Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Coombes is a senior research fellow within the NHMRC Synergy Grant, DISCERN, lead by Professor Paul Hodges. Her current role is to develop and test a tool to identify the predominant mechanism for a patient’s pain (in collaboration with the International Association for the Study of Pain Terminology Task Force) and research to understand the neurobiology of pain. As a Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist, Dr Coombes has clinical and research expertise in rehabilitation of musculoskeletal and chronic pain. Her research spans a diverse range of chronic conditions with a focus on exercise and physical interventions. Using a biopsychosocial framework and diverse research methodologies from mechanisms to implementation, herresearch is helping to reduce the personal, economic and societal impact of chronic pain. Dr Coombes has also developed and taught curricula in Physiotherapy, with a focus on pain, chronic disease and Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy.
Affiliate of Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research
Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Research on Exercise, Physical Activity and Health
Centre for Research on Exercise, Physical Activity and Health
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Professor
School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Jeff Coombes is a Professor in the School of Human Movement Studies. He completed undergraduate degrees in applied science and education and a research Masters at the University of Tasmania before gaining a PhD from the University of Florida. After completing his PhD he returned to Australia to spend two years in an academic position at the University of Tasmania before moving to the University of Queensland in 2000.
Jeff's research interests focus on determining the optimal exercise prescription for improving health. With theoretical backgrounds in biochemistry and physiology he conducts human studies and basic science projects. His findings have emphasised the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness for health benefits and many of his current projects are using high intensity interval to improve fitness and investigate outcomes. The basic science projects are identifying the mechanisms that explain the health benefits of exercise and include work in the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems at cellular and molecular levels. He is also a passionate advocate on the importance of fitness for health and delivers many presentations to impact on public health. His research group comprises doctors, postdoctoral fellows and PhD students and uses the extensive resources of the exercise physiology and exercise biochemistry laboratories in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences.
Current research projects of the group include;
High intensity interval training in patients with chronic kidney disease
High intensity interval training in patients with metabolic syndrome
High intensity interval training in overweight and obese children and adolescents
Cardiorespiratory fitness and outcome in patients receiving a liver transplant
Multi-disciplinary lifestyle intervention in patients with chronic kidney disease
Exercise training in patients with diabetic cardiac autonomic neuropathy
Oxidative stress and antioxidant biomarkers to predict the cardiorespiratory fitness response to exercise
Molecular mechanisms of exercise cardioprotection: relations with oxidative stress
Activation of NRF2 by nutritional supplementation in patients with type 2 diabetes
Exercise-training and skeletal muscle O-glycnacylation
Dr Samantha Cooms is a proud Noonuccal Quandamooka mother and carer, she holds a Bachelor of Psychology (hons) majoring in Indigenous Studies, a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Research and Leadership and a PhD in Business and is now a Lecturer in Management in the Business School at the University of Queensland.
Dr Cooms has a background in psychology and experience working in the mental health and disability sectors. She is passionate about disrupting hegemonic assumptions and promoting First Nations ways of knowing, being and doing. She has experience with using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research with a special interest in the use of poetic inquiry for sharing voices and perspectives of First Nations peoples in qualitative research. Dr Cooms' research seeks to decolonise and Indigenise knowledges with a special focus on disability to address intersectional disadvantage and disrupt ongoing colonisation. In line with this, she is passionate about connecting First Nations perspectives of inclusion and sustainability.
Affiliate of ARC COE for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture
ARC COE for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture
Faculty of Science
Chair, Crop Improvement
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
Availability:
Available for supervision
Professor Mark Cooper is Chair of Prediction Based Crop Improvement at The University of Queensland, and a global leader in quantitative genetics and plant breeding. His work involves integrating genomic prediction and crop growth models into an ‘end to end’ framework for crop improvement.
Professor Cooper has pioneered the development of novel genetic modelling methodologies, based on gene networks, to study important properties of quantitative traits in biology, and demonstrated how this new genetic modelling framework can be successfully used in plant breeding to improve prediction of important traits under the influences of selection. Professor Cooper’s work at DuPont Pioneer on drought adaptation in one of the largest maize breeding programs in the world led to the AQUAmax hybrids that presently cover millions of hectares worldwide.
A quantitative geneticist by training, Professor Cooper spent 20 years working with industry in the United States and as CEO of his own consultancy firm Zenrun42, before returning to UQ to build upon the critical mass of predictive agricultural expertise in QAAFI and the wider university.
Affiliate of Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research
Centre for Cardiovascular Health and Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Extracellular Vesicle Nanomedicine
Centre for Extracellular Vesicle Nanomedicine
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Professor
Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
Head of School, Chemical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Professor Justin Cooper-White is a global leader in using engineering to solve problems in biology. In addition to holding the position of Head of School and Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Chemical Engineering, he is Affiliate Professor in the AIBN, Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node, Research Director of the Herston Biofabrication Institute (a partnership between UQ and MNHHS) and co-Director of the Australian Organoid Facility at UQ. Professor Cooper-White is a past President of both the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and the Australian Society of Rheology and held the position of CSIRO Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader. He has previously held a Visiting Professor Fellowships at ETH Zurich (2007) and Politecnico di Milano (2012-2013). Professor Cooper-White is the Australian representative and Past President of the Asian Biomaterials Federation; an elected Fellow of and Australian representative on the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBE), and an elected Fellow and past vice President of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Cooper-White has many past and currently active international collaborations with world leading research groups at MIT (US); Stanford (USA); ETH (Switzerland); EPFL (Switzerland); SNU (Korea); University Of Grenoble (France); Politecnico di Milano (Italy); UCL (UK); and the Max Planck Institute (Germany). He has performed contract research and consultancy work for many multinational companies, including Unilever in the UK; Nestle International, Switzerland; Rhodia, US; Inion, Finland, Syngenta, UK; and NuFarm, AU since 2001.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of APL Bioengineering (American Institute of Physics Publishing); serves or has served on the editorial boards of Rheological Acta, Soft Materials, Biomicrofluidics and the Open Biomedical Engineering Journal; and is a reviewer of major international journals, including Nature Materials, Nature Methods, Advanced Materials, Lab on a Chip, Stem Cells, Stem Cells and Development, Biomacromolecules, Tissue Engineering, Langmuir, Biomaterials and Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics.
Discipline Convener (Marketing) of UQ Business School
School of Business
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Associate Professor
School of Business
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Len Coote holds the rank of Associate Professor in The University of Queensland Business School. His primary academic contribution is to the study of economic choices, which are ubiquitous in marketing (e.g., consider the decisions to install solar panels, purchase private health insurance, and use toll roads—to name just a few). Together with his academic collaborators, he developed a very general and flexible model for studying decision making and choice. The model integrates the mathematics of Daniel McFadden’s (UC Berkeley) conditional logistic regression and Karl Joreskog’s (Uppsala) linear structural relations models.
Len’s primary teaching interests are in quantitative marketing, which is a precursor to the new discipline of business analytics. In his opinion, today’s business school students need greater “data literacy” and business schools must place greater emphasis on equipping students to succeed in a world of artificial intelligence and big data. The methods of business analytics—data visualisation, machine learning, optimisation methods, predictive analytics, text mining, and web analytics—have much application to solving business and marketing problems. Len is passionate about bringing these methods to a new generation of business school students.
For the past 10 years, Len has performed several valued service roles at the University of Queensland. He served as Acting Dean of the UQ Business School for 1.5 years through to December, 2017. Before that he served as Deputy Dean of the Business School (1.5 years) and Head of the Marketing Discipline (7 years). As Acting Dean, Len was committed to understanding the needs of business and responding to those needs by introducing advanced and innovative programs. The introduction of the Bachelor of Advanced Business (Honours) program reflects this commitment.
Len is an active participant in community service roles. For example, he is the Vice-Chair of the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research, Inc. ACSPRI is a non-profit consortium of Australian universities. Its mission is to improve the quality of research in the social and behavioural sciences and encourage Australian governments to take an evidence-based approach to policymaking. Before serving in the role of Vice-Chair, he was an instructor on ACSPRI’s summer and winter programs for circa 10 years (teaching courses on structural equations with latent variables).
Jack Copeland FRS NZ is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he is Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing. In 2012 he was Royden B. Davis Visiting Chair of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Department of Psychology at Georgetown University, Washington DC. His books include The Essential Turing (Oxford University Press), Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers (Oxford University Press), Alan Turing’s Electronic Brain (Oxford University Press), Logic and Reality (Oxford University Press), and Artificial Intelligence (Blackwell); and he has published more than 100 articles on the philosophy and history of computing, and mathematical and philosophical logic. He is recognised as a leading authority on Turing's work, and in June of 2004, the 50th anniversary of Turing’s death, he delivered the first annual Turing Memorial Lecture at Bletchley Park National Museum and lectured on Turing’s life and work at the Royal Institution of London. He received the Scientific American Sci/Tech Web Award for his on-line archive www.AlanTuring.net. A Londoner by birth, he earned a B.Phil. with Distinction from the University of Oxford followed by a D.Phil. in mathematical logic. At Oxford he was taught by Turing's student and friend Robin Gandy. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California at Los Angeles, a visiting professor at the universities of Sydney, Aarhus, Melbourne, and Portsmouth, and a senior fellow of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a past president of the U.S.-based Society for Machines and Mentality and is the founding editor of the Rutherford Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.
His latest book, a highly accessible biography of Turing entitled Turing Pioneer of the Information Age, published with Oxford University Press in 2012.
Damian Copeland is a Senior Research Fellow with the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland in the Law and Future of War project. Damian’s research focuses on the application of export control, arms trade and sanctions regimes relevant to the export and brokering of trusted autonomous military systems and associated technology. His broader research and teaching interests include international humanitarian law and domestic counter-terrorism law.
Damian completed his Bachelor of Law (Hons) at the Queensland University of Technology and Masters in Law (Merit) at the Australian National University. He is completing a PhD at the Australian National University on the Article 36 weapon review of autonomous weapon systems.
Damian is serving member of the Australian Defence Force (Army Legal Corps) and has served in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, Cambodia and Somalia.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Centre Director of Queensland Aphasia Research Centre (QARC)
Queensland Aphasia Research Centre
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Professor
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Professor David Copland is a Speech Pathologist conducting research in the areas of aphasia, language neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and neuroimaging of normal and disordered language. He is Director of the Queensland Aphasia Research Centre (https://shrs.uq.edu.au/qarc), Co-Director of the STARS Education Research Alliance (https://metronorth.health.qld.gov.au/stars/education-research-alliance), Co-Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Aphasia Rehabilitation and Recovery (https://www.latrobe.edu.au/research/centres/health/aphasia) and Deputy Chair of the Research and Postgraduate Studies Committee of the UQ School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Affiliate of Queensland Centre for Population Research
Queensland Centre for Population Research
Faculty of Science
Deputy Associate Dean Research (Researcher Development)
Faculty of Science
Professor
School of the Environment
Faculty of Science
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Media expert
Jonathan is a human geographer within the School of the Environment and Deputy Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science at UQ. Jonathan joined The University of Queensland in 2005 following previous appointments at the University of Glamorgan (UK) and the UK national mapping Agency, Ordnance Survey.
Jonathan's interests lie at the intersection of human geography, regional science, sociology and criminology in understanding how human mobility shapes and is shaped by our urban systems and in turn impacts social sustainability; how regional economic growth and development is governed by human capital migration; and how big data and spatial analytics can be effectively harnessed to inform smarter policy.
Jonathan's interest in geography and the spatial sciences began early on in his academic career. Completing his undergraduate studies in geography and a masters degree in geographic information science, where he focused on developing a broad understanding of key statistical, modelling and spatial analytic methods. He then went on to earn a PhD in human geography and computer science, where he focused on modelling the complex relationship between mobility, land use and crime.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
My research explores how Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies enable users to better understand and interact with complex data. I also focus on the engineering and evaluation of interactive visualisation systems and the design of Augmented Reality interfaces for industry applications. I have authored 60+ publications in top-ranked Human Computer Interaction and Information Visualisation conference proceedings and journals, including in ACM CHI, ACM UIST, ACM ISS, IEEE InfoVis/TVCG, IEEE VR.
In 2021 and 2022, I was nominated Australia’s Field Leader researcher in Computer Graphics (The Australian Research magazine yearly ranking).
Dr Joel Corney’s research interests are in the fields of quantum physics, ultracold gases, and optics.
He completed his PhD at The University of Queensland in 2000.
His chief research projects are in the areas of: Bose-Einstein Condensation, Quantum Phase-Space Simulation Techniques, Quantum Effects in Optical Fibres, and Nonlinear Optics
Professor Emerita Jennifer Corrin researches on law reform and development in plural legal regimes and legal issues affecting small states. She is a former Australian Research Council Future Fellow and in 2019 was a short-term Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. Professor Emerita Corrin has participated in a number of research grant projects including an ARC Discovery Grant, which investigated means of better managing the flow of public finances and people across Australia's international borders; and work on environmental issues in Solomon Islands, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. Most recently she has been co-investigator in a project concerning inclusion of women’s voices in marine resource management in the Pacific, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). Jennifer has been consulted as an expert in a number of legal cases.
Professor Emerita Jennifer Corrin has published in the areas of legal pluralism, comparative law, South Pacific law, customary law, human rights, court systems, evidence, civil procedure, family law, land law, constitutional law and contract. She is the author of Contract Law in the South Pacific and co-author of Introduction to South Pacific Law (heading for its 5th edition), Courts and Civil Procedure in the South Pacific and Proving Customary Law in the Common Law Courts of the South Pacific. In 2019, she co-edited and wrote several chapters in a book on adoption in plural legal regimes. Her latest publication is the co-edited book, Legal Systems of the Pacific: Introducing Sixteen Gems.
Before joining The University of Queensland, Professor Emerita Corrin spent six years at the University of the South Pacific, having joined the Faculty after nine years in her own legal firm in Solomon Islands. She retains strong links with the profession and is a life member of Solomon Islands Bar Association. Professor Emerita Corrin’s memberships include the Australian Academy of Law, the Board of the Commission on Legal Pluralism, the Executive Committee of the Australian Law Academics Association, and titular membership of the International Academy of Comparative Law. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Legal Pluralism, a member of the International Editorial Board of the Journal of South Pacific Law, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Comparative Law Journal and of the Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law.
Doctor Cortesi was awarded a Bachelor of Science with a Major in Plant and Animal Biology from the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 2008. He completed a Bachelor of Science with 1st Class Honours in Marine Biology in 2009 at the University of Queensland, Australia, researching the colourful displays and toxic defences of sea slugs. He then received a PhD with Summa Cum Laude in Zoology in 2014 from the University of Basel, Switzerland, studying the molecular and behavioural function of colourful signals in coral reef fishes.
After completing his remaining Swiss National Service duties, Doctor Cortesi moved to Australia in 2015 to start a short-term postdoctoral appointment at the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Queensland. Upon winning prestigious postdoctoral Fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Queensland, he transferred to the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) in early 2016, where he developed his leadership skills under the supervision of Emr. Professor Justin Marshall. In 2020, Dr Cortesi received an ARC DECRA Fellowship, which enabled him to start his junior group under the mentorship of Emr. Prof. Marshall and A/Prof Karen Cheney from The School of the Environment (SENV), UQ. Beginning in 2023, he leads the greater Sensory Neuroscience Lab between QBI and SENV as part of UQ's Marine Sensory Ecology Group.
His research is, amongst others, funded by the SeaWorld Research and Rescue Foundation and the ARC.
Doctor Cortesi's main interests lie in the forces, from molecule to environment, which shape natural biodiversity. Focusing on the evolution of visual systems in fishes and cephalopods, he is trying to understand how other animals perceive the world, how this contributes to the formation of colours and patterns and how this can lead to species diversity. He uses various methods to understand how vision shapes single species and whole communities, including single-cell sequencing, transgenesis experiments, neurophysiological assessments of visual systems and behavioural experimentation.
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Media expert
Remo has over 15 years of research experience in water engineering and joined the School of Civil Engineering in February 2016. Remo’s research projects span over a range of topics such as marine renewable energy, hydrodynamics in coastal areas, sediment transport processes, seafloor mapping and environmental engineering.
Remo started his professional career as a Research Associate at the Franzius-Institute for Hydraulic, Waterways and Coastal Engineering at Hannover University, Germany. Remo did his PhD on the hydrodynamics of oceanic gravity and turbidity currents under the influence of Coriolis forces in the Earth Sciences Department, University of Toronto, Canada. He continued his work in Canada as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences at the University of Toronto where he focused on turbulence in coastal boundary layers and sediment transport processes in density currents. Before joining UQ, Remo was working as a Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Maritime College (AMC) at the University of Tasmania where he worked on projects in Tasmanian coastal waters (renewable energy, analysis of tidal currents, pipeline surveys) and limnological processes (Lake Ohau, New Zealand). A career highlight was a research trip with a team of sea-ice experts funded by NZARI to Antarctica (Cape Evans, McMurdo Sound) to analyze characteristics of the sea-ice ocean boundary layer using an autonomous underwater vehicle (UBC Gavia AUV).
Remo’s research over the last years has created advances in renewable energy site exploration methods that aims to fill a critical knowledge gap in understanding the suitability of candidate sites and linking local conditions (hydrodynamics, geotechnical aspects) with device design. Remo is involved as a lead researcher on several projects, for instance, the AUSTEn project for tidal energy exploration in Australian coastal waters (http://austen.org.au/) and the recently funded Blue Economy CRC (https://blueeconomycrc.com.au/).
Affiliate of Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law
Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Lecturer
School of Law
Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Renato Costa joined the T. C. Beirne School of Law as an LLM student in 2018. Before undertaking his studies at the University of Queensland, he practised as a lawyer in one of Brazil's most prominent law firms. Renato specialises in constitutional and comparative law.
Renato graduated with an LLB from the Faculty of Law at the Catholic University of Pernambuco, in Brazil. He holds a PhD and an LLM from T.C. Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland. Renato is the Associate Editor of the University of Queensland Law Journal - UQLJ. He teaches Public and Constitutional Law and has been a guest lecturer in courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Renato's main research area is public law, including constitutional, administrative, and comparative law. His research focus is constitutional theory and specific aspects of the Australian constitutional system, including but not limited to the rule of law, federalism, constitutional history, religious freedom and human rights, responsible government, political and legal theology, and jurisprudence.
Affiliate of Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHeR)
Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Senior Research Fellow
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research Infrastructure)
Senior Research Fellow
UQ Centre for Clinical Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Nathalia Costa is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland's cLinical TRials cApability (ULTRA), located within the Centre for Clinical Research in Herston. Her career goal is to enhance the evidence base from clinical trials and deepen the understanding of healthcare issues through qualitative and mixed methods, with a focus on theoretically grounded, critical, reflexive and collaborative approaches. She is passionate about bringing different types of knowledge and stakeholders together to generate perspectives that create change and make research, practice and education more inclusive and nuanced. She advocates for pluralist inquiries and believes research should go beyond the dualism “quantitative/qualitative” to achieve the intersubjective understandings needed for impactful collective action. Her methodological expertise includes:
Systematic, scoping and rapid reviews
A range of qualitative methods and methodologies including but not limited to interviews, photo-elicitation, ethnography, Delphi studies, surveys, focus groups, document and policy analysis, thematic analysis, content analysis, and discourse analysis
Embedding qualitative research in feasibility trials to inform large-scale clinical trials
Conducting qualitative research to inform the development of implementation strategies
Use of systems-thinking frameworks to identify opportunities for interdisciplinary and intersectoral action to target health problems
Applying social theory to deepen understanding of healthcare and health more broadly
Participatory and collaborative research with key stakeholders (e.g., patients, clinicians, academics, policymakers)
Her publications (55+) span a diverse range of themes, including musculoskeletal conditions, pain, policy, sociology and culturally responsive care. She has also taught across a range of disciplines, including research methods, musculoskeletal physiotherapy, sociology applied to health, fundamentals of physiotherapy, fundamentals of health care, health policy, health economics and health systems finance.
Her research focuses on aspects of low back pain - from exploring ways to navigate uncertainty in low back pain care to identifying avenues to improve it within the Australian healthcare system. She is currently investigating how to optimise recruitment within the FORENSIC trial, which aims to evaluate if lumbar fusion surgery is more beneficial than continuing with best conservative care for patients with persistent severe low back pain who have already undergone non-surgical treatment.
Alongside collaborators, Nathalia has garnered grants (AUD$7.5M) and awards, including an international award for one of her PhD studies, awarded by the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine – the 2021 ISSLS Prize for Lumbar Spine Research (Clinical Science).
Prior to her current appointment, she was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (UQ - 2021), a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Sydney School of Public Health (The University of Sydney, 2021-2022), and a Lecturer in Physiotherapy at the Sydney School of Health Sciences (The University of Sydney, 2023). Nathalia serves as an Associate Editor for Qualitative Health Research and the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation.