Australia Indonesia Centre SRR PAIR grant investigating the impact of COVID-19 on Indonesia's Small and Medium Enterprises.
Heather is a Visiting Professor at Universitas Indonesia.
Heather specialises in digital media, marketing and communication change management, journalism work practice research, digital transformation in the media, work-integrated learning, and change management, and best practice for coverage of mental health and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories.
In 2020, she supported the Service Learning Online Internship Program at Griffith University as a research assistant and cofacilitator with a focus on mental health and well-being, digital inclusivity, environmental sustainability, and all abilities inclusivity. The pilot project is the subject of a book chapter and series of research publications.
Dr Stewart is a UQ Mental Health Champion and First Responder supporting students and staff. If you are in need of support please email heather.stewart@uq.edu.au
I am an urban sociologist and an expert in urban community in all its forms. My research encompasses the outer suburbs in Australia, the gentrifying inner city and informal communities in cities in the Global South. My work focuses on how different urban places and spatial logic in the city impact our opportunities to form attachments to neighbourhoods and each other.
Internationally, I have written extensively on urban poverty in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia and I am currently involved in work on climate change and its effects on the urban poor in collaboration with colleagues in Indonesia, Brazil and Solomon Islands. My latest research concerns the impact of climate change and natural disasters on the urban poor. More than 1 billion people live in informal urban settlements or slums. These people are among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. However, adaptation and mitigation policies are being formulated at multiple scales, often without considering the voices of the poor.
I am the Bachelor of Arts Sociology program convenor and an award-winning teacher. I teach courses at all levels in our undergraduate sociology program, including Introduction to Sociology (SOCY1050), An Urban World (SOCY2340) and Advanced Studies in Social Thought: Getting the Big Picture (SOCY3345).
I am also an award-winning photographer (you can see some of my work on my Flickr page.
I am open to proposals from potential Honours and PhD students who share my passion for understanding the social life of cities. Whether you're from Australia, the Global South, or anywhere else in the world, I look forward to the possibility of working together.
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 Wheeler is a proud Ngarabal person and Accredited Exercise Scientist (ESSA). Dr Wheeler specilises in implementation science in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.
Dr Wheeler was the first Aboriginal person to graduate with a PhD from the University of the Sunshine Coast.
Dr Wheeler’s research examines how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can co-design programs that build community capacity and engage children and young peoples in a broad range of development areas. Dr Wheeler’s research strengths consist co-designing physical movement-based programs, ensuring a trauma informed and culturally-responsive approach towards community engagement and empowerment.
Dr Wheeler has led high performing teams working on education programs that support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families through a strength-based and holistic framework. Extending this work, Dr Wheeler's research focuses on developing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce to better address the complex health needs of community. Dr Wheeler has provided FIrst Nations leadership to a range of projects that have catered for the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and through this experience has partnered to deliver diverse governance solutions and educational engagement frameworks.
Dr Wheeler also specialises in biomechanics, sport analytics and performance analysis as well as strength and conditioning research. Dr Wheeler works currently with a range of sporting organisations to implement best-practice sport servicing, testing and athlete management to achieve excellence. Dr Wheeler is the lead researcher in partnership with Indigenous Basketball Australia. Dr Wheeler has worked with a variety of professional sporting organisations and teams such as the Wallabies, Brumbies Rugby and World Rugby as well as the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra Raiders, Canberra Comets, Canberra Meteors and GWS Giants. Dr Wheeler co-design training programs to promote optimal performance in a range of sports. Dr Wheeler is a passionate about how sport and exercise can be used to enrich community as well as health and wellbeing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Dr Wheeler is the Chair of the ESSA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategy Working Group for Exercise and Sport Science Australia.
Dr Wheeler is the Director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategy for the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences.
Dr Wheeler is the Program Convenor for Bachelor of Exercise and Sport Sciences, the University of Queensland.
Dr Wheeler was named in the top 52 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people changing the world from COSMOS.
Awards
2022 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Scientist Award from the Australian Academy of Science
2022 LSQ Merck Life Science Rural and Regional Service Award from Life Sciences Queensland
2020 Accredited Exercise Scientist of the Year Award from Exercise and Sport Science Australia
2021 Science Peoples Choice Award from National Science Week
2021 Outreach Award from National Science Week
2020 Science Leadership Excellence Award from National Science Week
2017 NAIDOC Award from Fraser Coast NAIDOC Committee
Helen has over 30 years’ experience as a clinician (orthoptist) and an innovative educator. She was the Academic Lead Assessment in the Academy for Medical Education from mid 2017 to March 2024. Helen’s expertise has been built on a career spanning clinical practice in rural and urban settings fuelling a passion for learning from her early mentor, the late Prof Fred Hollows. Her career in higher education has spanned several roles including lecturing and reforming the orthoptics curriculum, leading elearning projects across five health facilities at the University of Sydney before moving to lead academic development at Charles Darwin University. She has worked in three medical schools (University of Sydney, Flinders University and the University of Queensland) inspiring educators to enhance clinical skills teaching, developing clinical supervisors in Northern Australia and most recently leading assessment design for the new Doctor of Medicine program at University of Queensland. She has received multiple teaching and learning awards at University of Sydney (2003, 2004), Flinders University (2016) and the Australian Awards for University Teaching: Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (2017).
