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In 2020 I formed the Fellowship of the Spring, an international consortium of people concerned with understanding dryland springs and securing their preservation. We are about 40 people spanning 25 countries from a broad range of disciplines, who collaborate with particular attention to fostering work in countries with disadvantage. This platform, focussed on the concept of an 'oasis' provides for multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary exchange. The Felloship of the Spring has its foundation in quantitative field ecology in Queensland. I have ongoing research interest in threatened plant species assessment, and other interests relating to avoiding extinction and better managing our natural resources. I have far more ideas than capacity to fulfil them, so welcome committed post-grads to discuss potential projects.

Research themes:

Artesian springs

Artesian springs are isolated oases in a sea of arid-lands containing weird and wonderful endemic creatures including snails, crustacea, plants and fish. The springs provide a focus for research relating to their hydrological function, cultural significance conservation, optimum management and biogeographic history.

Threatened species

Applied ecology relating to the ecology of threatened species generates insights into their habitat and leads to tangible conservation outcomes.

Megan is a NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the School of Public Health. Her program of research is focused on approaches to support local decision-makers design effective policy to improve nutrition and food security outcomes, through incorporating evidence and an understanding of the policy context. Megan’s research in partnership with remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and community retail settings follows a public health and nutrition career working in policy and service provision in government, remote retail and the international development sectors.

Prof. Brett Ferguson’s research interest are in molecular genetics, genomics, genetic transformation and genome editing, such as CRISPR, to unravel the molecular mechanisms driving plant development. His primary focus is on legume crops, using biotechnology and bioinformatic approaches to identify key genes and signals controlling traits of interest. This includes the agriculturally- and environmentally-important symbiosis between legume plants and beneficial rhizobia bacteria that fix critical nitrogen for their host plant. In addition, Prof. Ferguson works with the fascinating legume tree, Pongamia pinatta, which has tremendous potential as a feedstock for the sustainable production of biodiesel and aviation fuel.

Prof. Brett Ferguson leads the Integrative Legume Research Group (ILRG) in the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences (SAFS) at the University of Queensland (UQ). He is an Affiliate of the Centre for Crop Science in the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), and an Affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science (CIPPS). Prof. Ferguson is also a Chief Investigator in the large, multi-national Hy-Gain for Smallholders Project primarily funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The work of Prof. Ferguson has contributed to the discovery of many new genes and signals, such as novel microRNAs and peptide hormones, that have critical roles in controlling plant development. His research group identified the complete family of CLE peptide encoding genes of several legume species using an array of molecular and bioinformatic approaches. Additional discoveries of genes involved in legume nodule formation, nitrogen signalling and the regulation of root development, are also having an impact in the research field. Many of these factors could be useful in supporting translational studies and breeding programs that look to improve crop performance. His work also established a requirement for brassinosteroid hormones in legume nodulation and demonstrated a central role for gibberellins in nodule development. Moreover, he contributed to some of the initial work reporting a role of strigolatones in shoot branching, and demonstrated that plants can transport quantities of auxin far in excess of their endogenous levels.

Prof. Ferguson has also contributed to the developed of new tools and techniques, such as petiole feeding, precision feeding in growth pouches, stem girdling, pHairyRed for promoter-reporter fusions, new hairy-root transformation techniques, novel integrative vectors to enhance transformation efficiency, synthetic biology approaches to generate mature double stranded miRNA, etc.

Richard Fernandes is an Inflammatory Bowel Disease specialist at Mater Hospital Brisbane and the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. He is an active clinician researcher, including extensive involvement in numerous international clinical trials for IBD therapeutics. Supported by a scholarship from Crohn's and Colitis Australia, Richard is currently completing a PhD in post-operative Crohn's disease, including investigating the role of the mucosa-associated microbiome and mesentery in disease recurrence, and evaluating monitoring strategies post-operatively. His other interests include endoscopic management of IBD strictures and intestinal ultrasound.

Dr. Javier A. Fernandez is a Research Fellow at The University of Queensland. His research specializes in crop physiology, plant nutrition, corn production, and crop modelling reflected by over 30 articles (refereed journal publications, extension articles, conference proceedings, and others). He is currently engaged in the use of statistical, digital, and model technologies to assess crop growth and development, with the overall goal of enhancing production, resource use efficiency, and sustainability of agricultural systems in Australia. Javier received his BS in Agricultural Engineering from Universidad Nacional del Nordeste in Argentina, and his PhD in Agronomy from Kansas State University. He is recipient of several honours and awards from university, professional societies, and governmental organizations, including two Fulbright Commission scholarships.

Dr Fernando's current research interests include developing needle-free, pain-free, skin patch vaccines. Influenza and human papilloma virus vaccines are used as model vaccines in these studies.

Dr Germain Fernando completed PhD at the University of Arizona, USA, and did post-doctoral research at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, before joining the University of Queensland in 1989. He has been working in the field of vaccinology for the last 28 years. He has a H-Index of 36.

He is a Senior Consultant at Vaxxas Pty. Ltd, Brisbane, Australia

Publications and Citation Metrics are available at the following website:

http://www.researcherid.com/rid/C-3733-2009

Dr. Sandleen Feroz is a Lecturer in Restorative Dentistry at the School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland. As an interdisciplinary researcher, her expertise lies at the intersection of translational research in cariology, biomaterials, and regenerative medicine.

Drawing on her background in clinical dentistry, Dr. Feroz fosters deep collaborations with materials scientists, clinicians, and industry partners. Her work focuses on bridging the gap between laboratory innovation and chairside practice, specifically in developing minimally invasive restorative options that improve patient outcomes.

Dr. Feroz earned her doctorate from the University of Otago (New Zealand), for keratin extraction where she pioneered a novel, "green" route using ionic liquids to design advanced alveolar bone grafts. Her research portfolio includes the optimization of oral care formulations and the development of bioactive materials to prevent and arrest dental caries.

A globally connected academic, she maintains an active network of international collaborations with universities and research institutes across Asia and the Middle East. Dr. Feroz is also a dedicated medical educator with extensive experience in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching across Australia, New Zealand, and internationally.

Dr Alize Ferrari leads the Epidemiology and Burden of Disease Research Stream at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research. This stream undertakes a program of work featuring the collection of new epidemiological data for mental disorders, analysis of existing data to quantify the distribution of mental disorders, quantification of the fatal and non-fatal consequences of mental disorders, and the development of methodological frameworks to improve the precision at which we collect and analyse epidemiological data. Dr Ferrari is an Affiliate Professor of Global Health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Public Health, University of Queensland. She is the Team Lead for the Mental Disorders Research Team within the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study. The GBD initiative is led by IHME and quantifies health loss from over 350 causes. She is the Primary Investigator on the Queensland Urban Indigenous Mental Health Survey. This is a population-based mental health survey of adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Southeast Queensland. It will determine the prevalence of mental and substance use disorders, mental health services being accessed, and implications for service reform.

Carole Ferrier is a Professor of Literature and Women's Studies. Her research interests are in Women's and Gender Studies, and Critical and Cultural Studies, especially Black women authors; Australian women writers and Migrant writers; feminist and Marxist theory, and the theorising of race and ethnicity in relation to culture.

After gaining a BA Honours (London) and a PhD (Auckland), she moved in 1973 to teach in the Department of English (now the School of Communication and Arts) at The University of Queensland.

She was Director of the Women, Gender, Culture and Social Change Research Centre from the 1990s, and President of the Australian Women's and Gender Studies Association in the late 90s and early 2000s. She has been convenor of Women's/Gender Studies at UQ since the early 1990s and contributed to the growth and development of the discipline in Australia and beyond. She was also instrumental in the founding of Creative Writing as an academic research discipline at the University, and served as Director of the Australian Studies Centre.

In 1975 she was the founding editor of one of the first international second-wave feminist journals, Hecate: A Women's Interdisciplinary Journal , now in its forty-second volume, and also took over the editorship of the Australian Women's Book Review in 1999 (https://hecate.comunications-arts.uq.edu.au). She is also on the editorial boards of eight other national/ international journals.

She has published more than a hundred articles and book chapters, presented papers at seventy conferences in Australia and overseas, and regularly organised conferences at The University of Queensland. Books include: Gender, Politics and Fiction: Australian Women's Novels (UQP); The Janet Frame Reader (London: Women’s P); Jean Devanny: Romantic Revolutionary (Melbourne UP); As Good As a Yarn with You; Letters Between Miles Franklin, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Jean Devanny, Marjorie Barnard, Flora Eldershaw and Eleanor Dark (Cambridge UP); Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History (Melbourne: Vulgar P).

Dr Laura Ferris is a Senior Lecturer in Management and Clinical Psychologist at the UQ Business School. Her research investigates pain, suffering and other intense human experiences, drawing on organisational, clinical, and social psychological approaches. Dr Ferris and her team use integrative mixed methods to examine group formation and cohesion, ostracism, conformity, risk-taking, intergroup threat perception, and broader social identity processes in organisational settings. Her interdisciplinary work is informed by a background in public service, law and justice policy, and multiagency crisis response. Dr Ferris also maintains a private practice in clinical psychology.

Professor Jason Ferris, is the Director of Research and Statistical Support Services (RASSS), University of Queensland. While providing service primarily to the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences RASSS has the capability to support other organisation units. Professor Ferris is also a leading research academic at the Centre for Health Services Research (CHSR) where he is the Program Leader for Global Substance Use and Mental Health (GSUMH) unit. He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD) and the Chief Data Scientist for the Global Drug Survey (2013-). Since 2019 he has held a ministerial appointment as an Advisory Council Member to the Queensland Mental Health Commission and is an interRAI Fellow (interrai.org) and contributes internationally as a World Health Organization (WHO) advisor, providing expertise and technical guidance on substance use trends and harm‑reduction policy development.

Since 2020, Professor Jason Ferris, in collaboration with Dr Dom Gorse (Director of UQ's Data Science CRP) and many others from QCIF and UQ, have been working on the development and deployment of KeyPoint - an innovative data infrastructure, data governance and digital solution enabling researchers to access, manage, analyse and share sensitive research data in a scalable, fully governed and highly secure environment. The work has received a number of accolades. In 2023, The University of Queensland recognised the value of KeyPoint winning the Award for Excellence in Innovation. In 2022, the Faculty of Medicine recognised his commitment and leadership to the University awarding him and the team the Innovators of the Year Award. Professor Ferris and Dr Gorse are now developing a UQ solution for a Trusted Research Environment (UQ-TRE). Professor Ferris has received other recognition as well. In 2021, the Faculty of Medicine recognised the outstanding support of RASSS with a Service Excellence Award. In 2020, The University of Queensland recognised his contributions to his research field: he was awarded the Faculty of Medicine Leader of the Future Award (Academic) and The Director's Choice Award for contributions to the Centre for Health Services Research. In 2019, he was awarded The Outstanding Mid-Career Researcher within the Centre for Health Services Research and was also chosen as a finalist for the Faculty of Medicine Leader of the Future Award (Academic). Additionally, across the Faculty of Medicine, his Research and Statistical Support Service, was nominated for a Service Excellence Award (2019 and 2020). In 2015, he received the University of Queensland, Early Career Researcher Award within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science. In September, 2014, he received a Highly Commended Early Career Researcher Award within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science.

He has been involved in a number of key projects: The Queensland Evaluation of the Alcohol Fuelled Violence Policy (QUANTEM), The Overarching Evaluation of the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program (CHYME), the evaluation of ProjectSTOP (a decision-making national database for pharmacists aimed at preventing the use of pseudoephedrine based products as a precursor in the manufacture of methamphetamine), and a national review of the links between random breath testing and alcohol-related road traffic accidents. Jason has over 20 years of social science and public health research experience. He has a well-established publication record with a strong focus on alcohol and drug research and public health. With a Master degree in biostatistics he has well developed and expansive quantitative methods skills and a broad range of experience in many of the facets of both social science and medical research. In 2014 his PhD on alcohol epidemiology was conferred.

Previously, as a senior statistician at the Institute for Social Science Research he developed and taught a number of training models in research methods and statistical analysis as part of the Methods for Social Analysis and Statistics (MFSAS). Since its inception in 2012 he has been course coordinator and trainer for a number of these training modules (see below). From 2016-2018 he was the Director of MFSAS. Between 2016-2017 he was also the ISSR Co-postgraduate Coordinator.

Carbohydrate chemistry, medicinal chemistry, drug discovery

Vito Ferro is a Professor in the School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences. His research interests are in the area of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry, and drug design and development.

Assoc Prof Fred Fialho Teixeira is an architect, media artist and associate professor at University of Queensland, School of Architecture, Design and Planning and director of the UQ VisLab. He has been working in the fields of computational architecture, biodesign and immersive environments for the last 20 years. He has been awarded the Dean's Fellowship from the University of California where he initiated is PhD and developed innovative biological-based design strategies at the California Nano Systems Institute. He's an alumni of the Architectural Association, School of Architecture (AA) and accredited architect by Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Portuguese Chamber of Architects (OA) and also practiced for high profile offices such as Zaha Hadid Architects. Presently his research work on bio-design and spatial computation combines the use of mixed reality, advanced manufacturing and biomaterials to enable the next generation of built environments

Memberships

Architectural Association, School of Architecture (UK),Royal Institute of British Architects (UK), Chamber of Architects (PT), Australian Smart Communities Association (AU), UQ CyberResearch Centre