Find an expert

After completing an honours year in genetics in the lab of Professor Paul Ebert (The University of Queensland), Dr Fotheringham obtained a research assistant position in the field of diabetes, sparking a passionate interest in diabetes and diabetes complications, particularly diabetic nephropathy. This led her to undertake and complete a PhD, examining the influence of dietary factors, in particularly advanced glycation end products and macronutrients on renal function in diabetes and aging. Since completing her PhD in 2020, Dr Amelia Fotheringham has worked as a Research Officer in the Glycation and Diabetes Complications Laboratory at Mater Research-UQ. Here she has undertaken projects examining novel treatments for mitochondrial dysfunction in diabetic nephropathy and targeting the AGE-RAGE pathway for type 1 diabetes prevention.

Professor Richard Fotheringham’s research interests include Australian drama, Australian performing arts policy, English Renaissance staging, textual criticism, and Australian stage comedy.

His current research includes editing early Australian plays, Australian stage comedy 1915-1930, and staging Shakespeare in Australia.

Professor Fotheringham is the author of:

• Sport in Australian Drama, Cambridge University Press.
• In Search of Steele Rudd, Uni. of Queensland Press.
• Articles on Australian drama, performing arts policy, Renaissance staging, and theory of editing.

Editor of:

• Australian Plays for the Colonial Stage 1834-1899 (Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2006).
• Community Theatre in Australia, Methuen, 1987, Currency 1992.
• Dampier and Walch's stage version of Robbery Under Arms.

Dr James Fowler joined the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health in 2024. James’ work focuses on using mixed-methodologies and community-based participatory research to address the needs of priority groups across health promotion and health service contexts. Much of James’ work focuses on the LGBTQIA+ community. This includes coordinating the 'Blak and Proud' project at UQ Poche, which focuses on working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQIASGBB+ peoples to develop the 'BLAK PRIDE' Model of Care. James other work explores the design and evaluation of mental health promotion programs, the role of technology in health and wellbeing, gender-affirming health services, and projects focused more broadly on wellbeing and sexual and reproductive health. In 2022, James was awarded the UQ Ally Award in recognition of his work creating a safer UQ for LGTBQIA+ people. James is currently a member of the Queensland Government’s advisory panel on LGBTQIA+ issues and helping to develop Queensland’s LGBTQIA+ strategy. Prior to this role, James worked for Lady Gaga on her Born This Way Foundation Youth Advisory Board.

Dr Cassandra France has a PhD in brand strategy and is a Lecturer at UQ in the Marketing Discipline.

After gaining industry experience working in brand strategy, advertising and marketing, Cassandra's research approach bridges theory and practice to better understand how transformative branding can be executed by brand managers to benefit both the brand, the consumer and society. Cassandra is interested in customer-brand relationships, as well as the role of brands in contributing to society. Recent work is focused on brand purpose, with upcoming work looking at corporate social activism and non-profit brand vulnerability. Her leading research explores how customer perceptions of value can be influenced by their own active behaviour. Specifically, how the act of co-creating the brand (by development, feedback, advocacy and helping) and engaging with the brand may impact the perceptions of value. Her work appears in the Journal of Product & Brand Management, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Marketing Management, among others.

Cassandra is also a dedicated educator, previously Program Leading the Master of Business at University of Queensland and receiving numerous awards for excellence in teaching, including the 2024 Australian Awards for University Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, the 2023 UQ Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, the 2022 BEL Award for Excellence in Student Learning and the 2021 UQ Business School Excellence Award for Student Engagement.

Cassandra has completed training in Supervising Doctoral Studies, Contemporary Expectations in HDR Supervision, Supervising Indigenous HDR candidates, Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Core Cultural Learning and Mental Health First Aid.

Carl (Saibai Koedal) is a PhD Candidate studying the epidemiology of rheumatic heart disease in Queensland using linked hospital and administrative data. Currently, Carl holds an academic appointment (Lecturer, Physiotherapy) in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, the University of Queensland, and maintains a clinical role as a Staff Physiotherapist at The Prince Charles Hospital. Alongside research, Carl is also working to strengthen relationships between remote Torres Strait Islander communities and UQ to explore opportunities for education, student clinical placement and research partnerships.

• Director, Herston Imaging Research Facility
• Professorial Research Fellow and Senior Group Leader, AIBN
• Nuclear Medicine Specialist, Dept Nuclear Medicine & PET Services, Royal Brisbane & Women’s Hospital

Ros Francis is an academic Nuclear Medicine specialist who has established an innovative and highly collaborative research career focused on clinical trials, novel radiopharmaceuticals for imaging and therapy, and innovative approaches for quantitative imaging. Her expertise spans diverse fields including oncology, cardiology, neurology and inflammatory diseases, with a focus on research translation. Ros is passionate about nuclear medicine clinical trials and has been integral in the establishment of Australasian Radiopharmaceutical Trials Network (ARTnet), for which she has been Scientific Chair since 2014.

Ros relocated to Brisbane in 2024 from Western Australia and is enjoying new opportunities in Queensland’s vibrant and innovative biodiscovery ecosystem. As Director of Herston Imaging Research Facility and Senior Group Leader AIBN, Ros aims to lead translational research to improve outcomes for patients

Dr Anna Francis is a paediatric nephrologist and clinician researcher at Queensland Children’s Hospital, Australia. She completed her PhD in 2019 at the University of Sydney on “Long-Term Outcomes of Chronic Kidney Disease in Childhood and Adolescence”. She has a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology. In 2017, Dr Francis was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, travelling to Germany, England and Harvard to explore transition programs to adult care for young kidney transplant recipients. In 2019, she was appointed as an Editorial Fellow to Kidney International. In 2020, Dr Francis was accepted into the inaugural International Society of Nephrology “Emerging Leaders” programme. Dr Francis became an associate editor for Kidney International Reports in 2021.

Her key research interests are the life course impact of childhood CKD and optimising outcomes in paediatric kidney transplantation.

Dr Cathy Franklin is Director of the Queensland Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability and Autism Health. As a psychiatrist and researcher, she has spent two decades improving health and mental health outcomes for people with intellectual disability and those on the autism spectrum through clinical care, service innovation, education and applied research.

Cathy is recognised as an Australian expert in her field, serving on the RANZCP Committee for the Section of Psychiatry of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, and the Executive Committee of the Australian Association of Developmental Disability Medicine.

As an ardent advocate, Dr Franklin’s submission to the Queensland Parliament Mental Health Select Committee in 2022 helped raise the profile of this area of need. The Committee subsequently made a recommendation that was accepted, leading to a Queensland Government $51.5M investment over four years to establish a Centre of Excellence and 12 intellectual and developmental disability mental health teams statewide.

Cathy's research centres on improving health outcomes for people with intellectual disability and those on the autism spectrum. She has expertise in Down syndrome and is an international expert in Down syndrome regression disorder.

Cathy has successfully led successful applications to secure over $11M in competitive research and project funding in the last seven years. She also led her centre's partnership in the University of New South Wales consortium that secured $23.9M (2022-2026) to establish the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health.

Key projects Dr Franklin has led include the co-designed EASY Health project ($3.2M 2020-2026), which introduced Australia's first online education for mainstream clinicians featuring actors with disabilities. Now available across Queensland Health and mandated in national Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, this education is transforming clinician perspectives and improving equitable access to healthcare.

Cathy is also Chief Investigator on the Bridge to Better Health project, a $1.4M NHMRC-funded initiative building primary care nurses' capacity to deliver healthcare and improve outcomes for people with intellectual disability.

Cathy helped establish the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group-Australia and co-chairs the Regression and Mental Health workgroup of the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group-USA. She leads her centre's contribution to the international Down syndrome consortium led by Massachusetts General Hospital.

In 2020 she was awarded the Mater Research Sister Regis Dunne award for Outstanding Contribution to research relative to opportunity and in 2025, the Women in Technology "Lifting Communities" award.

My lab investigates the physiological and behavioural responses of fish, frogs and reptiles to changing environmental conditions including assessing and predicting the impact of human-induced environmental change. A major thrust of this research is within the emerging field of Conservation Physiology. We are particularly interested in the capacity and plasticity of physiological systems (e.g. respiratory, cardiovascular, osmoregulatory, digestive and musculo-skeletal) to compensate and maintain performance under changing environmental conditions.

We combine lab-based experimental studies with fieldwork, and take an integrative approach that utilises ecological, behavioural, physiological and genomic methodologies. In the field we utilise remote sensing technology (acoustic and satellite telemetry, archival tags) to investigate the movement patterns and behaviours of animals in relation to environmental conditions.

Current projects include:

• assessing the effects of increasing temperatures on sharks, frogs, turtles and crocodiles;
• determining the physiological basis for the impact of increasing UV-B radiation on frogs;
• diving behaviour and physiology of freshwater turtles and crocodiles;
• acoustic and satellite tracking of sharks, turtles and crocodiles in Queensland;
• regulation of physiological function in aestivating frogs

Professor Daniel Franks is Director of the Global Centre for Mineral Security at the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute and is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Professor Franks is known internationally for his work on the interconnections between minerals, materials and sustainable development, with a particular focus on the role of minerals in poverty reduction. He has introduced a number of key concepts in development studies including ‘mineral poverty’, ‘mineral security,’ and ‘development minerals;’ and has worked with a wide range of public and private sector partners to implement breakthrough sustainability innovations, such as OreSand to drastically reduce mine waste, and ‘social impact management plans,’ a regulatory tool now adopted throughout the world.

He is the author of more than 160 publications, including more than 40 publications for the United Nations. His research has appeared in journals such as Nature Sustainability and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is available in 11 languages. He is an Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Minerals Policy & Economics, as well as Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal and has field experience at more than 100 mining and energy sites and 40 countries.

Lucy Fraser is a Senior Lecturer in Japanese at the School of Languages and Cultures, St Lucia campus, UQ. Her research interests include depictions of animal-human relationships in fiction, fairy tales and fairy tale retellings in Japanese and English, and ideas of gender--especially the figure of the girl--in contemporary Japanese literature, manga, film, and television. She is also interested in Japan-Australia literary and cultural connections, and editing and translation of literature and literary criticism.

Professor Ian Frazer is a clinician scientist, trained as a clinical immunologist in Scotland. As a professor at the University of Queensland, he leads a research group working at TRI in Brisbane, Australia on the immunobiology of epithelial cancers. He is recognised as co-inventor of the technology enabling the HPV vaccines, currently used worldwide to help prevent cervical cancer. He heads a biotechnology company, Jingang Medicine (Aus) Pty Ltd, working on new vaccine technologies, and is a board member of several companies and not for profit organisations. He was the inaugural president of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and a member of the Australian National Science and Technology Council. He chairs the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board of the Medical Research Future Fund.

He was recognised as Australian of the Year in 2006. He was recipient of the Prime Ministers Prize for Science, and of the Balzan Prize, in 2008, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2012. He was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2013.