My field of expertise is communication, cultural and media studies. My work investigates how media, science, and culture intersect – especially in relation to the nonhuman, the environment, and the limits of human-centred ("anthropocentric") thinking.
Some of my major research interests include:
Science media & natural history media: how media represent nonhuman life forms (especially insects), and how those representations shape human understanding of the natural world.
Insect-human relations, history of entomology: exploring cultural, historical, and aesthetic dimensions of insects and how they are understood and "anthropomorphised" (i.e., portrayed with human qualities)
Anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism, the nonhuman and more-than-human: critiquing human-centred ways of seeing, exploring how elusive and unusual nonhuman actors and entities (such as very small animals and UFOs) are constructed in media and cultural histories.
Ignorance, UFOs, and scientific controversy: e.g. how UFOs are marginalized by scientific discourse, how ignorance is socially constructed, how media and public culture deal with phenomena at the margins of accepted science.
My published works include the book, Beetle (2016), which traces the natural and cultural history of beetles.
Overall, I combine cultural history, media studies, and environmental humanities to question how humans perceive, represent, and often privilege themselves relative to non-humans, drawing on historical, phenomenological, and philosophical tools.
Affiliate Research Fellow of School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Affiliate of Research Centre in Creative Arts and Human Flourishing
Research Centre in Creative Arts and Human Flourishing
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Communication and Social Change
Centre for Communication and Social Change
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Senior Lecturer
Graduate School
Senior Lecturer
School of Communication and Arts
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Skye Doherty is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication and Arts at UQ. She is an expert in using creative and design-led research methods to explore alternative futures and address wicked problems. Her work has responded to issues in the news media, law, disaster resilience, and energy and water security, among others, and has led to both conceptual and practical outcomes.
Her design artefacts include the NewsCube, an award-winning storytelling tool, Vim, a tangible energy story, a suite of concepts for community-led bushfire management, and Wicked Thinking, an independent magazine. She has developed frameworks for journalism innovation and used codesign methods to improve the experiences of injured workers, a project that led to legislative change.
Her current and recent projects include the GEF-funded Coral Reef Rescue project and the ARC Training Centre for Climate-Resilient Water. She is the current Treasurer of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and is a member of UQ’s Human-Centred Computing research group in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Previously, she led the Global Change Scholars Program in the UQ Graduate School – a year-long PhD experience focused on industry research collaboration and impact.
She came to academic research after an international career as a journalist, and her experience spans leading international media companies as well as startups.
Affiliate of Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Centre for Neurorehabilitation, Ageing and Balance Research
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Conjoint Senior Research Fellow
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Emmah is an experienced occupational therapist and researcher in the field of brain injury rehabilitation. Emmah's PhD, completed in 2010, compared the effectiveness of an outpatient brain injury rehabilitation program in home and hospital settings.
Research Interests
Emmah has conducted collaborative research in the field of neurorehabilitation, partnering with consumers and clinicians to develop and trial rehabilitation approaches to enhance person-centred care, goal setting and cognitive rehabilitation. Other research interest areas include metacognitive and occupation-based treatment approaches, the use of technology in rehabilitation, outcome measurement, and community-based rehabilitation.
Research Expertise
Emmah has conducted research using quantitative and qualitative methodologies including randomised controlled trials and single case experimental design. Emmah has an interest in knowledge translation, has conducted implementation research using a range of implementation frameworks, and codesigned with end-users including consumers and clinicians.
Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Affiliate of Research Centre in Creative Arts and Human Flourishing
Research Centre in Creative Arts and Human Flourishing
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Communication and Social Change
Centre for Communication and Social Change
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Affiliate of Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Lecturer in Creative Writing
School of Communication and Arts
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Availability:
Not available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Tom Doig is a creative nonfiction author, investigative journalist and scholar. Tom was the recipient of the 2023 CLNZ-NZSA Writer's Award for his work on prepper subcultures in Aotearoa New Zealand. He has written two books about the unprecedented 2014 Hazelwood mine fire disaster: Hazelwood (Penguin Random House, 2020) and The Coal Face (Penguin Books Australia, 2015). Hazelwood was a finalist for the 2020 Walkley Book Award, Journalism and the 2021 Ned Kelly Awards, Best True Crime and Highly Commended in the 2020 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, Non-Fiction. The Coal Face was joint winner of the 2015 Oral History Victoria Education Innovation Award. Dr Doig has also written a humorous travel memoir, Mörön to Mörön: Two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure (Allen & Unwin, 2013). He is the contributing editor of the interdisciplinary collection Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa (Bridget Williams Books, 2020).
Dr Doig teaches creative nonfiction and poetry.
As a scholar, Dr Doig is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the accelerating climate crisis, with a focus on the cultural, social and psychological aspects of climate breakdown. He is currently researching a new book: We Are All Preppers Now (forthcoming with Scribe Publications), documenting survivalists, doomsday preppers, climate activists and other subcultures of imminent collapse around the world.
Sara and her research group, the Low Harm Hedonism Initiative, develop theories of environmentally significant human behaviour and leverage them to design practical measures that trigger pro-environmental behaviour without undermining consumer satisfaction. These new behavoiur change interventions are then tested in real-world contexts, so their effectiveness on actual behaviour change with environmental consequences can be established. Sara’s research is driven by scholarly curiosity and the desire to create meaningful change. Sara is a dedicated supervisor and mentor of early career researchers.
Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Maria is a Principal Research Fellow with the Primary Care Clinical Unit and Associate Professor Research Strategy affiliated with the Centre for Health System Reform and Integration (CHSRI). Her research uses a collaborative framework to investigate scalable and transformative primary health care interventions to improve patient health outcomes.
Maria has over twenty-five years’ experience in evaluating health innovations and health services research. She is an experienced implementation scientist with a strong background in primary care research, and skilled in operationalising pragmatic RCTs in general practice. She has an emerging track record researching long-term antidepressant prescribing in general practice with two successful research grants commencing in 2022 (CIB in collaboration with CIA Professor Katharine Wallis) https://medical-school.uq.edu.au/release:
NHMRC Partnership Project. RELEASE+: REdressing Long-tErm Antidepressant uSE in general practice (2022-2027)
Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) 2020 Clinician Researchers: Applied Research in Health. RELEASE: REdressing Long-tErm Antidepressant uSE in adults. A cluster RCT effectiveness-implementation hybrid type 1 design in general practice. (2022-2025)
She is a highly experienced mixed methods researcher whose academic career has involved public health research, health psychology, primary care, mental health, integrated GP-specialist care, chronic disease prevention and management, and sexual health. Prior to taking up her current positions, between 2012 and 2018, she was Senior Research Fellow with UQs NHMRC CRE in Quality & Safety in Integrated Primary-Secondary Care where she directed the evaluation (RCT of effectiveness, cost-analysis, and implementation) of a GP-based primary-secondary integrated model of care (the ‘Beacon model). Before that she was teaching and researching with The University of Queensland’s School of Public Health where she was a Senior Lecturer between 2006 and 2012. She also spent seven years in teaching and research at The University of Queensland’s Centre for Primary Health Care and five years before that as a researcher with the National Centre for HIV Social Research.
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Senior Lecturer
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr. Naipeng Dong is an expert in automatic formal verification of security and privacy in cryptographic protocols, Android applications and blockchain systems.
She has developed efficient automatic formal verification techniques with a focus on attacker reasoning and analysis on cryptogrpahic protocols, developed algorithms to verify fault-tolerance of systems with dishonest participants, and analysed systems in e-auction, e-health, Single-Sign-on authentication, and blockchain consensus.
Affiliate of Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation
Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Chemical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
I am an electrochemist and materials scientist focused on designing advanced catalysts and electrolyte systems for sustainable energy storage and conversion. My research integrates operando spectroscopy, electrochemical engineering, and data-driven analysis to understand and control reactions at the solid–liquid interface.
My work aims to improve the efficiency, stability, and manufacturability of redox flow batteries and related electrochemical technologies that enable large-scale integration of renewable energy. By combining fundamental mechanistic studies with practical system development, I seek to bridge the gap between laboratory discovery and industrial deployment.
Research Keywords
Electrocatalysis
Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs)
Electrolyte design and stability
Operando / in situ spectroscopy (XAS, WAXS, IR)
Reaction mechanisms at electrified interfaces
Sustainable energy storage materials
Electrochemical process optimisation
Structure–property–performance relationships
My interdisciplinary approach connects materials chemistry, electrochemical engineering, and advanced characterization to develop monitorable and scalable electrochemical systems. This work supports the transition to reliable, long-duration energy storage solutions for renewable-powered grids.
I welcome collaboration with researchers and industry partners interested in electrochemical technologies, advanced diagnostics, and translation of fundamental insights into practical energy systems.
Affiliate Professor of School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences
Faculty of Science
Affiliate of Centre for Superbug Solutions
Centre for Superbug Solutions
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Deputy Director (Research)
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
Availability:
Available for supervision
Professor Denise Doolan is Director of Research at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. She joined IMB in 2022 and was previously Deputy Director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine, and Director of the JCU Centre for Molecular Therapeutics, at James Cook University.
She is a molecular immunologist, working on the development of vaccines, diagnostics and host-directed therapeutics for infectious and chronic diseases that impact global public health, with a particular focus on malaria. Her cross-disciplinary research program spans host-pathogen immunity, antigen discovery, vaccine engineering, and biomarker discovery. A particular interest is the application of state-of-the-art genome-based technologies and human models of disease system to identify novel targets for intervention against disease or that predict risk of disease.
She is a recognized world expert in malaria immunology, vaccinology, and omic-based approaches for therapeutic and diagnostic development. She has been honoured as a Fellow of the International Society for Vaccines (2017) and a Fellow of the Australian Society of Parasitology (2019) in recognition of her leadership and contribution to health and medical science in Australia and internationally.
Professor Doolan serves on a number of Executive Boards and Advisory Boards. Most recently, she has been elected as President of the International Society for Vaccines (2021-2023), and has been appointed to the Federal Government’s Australian Medical Research Advisory Board (AMRAB; 2021-2026) to provide specialist insights into Australia’s medical research and innovation priorities.
