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I am a Research Fellow at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, with an interdisciplinary background spanning molecular biology, philosophy of science, and the study of scientific practices. My research focuses on unraveling the complex dynamics of power, ethics, and knowledge production within scientific institutions.

With a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), my doctoral thesis, "Biobanks in Mexico: Aspects of the Economy of Scientific Capital," explored the intricate relationships between biological sample management, scientific capital, and the broader scientific landscape.

Currently, I am engaged in research projects associated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology, investigating the intricacies of authorship, recognition, and credit distribution within cross-disciplinary scientific collaborations.

My research employs qualitative methods such as ethnography, participant observation and interviews to shed light on the interplay of scientific practices, intellectual property, and the sociological dimensions of research. I have contributed to the field through publications in journals and edited volumes, as well as presentations at international conferences.

Throughout my career, I have held various roles, including managing a molecular diagnostic service, conducting research and development in the private sector, and teaching at the university level.

Working in theoretical atomic physics and particle astrophysics. My research focusses on high-precision atomic structure calculations, and how atomic processes can be used for testing fundamental theories, probing for physics beyond the standard model, and searching for dark matter. This is complimentary to the high-energy tests performed at CERN. Some research highlights include: searching for variations in the fundamental constants near the super-massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy [1]; using decades of archived atomic clock data from the GPS satellites to search for signatures of dark matter [2]; performing high-precision calculations of symmetry violations in atoms, allowing the most precise low-energy test of the standard model to date [3-5]; and proposing and quantifying novel experimental signatures of dark matter that exploit atomic (rather than the typical nuclear) phenomena, opening the door to a wide range of previously “invisible” models [6-10].

1. A. Hees, T. Do, B. M. Roberts, A. M. Ghez, S. Nishiyama, R. O. Bentley, A. K. Gautam, S. Jia, T. Kara, J. R. Lu, H. Saida, S. Sakai, M. Takahashi, and Y. Takamori, Search for a Variation of the Fine Structure Constant around the Supermassive Black Hole in Our Galactic Center, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081101 (2020).
2. B. M. Roberts, G. Blewitt, C. Dailey, M. Murphy, M. Pospelov, A. Rollings, J. Sherman, W. Williams, and A. Derevianko, Search for Domain Wall Dark Matter with Atomic Clocks on Board Global Positioning System Satellites, Nature Comm. 8, 1195 (2017).
3. V. A. Dzuba, J. C. Berengut, V. V. Flambaum, and B. M. Roberts, Revisiting Parity Nonconservation in Cesium, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 203003 (2012).
4. B. M. Roberts and J. S. M. Ginges, Nuclear Magnetic Moments of Francium-207–213 from Precision Hyperfine Comparisons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 063002 (2020).
5. G. Sanamyan, B. M. Roberts, and J. S. M. Ginges, Empirical Determination of the Bohr-Weisskopf Effect in Cesium and Improved Tests of Precision Atomic Theory in Searches for New Physics, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 053001 (2023).
6. B. M. Roberts, Y. V. Stadnik, V. A. Dzuba, V. V. Flambaum, N. Leefer, and D. Budker, Limiting P-Odd Interactions of Cosmic Fields with Electrons, Protons, and Neutrons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 081601 (2014).
7. B. M. Roberts, V. V. Flambaum, and G. F. Gribakin, Ionization of Atoms by Slow Heavy Particles, Including Dark Matter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 023201 (2016).
8. B. M. Roberts et al., Search for Transient Variations of the Fine Structure Constant and Dark Matter Using Fiber-Linked Optical Atomic Clocks, New J. Phys. 22, 093010 (2020).
9. E. Savalle, A. Hees, F. Frank, E. Cantin, P.-E. Pottie, B. M. Roberts, L. Cros, B. T. McAllister, and P. Wolf, Searching for Dark Matter with an Optical Cavity and an Unequal-Delay Interferometer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 051301 (2021).
10. M. Filzinger, A. Caddell, D. Jani, M. Steinel, L. Giani, N. Huntemann, and B. M. Roberts, Ultralight Dark Matter Search with Space-Time Separated Atomic Clocks and Cavities, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 031001 (2025)

Dr Emma Beckman is a Teaching and Research academic at the University of Queensland. Emma is passionate about engaging in research to improve the lives of people with a disability through sports, physical activity, and exercise. Following a master’s degree in Adapted physical activity, Emma completed her PhD in strength assessment for classification in Para Sport. She is currently a co-investigator in the UQ IPC Classification Research Partnership, and an internationally accredited classifier in Para Athletics.

Through her Para Sport research, Dr Beckman has seen the power of collaborative care and is committed to research that uses collaborative care models to improve health outcomes. She has undertaken projects to evaluate the impact of interprofessional education and practice on students, educators and clients and has adapted this work for different populations, including people with disabilities and university students with mental health issues.

David is a passionate and driven scientist with a successful track record in translational commercially focused technical and academic leadership. David has worked in academia and industry at the interface of chemistry, biochemistry and biology. He has successfully designed and developed several oncology nanomedicines and driven them forward into clinical trials.

As Director of the Protein Expression Facility (PEF) within The University of Queensland, David and his team strive to build collaborations and provide excellent service provision with a wide variety of researchers across academia and industry. Through this work we ensure PEF achieves its vision to be a world leader in protein research services and innovative solutions for protein production driving scientific success.

Professor Pitsis is a globally renowned expert in the strategic design and management of complex and high-risk projects. These projects range from Olympic infrastructure, deep tech quantum computing, and, most recently, AI adoption and its role in decision-making under extreme conditions. He is an ideal person to speak on making the impossible possible, and the strategic and managerial constraints of opportunities of engaging and investing in high-risk, but high-reward, projects.

He is the recipient of several awards for his research, including the Emerald Science Citation of Excellence and, Sage Paper of the Year award for Human Relations. Most recently, he and his co-authors were Finalists for the 2025 Responsible Research in Management Award, co-sponsored by the Academy of Management Fellows Group and the Community for Responsible Research in Business and Management (RRBM) at The Academy of Management Annual Conference for their research on ColaLife, a temporary organisation that successfully eradicated childhood mortality due to diarrhoea in Zambia.

He has published in several FT50 and other highly regarded academic and practitioner journals (including Academy of Management Learning and Education, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Long Range Planning, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations, California Management Review, amongst others. He is also a co-author of critically acclaimed and best-selling texts in management and innovation.

He has appeared on radio (ABC) and television (BBC), in addition to podcasts. He has also provided strategic advice and leadership development for several major projects and organisations, including the Royal Air Force (Plan Astra), Royal Australian Air Force (Air Force Improvement Program), Reserve Bank of Australia, Reserve Bank of India, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, BorgWarner (Sevcon), TNT, KONNE, just to name a few.

Dr Hinne Hettema is a senior research fellow in uqcyber, focused on cybersecurity operations, security of operational technology and philosophy of cybersecurity. He has a background in theoretical chemistry (PhD 1993) and philosophy of science (PhD 2012). He has been working in cybersecurity in a professional context since 1997. At UQ, he participates in research and assists with specialised knowledge in the areas of threat intelligence, incident response, security operations and malware research.

Previous research by Dr Hettema has been in the area of quantum chemistry and philosophy of science.

Professor Jennifer Stow is a molecular cell biologist, an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and head of the Protein Trafficking and Inflammation research laboratory in The University of Queensland’s Institute of Molecular Bioscience (IMB). Her previous leadership appointments include as Division Head and Deputy Director (Research) at IMB (12 years) and she currently serves on national and international advisory boards, editorial boards and steering committees, and as an elected Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO).

Jenny Stow received her undergraduate and PhD qualifications at Melbourne’s Monash University before undertaking postdoctoral training in the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine, USA. With training as a microscopist in kidney research, she gained further experience at Yale as a postdoc in the lab of eminent cell biologist and microscopist, Dr Marilyn Farquhar, where protein trafficking was both a theme and a passion. Jenny then took up her first faculty appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Renal Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School in Boston USA, where her research uncovered new roles for a class of enzymes, GTPases, in regulating trafficking within cells. At MGH her research also formed part of a highly successful NIH Renal Cell Biology Program. In late 1994, Jenny moved her research lab back to Australia, to The University of Queensland, in late 1994 as a Wellcome Trust International Medical Research Fellow. As part of IMB since, the Stow lab has continued a focus on protein trafficking, including pioneering live-cell imaging, to spearhead their work on trafficking in inflammation, cancer and chronic disease. Major discoveries include identifying new proteins and pathways for recycling adhesion proteins in epithelial cells, inflammatory cytokine secretion in macrophages and immune signalling through Toll-like receptors in inflammation and infection. Small GTPases of the Rab family, signalling adaptors and kinases feature among the molecules studied in the Stow lab for their functional roles and their potential as drug targets in inflammation and cancer. A keen focus is to understand the role of the fluid uptake pathway, macropinocytosis, in controlling inflammation, cancer and mucosal absorption.

Professor Stow has been awarded multiple career fellowships including from American Heart Association, Wellcome Trust and NHMRC. She has published >200 papers, cited over 15,500 times and she is the recipient of awards and honours, most recently including the 2019 President's Medal from the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology. She is also academic head of IMB Microscopy, a world-class fluorescence microscopy and image analysis facility. Her research is funded by a variety of agencies and industry partnerships, in addition to NHMRC and ARC, including through the ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology, QUBIC. The Stow lab work with national and international collaborators and welcome students and postdoctoral trainees to participate in their research. We value having a diverse, inclusive and supportive culture for research and celebrate the many diverse and wonderful successes of Stow lab alumni.

Present Position

I am an ARC Future Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Imaging and associated with the University of Oxford as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow.

Previous Positions

• August 2007 to March 2013: Scientific Coordinator and Applications manager of the Centre of Advanced Electron Spin Resonance (CAESR) at the Oxford University, UK.
• 2002-July 2007: Project leader (“Ober-assistent”) in the Physical Chemistry Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich. I was a project leader in the electron paramagnetic resonance group of Prof. Arthur Schweiger.
• 1999-2002: Postdoctoral position at ETH, Zurich. In the group of Prof. Arthur Schweiger I used CW and pulse EPR as a tool to investigate the geometric and electronic properties of transition metal complexes.
• 1996-1999: Doctor of Philosophy from the Chemistry Department of the University of Newcastle, Australia, Advanced Coal Characterization by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. The project was funded by the Collaborative Research Centre for Black Coal Utilization and I was supervised by the University of Newcastle (Prof. Marcel Maeder), BHP Research Melbourne (Dr. Brian Smith) and Callcott Coal Consulting (Dr. Tom Callcott).
• 1995: Researcher at BHP Central Research Laboratories, Newcastle, Australia. I developed experimental techniques to measure the conductivity and the permeability of coal as it pertains to coke ovens.
• 1992-1995: Researcher at Oakbridge Research Center, Newcastle, Australia. I worked on high temperature Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) for coal characterization (for my Bachelor of Science Honors thesis). This was a collaboration between the CSIRO Coal and Energy Division (North Ryde, Sydney), Oakbridge Research Centre and the University of Newcastle.

Keywords

structural biology · protein interactions · metalloenzymes · metal complexes · electron transfer · Iron sulphur clusters · pulse EPR · CW EPR · DEER · PELDOR ·HYSCORE · ENDOR · ESEEM · density functional theory · molecular dynamics

I am a media studies scholar studying current smart technologies and consequent ontological conundrums we face as these machines become smarter than us at telling how things are within ourselves and around our worlds. My previous research on the Internet of Things (IoT) was about these hidden arrangements of things in our background that machines constantly remind us of as those we should always be a little paranoid of, and how this normalized paranoia leads us to accept the IoT as a new smarter technique of self-governance. My first book Internet-ontologies-Things: Smart Objects, Hidden Problems, and their Symmetries (2023) argues these popular narratives of smart lives as our strategic and speculative responses to such common feelings: "Something is there, so embedded in our bodies, homes, and neighbourhoods. We feel it but cannot grasp it!"

Digital ontology is the term that best describes the nature of my research but it's less relevant to a pure philosophical inquiry about how things are in the world. Ontology in my practical and critical concern is rather related to the new capitalist ideology (or realism) that runs media industries’ current speculative economy. So, my critical reading of the ontological turn in humanities and social sciences focuses on its strategic dimension. How does this turn draw our attention to the things that our too-human perception always fails to pay the right attention to? How does this in turn mobilize our constant speculation about things beyond our perceptions and control, not only as the inexhaustible source of our anxieties but also as the inexhaustible resource of cultural production?

My current research interests include Digital Ontology, New Materialism, Speculative (Capitalist) Realism, Quantum Physics as Cultural Imagination, Science and Technology Studies, Actor-Network Theory, French Philosophers (e.g. Foucault, Deleuze, and Badiou), Eco- and Geo-philosophy/criticism, new materialist film and videogame studies.

We use computer based modelling techniques to understand and predict the the structural and dynamic properties of (bio)molecules including proteins and lipid aggregates.

Born in 1961, I obtained a BSc (Hon 1) at the University of Sydney in 1982. I obtained my PhD in 1986 from the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University (ANU), on the "Binding Responses Associated with Self-Interacting Ligands: Studies on the Self-Association and Receptor binding of Insulin”. After holding postdoctoral positions at the ANU, University of Groningen, The Netherlands and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland I was appointed Professor of Biophysical Chemistry (Molecular Simulation) University of Groningen, in 1998. In 1998 I also received the Swiss Ruzicka Prize for research in Chemistry for work on simulating peptide folding. In 2004 I was awarded an ARC Federation Fellowship and in February 2005 an honorary chair (Bijzonder Hoogleraar) at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. I have given over 90 invited lectures at conferences and academic Institutions around the world as well as at a range of summer and winter schools on advanced simulation techniques.

In my research I have performed pioneering simulations of a variety of important biological phenomena, including some of the first atomic simulations of protein unfolding and the first simulations of reversible peptide folding in a realistic environment. In recent years my group performed some of the first atomic and near atomic simulations of the spontaneous aggregation of surfactant and lipid systems into micelles, bilayers and vesicles. These have enabled us, amongst other things, to elucidate the mechanism by which pores are induced within biological membranes in unprecedented detail. Over the last decade I have been intimately involved in the development of the GROMOS force field which is specifically tuned for protein and peptide folding simulations and as well as the development of models for a range of solvents including methanol and trifluoroethanol. I have also been responsible for the development of methodology for the calculations of the thermodynamic properties of biomolecular systems such as free energies of binding and hydration, as well as estimating entropic effects from simulations. Most recently, I have been responsible for the development of novel approaches to promote structure formation in protein folding simulations that can be used for the refinement of protein structures generated by ab initio or by homology methods. Finally, I am associated with two, internationally recognised, (bio)molecular simulation packages the GROningen Molecular Simulation library (GROMOS) and the GROningen Machine for Chemical Simulations (GROMACS).

Dr Alina Bialkowski is a computer vision & machine learning researcher developing interpretable machine learning models to increase the performance and transparency of Artificial Intelligence (AI) decision-making. Her research interests include quantifying and extracting actionable knowledge from data to solve real-world problems and giving human understanding to AI models through feature visualisation and attribution methods. She has applied these techniques to various multi-disciplinary applications such as medical imaging (including imaging strokes in the brain using the new sensing modality of electromagnetic imaging), modelling human attention in driving, intelligent transport systems (ITS), intelligent surveillance, and sports analytics.

Dr Bialkowski holds a PhD and BEng (Electrical Engineering) from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her doctoral studies were in characterising group behaviours from visual and spatio-temporal data to enhance statistics and visualisation in sports analytics as well as intelligent surveillance systems. She spent a year at Disney Research Pittsburgh where she developed techniques to automatically analyse team sports, followed by 2.5 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University College London, developing deep neural networks to better understand human perception and attention in driving, before joining UQ in late 2017.

The impact of her research is evidenced by the high number of citations to her work (>1600 citations and an h-index of 20 according to Google Scholar) and awards including a best paper prize in 2017 at WACV (a top computer vision conference). In addition to high impact journals and conferences, her work has resulted in 6 international patents filed with Disney Research, Toyota Motor Europe, University College London, and The University of Queensland.

Craig Engstrom has completed BHMS (Ed) (Hon) undergraduate and honours degrees at The University of Queensland, a MSc degree at Queen's University, Canada and a PhD at The University of Queensland. He is Program Coordinator of the Postgraduate Masters of Sports Medicine.

I am interested in low-dimensional geometric topology, with a focus on knot theory, quantum invariants of 3-manifolds, and knot homologies --especially in relation to concordances and 4-dimensional smooth topology. I recently got interested in the deep connections, usually provided by combinatorial algebraic topology, between discrete structures --such as matchings and discrete Morse functions-- and their smooth counterparts. As a side interest, I try to apply techniques from topological data analysis to knot theory.

Professor Tamara Davis is an astrophysicist who studies the elusive “dark energy” that’s accelerating the universe. She completed her PhD in 2004 at the University of New South Wales on theoretical cosmology and black holes, then worked on supernova cosmology in two postdoctoral fellowships, the first at the Australian National University (collaborating with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) and the second at the University of Copenhagen. In 2008 she moved to Queensland to join the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey team working on mapping the galaxies in the Universe. She led the Dark Theme within the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics, is now leading the OzDES survey -- working with the international Dark Energy Survey, and working with working with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project. As of 2024 she is Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery.

Her accolades include the Astronomical Society of Australia's Louise Webster Medal for early career research impact, the L'Oréal Women in Science Fellowship for Australia, the Australian Institute of Physics Women in Physics Lectureship, the Australian Academy of Science’s Nancy Millis Medal for outstanding female leadership in science, an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, the Astronomical Society of Australia's Ellery Lectureship, and a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Ommeh (Sheila Cecily) was born on the slopes of Mount Elgon which is an extinct volcano that straddles both Kenya and Uganda and it was once the tallest mountain in Africa before the glaciers melted away. She spent her early years growing up on the foothills of this majestic mountain with her grandmother who is a small-holder rural farmer. From a young age, she witnessed first-hand the effects of disease and climate change on vulnerable livestock like poultry, cattle, goats and sheep among others leading to the loss of livelihoods for the farmers in her community.

During her formative years; 1984- 2002, Ommeh had an interest and pursued Agriculture and STEM upto the tertiary level. Her mentor was her late mother who was also an accomplised scientist and quite a visionary leader. For her postgraduate and early-career years; 2003 - 2011 Ommeh was affilliated at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) where she did research on poultry genetics with a focus on genetic resitance to viral diseases. Her main fields of training and research are in Molecular Genetics and Bioinformatics.

In 2012, Ommeh joined the Institute for Biotechnology Research (IBR) at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) as a Research Fellow. She formed the Animal Biotechnology Research Group and the flagship project was on Indigenous poutry. Ommeh led other research projects that aimed to understand the origins, domestication and biodiversity of indigenous livestock and domesticates. The focus of these projects was to characterize candidate genes for both production and adaptive traits like disease and heat stress. Along with key collaborators, she did extensive research on emerging livestock species like minor poultry species, camels and donkeys. This also involved research on the diversity and domestication of bushmeat like guineafowls and quails. She also lead extensive research on pathogen surveillance and genomics using a Onehealth approach on bats, rodents, dogs, cats, ticks, humans among others. In 2019, Ommeh was promoted to Senior Research Fellow position and took up various leadership roles. She was a Principal Supervisor, Mentor and successfully graduated over twenty students affilliated to her own projects and funds; 6 were PhDs and over 15 Msc students.

In 2023, Ommeh Joined QAAFI as an Associate Professor in Animal Biotechnology. She plans to intergrate key outputs from previous research into her current research program at CAS. Ommeh's primary research focus is on improvement of Animal Health and Production at the "Onehealth" interface. Her research group at the Center for Animal Science aims to develop Molecular Diagnostics and Vaccines that will detect and control notifiable animal diseases. She will also lead research on diversity and harnessing bushtucker AKA bushmeat as emerging livestock species and a source of quality protein.