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I completed my MBBS and PhD at UQ in 2015. The topic of my PhD was "The Anaphylatoxin Receptors in Neural Progenitor Cell Physiology". In this thesis we examined the function of the anaphylatoxin receptors, C3aR and C5aR1, in a novel location - the neural progenitor cells of the developing brain.

I am currently working as a medical officer at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. I continue to have close links with my previous lab and would be happy to hear from potential students interested in projects in neuroinflammation or developmental neurobiology.

Dr. Sarah Coundouris was awarded her PhD in May 2022. Her work appears in top tier journals that include Psychological Bulletin, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Computers in Human Behavior, and British Journal of Clinical Psychology. Her early work focused primarily on the cognitive changes associated with Parkinson’s disease, with her more recent research focusing on cognition in the context of normal adult ageing. Sarah is particularly interested in social cognition, which broadly refers to our capacity to perceive and interpret social information, and prospection, which is the capacity to envisage, think about, and prepare for the future. Sarah is currently supervising several Honours and postgraduate students.

Sarah is currently employed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on an ARC funded Discovery Project led by Professor Julie Henry. A key focus of this project is to establish when, why and how real-life prospective memory function breaks down at different stages of the adult lifespan and in different everyday contexts - and what strategies most effectively prevent this from occurring.

I am a former lecturer in psychology at UQ. I am connected to the UQ School of Psychology as an Honorary Fellow / Lecturer.

My current research is primarily focused on the negative impact of social media on human behaviour and mental health.

More specifically, I am interested in how the content that we are exposed to, and the interactions we have on social media, may impact our empathy, overall emotional state, and our social media response behaviour.

I use several methods to research and measure emotional and empathic responses, including eye-tracking. Eye-tracking reveals the gaze patterns people use when looking at faces and interpreting facial expressions. This adds to our understanding of how the quality of face to face social interaction differs between individuals.

Unfortunately, I am not currently taking on Honours level, or PhD students.

Dr Gary Cowin is the Facility Fellow for the Queensland Node of the National Imaging Facility (NIF) as part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS), based at the Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland.

Dr Cowin's research projects are:

• Ultrahigh field magnetic resonance microimaging
• Simultaneous dynamic MRI and PET imaging
• Multimodal MRI/PET/CT imaging
• Development of magnetic resonance techniques for non-invasive determination of liver steatosis and fibrosis
• Monitoring changing fat distribution in diabetes and exercise trials
• Spinal cord imaging research
• Prostate research
• Application of ultrahigh field MRI microimaging for tissue analysis
• Molecular imaging of novel contrast agents by MRI and PET
• MRI zebrafish brain atlas
• Lung imaging with hyperpolarized Helium in humans and animals
• Investigation of the effect of gradient non-linearity on image quality

In 2019, Bruce retired from legal practice after nearly 40 years at the Australian-based, global law firm, MinterEllison, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and corporate governance.

Since retirement from legal practice, Bruce has established a governance consulting business, ShedB Consulting (www.shedb.com.au) and has been focusing on board roles and writing on corporate governance.

During his career, Bruce has been involved in most major sectors of the Australian economy including agribusiness, resources, property, health, government, education and financial services.

Legal experience

Bruce’s experience as a corporate lawyer at MinterEllison extended for nearly 40 years with his principal focus being on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and corporate governance. He has been recognised in most of the Australian legal directories as one of the country’s leading practitioners in those areas. Bruce was involved in many stock market listings and capital raisings over his career, which include major transactions such as the AMP demutualisation and listing and the Queensland Government sell down and listing of Aurizon Holdings Ltd. His capital markets experience included assisting companies to raise funds in very difficult market conditions such as in the early 1990s during the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash, during the tech-stock crash in 2000 and during and after the global financial crisis in 2006-2007. One of the key areas of Bruce’s governance practice was advising listed companies and their boards about ASX Listing Rule and Corporations Act requirements, including the making of market announcements and continuous disclosure, directors’ duties, issues related to the holding of general meetings and shareholder resolutions, board disagreements and assisting boards to respond to the concerns of minority shareholders

During his legal career, Bruce spent considerable time working in Asia, and for Asian-based clients, particularly, those based in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. As chairman of MinterEllison, Bruce made regular visits to London, New York, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Ulaanbaatar to meet clients and senior members of the business community.

Other professional roles

Takeovers Panel

Bruce has been a member of the Takeovers Panel since 2016. The Takeovers Panel is a quasi-judicial body established by the Federal Government which has exclusive responsibility for determining takeover-related disputes.

Australian Institute of Company Directors

Until February 2020, Bruce served as the chair of the Law Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is also a member of the Institute's Not for Profit Chairs Advisory Board and served on the Queensland State Council of the Institute for nine years. He became a Fellow of the Institute in 2011.

Law Council of Australia

Bruce was the national chair of the Law Council of Australia's Corporations Committee in 2014-2015.

Writing and publications

In 2018 the textbook Bruce co-authored with Stephen Knight, entitled Duties of Board and Committee Members, was published by Thompson Reuters. The textbook discusses the duties of board members of a range of different kinds of corporations including ASX listed and APRA regulated entities, statutory bodies and state-owned corporations, cooperatives, universities, joint ventures and incorporated associations.

Bruce has also authored a series of publications entitled Protecting Your Position which summarise commonwealth, state and territory laws which impose duties and liabilities on directors and board members.

He has also recently entered into a publishing contract to write a new book about contemporary issues in corporate governance which directors are facing in the 2020s. It is due for publication in mid-2021.

Current and previous board roles

MinterEllison

Bruce was global chair of MinterEllison from 2013-2019. While he was chair MinterEllison grew to become Australia’s largest law firm with revenues of over $700million, approximately 250 partners and 1200 staff and offices in all mainland state and territory capital cities as well as in Auckland, Wellington, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Ulaanbaatar.

Commercial board roles

Bruce was appointed to the board of QSuper, Australia’s second largest superannuation fund, in 2019. He was also a director of the Swedish Klarna Bank’s Australian subsidiary in 2019-2020. In 2013-2014, Bruce served on the board of ASX Listed Talon Petroleum Ltd (ASX:TPD), an oil and gas producer with interests in the US

Education sector

Bruce served on the Council of the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2010-2017, becoming Deputy Chancellor and then acting as Chancellor for the final year of his term, serves on the Griffith Business School Advisory Board and sat on the board of the RM Williams Australian Bush Learning Centre in Eidsvold and was previously the President of the Queensland Private Enterprise Centre.

Not for profit sector

Bruce is the chair of CPL (formerly Cerebral Palsy League) which is one of the largest non-church charities in Queensland with revenues of approximately $200m pa and is also chair of the Children's Hospital Foundation and IDEAS Van Partnerships Ltd (which is a mobile service which brings world-class eye care to remote communities in an effort to reduce blindness and visual impairment amongst Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders with diabetes). Bruce is a director of the Merchant Foundation, established by Billabong founder Gordon Merchant, which provides significant financial support to medical research, charities and not for profits each year and has previously chaired other health-related charities, including the Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute and Professor Ian Frazer’s Skin Cancer Network.

I am primarily interested in the interaction between the ocean and the coast and how past changes in coastal form and process can inform predictions for the future. My goals involve investigating gaps in our knowledge regarding coastal geomorphology and nearshore to shelf processes, paritcularly in the tropics and subtropics. I have a specific focus on ocean wave climate analysis, numerical wave modelling, coastal sediment budgets, coastal vulnerability and risk, and coastal and shallow marine monitoring using both field and earth observation datasets.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working across the Marine Ecosystem Monitoring Lab and the Earth Observation Research Centre. I am also an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science.

Dr Damian Cox’s ares of research is Ethics, particularly ethical theory.

Dr Cox holds a BA(hons) (ANU); PhD (Melbourne).

His teaching areas include: Introduction to philosophy; Philosophy and Film; Cognitive science; and Ethics.

Dr Cox’s current research projects include:

• The moral and philosophical psychological character of integrity;
• Critiques of utilitarianism and agent-based virtue ethics; Ethics and decision theory; The limits of Moral Obligation.

Professor Fiona Coyer has extensive experience as a leader in academic and research programs. In August 2012, she established the Intensive Care Nursing Professorial Unit at the Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital where she has developed a program of work focused on developing evidence-based approaches to nursing care and management of the skin integrity in the critically ill patient in intensive care.

Cozzolino is a Principal Research Fellow with the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), University of Queensland. He has worked in several positions including Associate Professor in Food Chemistry (RMIT University, Melbourne), Head of Agriculture (CQUniversity, Rockhampton), Senior Research Fellow Barley Breeding Program (University of Adelaide, Adelaide), Team Leader Rapid Analytical Group (The Australian Wine Research Institute, Adelaide), Head of Animal Nutrition (INIA La Estanzuela, Uruguay).

His research focusses on the application of chemometric, machine learning and spectroscopic methods (e.g. NIR, MIR, hyperspectral) in a wide range of fields (eg. food, waste products, agricultural commodities). He has published more than 500 peer-review articles and book chapters (h index 68).

He was presented in 2013 with the Hirschfeld Award by the International Council of Near Infrared Spectroscopy for his outstanding contributions on the field of NIR spectroscopy. He ranked 94 in Australia and 3665 in the world as best-Chemistry-Scientist 2023 (Research.com).

I completed my PhD in Clinical Psychology from The University of Queensland in 2025. My research focuses on the consequences of social group membership in the context of recovering from adverse life events (e.g., disaster, loss, and illness), and navigating identity change during transition out of the military.

Dr. Adam Craig is an infectious disease epidemiologist and global health system researcher. He has more than 25 years of experience in health, having worked across and with Australian, Asian and Pacific health authorities. Among other areas, his research explores the use of digital technology to support health information collection and exchange and how technology may support improved health system function. Other projects Adam is involved in include the development of policy advice for Pacific leaders related to enhanced early warning disease surveillance, the use of digital technology to support health care delivery and community participation in disease vector tracking. In addition to his academic roles, Adam is a senior advisor to the Australia-Indonesia Health Security Partnership and a researcher for the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.

David Craik (AO, FRS, FAA) is in the Centre for Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Australia. He discovered the cyclotide family of circular proteins and has characterized the structures of many animal toxins including conotoxins from cone snail venoms. He heads a research team of 35 researchers whose current work focuses on applications of circular proteins, drugs in plants, toxins and NMR in drug design.

He is author of over 810 scientific papers, including 14 in Nature publications (Nature/Nature Communications/Nature Neuoroscience/Nature Structural Biology/Nature Chemical Biology/Nature Chemistry/Scientific Reports/Nature Protocols, 1 in Science, 12 in PNAS, 9 in JACS, 3 in Chemical Reviews, and 16 in Angewandte Chemie. He has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, appointed as an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia and has received numerous awards for his research, including the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award from the American Chemical Society (2011), Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research (2014), GlaxoSmithKline Award for Research Excellence (2014), the Vincent du Vigneaud Award from the American Peptide Society (2015),the FAOBMB Award for Research Excellence (2015) and the Cathay Award from the Chinese Peptide Society (2018). He received the Australian Academy of Science David Craig Medal in 2023. He is an Honorary Professor of Jinan University, Guangzhou and has an Honorary Doctorate from Kalmar University in Sweden.

Biography

David Craik obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and undertook postdoctoral studies at Florida State and Syracuse Universities before taking up a lectureship at the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1983. He was appointed Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Head of School in 1988. He moved to University of Queensland in 1995 to set up a new biomolecular NMR, held an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2015-2020) and is currently a NHMRC Fellow, as well as Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Peptide and Protein Science.

Key Discoveries

David Craik has made discoveries of new classes of proteins, generated new knowledge on their structure and function, and used this information to design and chemically re-engineer new classes of protein-based drug leads and agricultural pest control agents. In particular, his major achievements are:

• the discovery of cyclotides, the largest known family of circular proteins. As well as a circular backbone, cyclotides contain a knotted arrangement of cross-linking disulfide bonds, making them remarkably stable. His discovery of these proteins was sparked in part from anecdotal reports of medicinal practices in Africa where women make a tea from the plant Oldenlandia affinis by boiling it in water and sipping it during labour to accelerate child birth. He determined the structure of the bioactive component of this medicinal tea and found that it had an unprecedented head-to-tail cyclic peptide backbone combined with a cystine knot.
• the first structural and functional characterizations of prototypic circular proteins in higher organisms - Professor Craik was one of the first to recognize that other families of ribosomally synthesized cyclic peptides exist. As examples from bacteria and animals emerged, Professor Craik was at the forefront of their structural characterization, reporting the first structures of theta-defensins from animals and the threaded lasso peptide microcin J25 from bacteria, as well as new examples of cyclic peptides from plants.
• the development of artificially cyclized peptide toxins as drug leads – he developed an orally active peptide that is 100 times more potent than the leading clinically used drug for neuropathic pain.

Research Training

Professor Craik has trained more than 70 PhD students. He was awarded UQ’s Research Supervision Excellence Award in 2007 on the basis of his mentoring and innovations in postgraduate training, including his “writing retreats” to mentor students and postdocs on science writing skills. He received the Institute for Molecular Bioscience Individual Leadership Award in 2019. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Kalmar University, Sweden for his contributions to international student exchange programs, and is an Honorary Professor of Jinan University, Guangzhou.

Professional Activities

Professor Craik founded and chaired the 1st, 2nd and 3rd International Conferences on Circular Proteins (2009, 2012 and 2015) and was on the Scientific Program Committee for ISMAR 2021. He is on the Boards of six international journals, including Angewandte Chemie, ACS Chemical Biology, Chemical Biology and Drug Design, and ChemBioChem. He was on the Council of the American Peptide Society (2015-2021). He was the director two Brisbane-based biotech companies. He is on the Scientific Advisory Boards of James Cook University’s Centre for Biodiscovery and Molecular Development of Therapeutics (BMDT), the University of Wollongong’s Illawara Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI) and Enzytag. He conceived and supports two publicly accessible databases - Cybase on circular proteins (www.cybase.org.au), and conotoxins (www.conoserver.org).

Dr Emma Crawford is an occupational therapist and researcher whose work centres on promoting wellbeing for infants, children, families and communities. Emma's primary focus is on cross-cultural projects that link with community organisations to create social change and reduce the impacts of disadvantage by supporting health enhancing environments and activities in early life. At the centre of Emma's work is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 - ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing across all ages. Currently, Emma is leading several projects:

1) The BABI Project (research): refugee and asylum seeker families' expereinces during the perinatal period (systematic review, qualitative focus group and interview research)

2) The Uni-Friends program (student delivered service and student placement) - a social-emotional helth promotion program that draws on cultural responsiveness (The Making Connecitons Framework) and community development principles in an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled School

3) LUCIE-NDC (research) - mothers' experiences of accessing Neuroprotective-Developmental Care in the first 12 months of their infants' lives

Emma has a strong interest in understanding human experiences, community-driven initiatives, and strengths-based, innovative, evidence based, complex approaches to wellbeing that consider individuals and systems She also carries out research regarding allied health student placements in culturally diverse settings including low-middle income countries and Indigenous contexts. She works as a Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia after having worked in a range of occupational therapy roles including with children with autism, with asylum seekers, with Indigenous Australians with chronic disease, and completing her PhD in Political Science and International Studies in 2015.

Prof. Cresswell’s research interest is in the integration of neurophysiology and biomechanics (neuromechanics) to investigate the control of human movement.

Particular research interests lie within the areas of: Motoneurone, reflex and cortical excitability during lengthening and shortening muscle actions; Neuromuscular fatigue; Reflex and voluntary activation of the abdominal musculature during controlled postural tasks.

Background

Prof Cresswell completed his medical doctorate in Neuroscience from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, in 1993. He remained at the Karolinska Institute and University College of Physical Education and Sports until 2005 when he joined the academic staff at the University of Queensland with joint appointments in the Schools of Human Movement Studies and Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

Prof Cresswell was the Head of the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences (2014-2019).

Dr Peter Crisp is an expert in crop genomics, epigenomics and molecular genetics. He is a Group Leader and Senior Lecturer in the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability at The University of Queensland. Peter’s research program is focused on crop functional genomics, epigenetics and biotechnology, and has significantly advanced our understanding of the contribution of epigenetics to heritable phenotypic variation in plants.

His group has invented groundbreaking technologies for harnessing (epi)genetic variation and their discoveries have led to exciting new avenues for decoding genomes and for the rational engineering of gene regulation for trait improvement in plants. Having benefited immensely from brilliant mentors, Peter is passionate about training. He leads a budding group of talented students and researchers and is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Training Centre in Predictive Breeding and the International Research Training Group for Accelerating Crop Genetic Gain. Peter is also an affiliate of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture. His research group seeks to understand the contribution of epigenetics to heritable phenotypic variation in crop plants, focusing on cereals including barley, sorghum, wheat and maize. This includes the development of methods to harness epigenetic variation for crop improvement; understanding the role of epigenetics in environmental responses and using innovative epigenomic approaches to distill large genomes down to the relatively small fraction of regions that are functionally important for trait variation. Research in the Crisp Lab spans both wet lab and computational biology providing a powerful platform to integrate genetic, genomic and biotechnological approaches.

Peter is a former recipient of an ARC DECRA Fellowship and a UQ Amplify Fellowship and an ASPS Goldacre awardee.

Check out the CrispLab website here

Follow Dr Crisp on Bluesky: @pete-crisp.bsky.social, and Twitter: @pete_crisp