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Thomas grew up in Germany and joined UQ in 1999 following postgraduate studies in New Zealand. He investigates the mental capacities in young children and in animals to answer fundamental questions about the nature and evolution of the human mind. His research has attracted several awards (incl. from the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, the Australian Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association) and his critically acclaimed book The Gap (e.g. see reviews in Nature, Science or the Wall Street Journal) is currently being translated into several languages.

Dr Daniel Sullivan is a Psychologist and Research Fellow at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health as a member of the Let's Yarn About Sleep team. He also maintains a clinical appointment as a Senior Psychologist (Sleep Disorders) in the public sector, where he is leading a project to develop an expanded scope of practice model of care in Sleep Psychology. Prior to qualifying as a Psychologist, Dr Sullivan worked clinically as a Sleep Technologist for over 5 years across the private and public sectors. Dr Sullivan completed his PhD in Clinical Psychology at Griffith University, and MSc in Sleep Medicine at the University of Sydney.

I'm a Professor of Cognitive Science at The University of Queensland, originally hailing from Alberta, Canada. I received my BASc in Philosophy and Psychology from The University of Lethbridge, my PhD in Psychology from McMaster University, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at UNSW before joining UQ in 2006.

Much of our work is at the intersection of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, exploring how generative AI can enhance learning and cognition. We're excited about the potential for these tools to provide personalised feedback, correct misconceptions, and create more engaging educational experiences.

But we’re not just focused on AI. We also explore the quirks of human thinking, particularly the biases that shape our judgments in contexts ranging from daily life to high-stakes decision-making. By unraveling these mental shortcuts, we aim to develop strategies that enable clearer thinking, more effective reasoning, and ultimately, wiser choices in the face of complexity and uncertainty.

I've been lucky to work with some truly brilliant students and collaborators over the years. It's a pleasure to come to the lab every day and tackle these fascinating questions together.

Tim is a clinical pharmacist and conjoint lecturer working at the School of Pharmacy and the Princess Alexandra Hospital. He graduated from the Bachelor of Pharmacy at the University of Queensland in 2014. After working in mental health at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, he become interested in schizophrenia and psychopharmacology. He began his PhD with the School of Clinical Medicine in 2020 and his research interests include clozapine, treatment refractory schizophrenia, and the safe use of antipsychotic medicines. He is the team leader of mental health pharmacy at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Tim teaches into the Bachelor of Pharmacy and the Masters of Clinical Pharmacy programs at the University of Queensland, and supervises research project placements.

Dr. Jess Taubert was awarded the ARC Future Fellowship and moved to the University of Queensland in 2021.

She completed a Bachelor of Science Degree with Honours at Macaquarie University (2005) and a PhD in Psychology at the University of Sydney (2009). In 2009 she accepted a postdoctoral position at Emory University (GA, USA). Here she worked jointly with Lisa Parr at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Philippe Rochat in the Department of Psychology. In 2011 Dr. Taubert was awarded a FSR incoming postdoctoral fellowship by UCLouvain and moved to Belgium to train as a neurophysiologist (supervised by Rufin Vogels, Wim Vanduffel, and Bruno Rossion). After briefly returning to Australia, Dr. Taubert was appointed as an Intramural Research Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health in the US (2016 – 2021). During this time she worked with Leslie Ungerleider, Chris Baker, David Leopold, and Elisabeth ("Betsy") Murray among others.

Dr Hannah Thomas is a Research Fellow and Clinical Psychologist at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research and has academic affiliations with both The University of Queensland and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. She completed a PhD on adolescent bullying and cyberbullying, which was recognised by the Australian Psychological Society as the best original contribution to knowledge. As a psychologist she has experience in the delivery of evidence-based treatments for mental health and social difficulties with children and adolescents and their families. Dr Thomas developed and validated the Bullying and Cyberbullying Scale for Adolescents [BCS-A] and co-led the work to have bullying victimisation included as a risk factor for mental disorders in the Global Burden of Disease Study. She is also a co-investigator on the Australian Child Maltreatment Prevalence Study, which is the most comprehensive study the prevalence, health, and economic burden of child maltreatment in Australia. Her ongoing research is focused on the prevention of adverse childhood experiences and mental illness in the population.

Karen Thorpe is Australian Research Council, Laureate Professor and Group Leader in Child Development, Education and Care at the Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland. Her research is grounded in the understanding that early learning experiences shape brain development and are critical in establishing trajectories of health, social inclusion and learning across the lifespan. A particular focus of her work is early care and education environments including parenting, parent work, quality of care and education, and the early years workforce.

Karen leads a multi-disciplinary team of developmental scientists undertaking large scale longitudinal studies with embedded studies to explicate mechanisms that enable or limit children’s life chances. She was Foundation Psychologist on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children at the University of Bristol, UK; led the evaluation of the Preparing School Trial for Queensland Government; led the Queensland team of the E4Kids study of quality in Australian Early Education and Care and a recent data linkage project with Queensland Government to track participants through their school journey. In partnership with Queensland Government, Goodstart Early Learning and the Creche and Kindergarten Association she led a large population study of the Australian ECEC workforce (ARC Linkage). Her current research, as a chief investigator on the ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families across the life course, and through an ARC Laureate fellowship, is to examine barriers to providing high quality early learning services in developmentally vulnerable communities.

In 2013 and again in 2019 Karen was named by the Australian Financial Review as among Australia's 100 Women of Influence for the impacts of her research on educational and family policy. In 2020 she was recognised by Australian Government, Advance Global Awards for her international contribution to education. Karen chairs the Australian Early Years Reference Council for Evidence for Learning, Australia whose remit is to build a strong evidence-base in early childhood education and care with focus on translation into policy and practice. She is also director on the board of the Australian Research Council for Children and Youth and advisor to the national board of Beyond Blue – Be You.

Karen Turner is a clinical psychologist and research academic. She is Deputy Director at the Parenting and Family Support Centre. Her research activity focuses on the impact of evidence-based parenting support on child, family and community outcomes. She is a foundational co-author of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program and has published more than 50 professional manuals, parent workbooks, tip sheet series, and video programs, which are currently being used in 27 countries, in 20 languages. She has also co-written television segments and four interactive online parenting programs. She has clinical and research experience relating to parent wellbeing, child development, and the prevention and treatment of a variety of childhood behavioural and emotional problems, including work with feeding disorders, pain syndromes and conduct problems. Her research has also focused on the development and evaluation of brief primary care interventions in the prevention of behaviour disorders in children, and the dissemination of these interventions to the professional community. She has also conducted series of research into: online delivery of parenting programs; the cultural tailoring of mainstream parenting programs for Indigenous families; and enhancing the training and post-training environment for Indigenous professionals. Her current work includes further resource development for primary care settings, early education settings, and an ongoing focus on making evidence-based parenting support programs more accessible for First Nations families, and in low-resource and developing communities.

Eric Vanman is a Professor at the University of Queensland's School of Psychology in Australia. He earned his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1994. Following that, he served as a post-doctoral fellow specialising in cognitive and behavioural neuroscience at USC, then spent a year as a research scientist in the Environmental Psychophysiology Laboratory at Texas A&M. He also held short-term positions at Emory University before being appointed an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University in 2000, where he taught until 2007. He then transitioned from Georgia State as an Associate Professor to his current role. His research centres on the social neuroscience of emotion and intergroup prejudice, utilising various psychophysiological and neuroimaging techniques. Currently, he is focused on projects involving social robots and social media.

I obtained my first degree in Psychology (Experimental & Theoretical) from Ghent University in Belgium and completed a Ph.D. in Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Groningen. Following a postdoc at NeuRa in Sydney and a few years lecturing on psychology at the Australian Catholic University, I chose to shift my research focus to environmental issues, and how they affect individual and collective human health and wellbeing. I gained experience with grassroots commmunity conservation projects as a volunteer and completed the interdisciplinary MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College London in 2016. I was a researcher at Imperial's Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College from 2017-2021. My research is now broadly focused on the human dimensions of environmental change, with a particular interest in how people (emotionally) connect with nature, determinants of pro-environmental behaviour, the health and wellbeing benefits of nature exposure and the mental health impacts of climate change.

My research can be broadly defined as applied social psychology: the primary focus driving this research program is to test and extend important theories outside the laboratory. For example, an extensive literature in social psychology has demonstrated that stereotype threat, or the concern that one is the target of demeaning stereotypes, can lead to acute performance deficits. Despite the widely demonstrated performance decrements brought about by stereotype threat in the laboratory, there has been debate about the relevance and applicability of stereotype threat in everyday life. My work has examined some of the real world implications of stereotype threat, including what leads to experiences of stereotype threat for women working in male dominated professions, older employees, and men working in female dominated professions (such as child protection) and the consequences when employees experience stereotype threat at work.

I also conduct research on implicit attitudes amongst hard to reach populations, such as people who inject drugs, at-risk youth, and people with mental health problems. Similar to my research on stereotype threat, this research attempts to contribute to the literatures on stigma and implicit attitudes, while also providing empirical evidence of the applicability of implicit attitudes outside of the laboratory.

Prof. Guy Wallis studies visual recognition and visuomotor behaviour. His investigations combine computational modelling with data drawn from behavioural studies. Many of these behavioural studies are conducted in computer-controlled, virtual environments.

Guy holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Imperial College, London) and a PhD in Visual Neuroscience (Oxford University, UK). He joined the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences in 1998 after a three year period as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany. His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, the Human Frontier Science Program, and the Wellcome Trust, as well as through industry partnerships with the Queensland Construction Training Centre, the Australian Coal Association Research Program, Queensland Health, the US Air Force and Boeing.

• ARC Medical Research Advisory Group (2022-2024)
• Elected Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022)
• ARC College of Experts (2019-2021)
• CSIRO CSS Human Research Ethics Committee member (2020-2022)
• UQ Health and Behavioural Sciences Faculty, HDR Supervision Award (2018)
• ARC Future Fellowship (2011-2014)
• ARC QEII Fellowship (2003-2007)
• UQ Postdoctoral Fellowship (2001-2003)

Dr Koa Whittingham is a clinical and educational/developmental psychologist with research interests across parenting, neurodevelopmental disabilities and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Koa began her career building key empirical support for the flagship UQ program Stepping Stones Triple P for specific neurodevelopmental disabilities including autism, acquired brain injury and cerebral palsy. She has since developed an international reputation as a leader in developing and testing novel acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) interventions to support parents, including using online/telehealth formats. Her contributions to the field of ACT-based parenting intervention were recognised by her election as a Fellow to the Assocaition for Contextual Beahvioural Science in 2023. Koa has a strong track record with over 100 papers and 6 book chapters and currently leads an MRFF testing her online intervention Parenting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (PACT) with 300 families of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities or developmental delay. She has written a self-help book for the transition to motherhood, Becoming Mum, as well as the first clinical manual on applying ACT to parenting support, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy the Clinician's Guide for Supporting Parents.

I am a cognitive neuroscientist with a research focus on the neural basis of language. My research is focused on three related questions:

1. How is language processed in the brain?
2. How does brain damage affect language processing in individuals with aphasia, i.e. acquired language disorders?
3. What brain mechanisms support the recovery of language processing in people with aphasia who improve over time?

To address these questions, my lab studies individuals with aphasia, as well as healthy participants with normal language, using a range of state-of-the-art functional and structural neuroimaging techniques. We combine our multimodal imaging approach with comprehensive language assessments designed to quantify deficits in different components of the language processing system, such as syntactic structure, word meanings, and the selection and assembly of speech sounds.

Language Neuroscience Laboratory

An experienced researcher with a multi-disciplinary training background, Ning is a Research Fellow in the Inclusive Education and Employment research group at ISSR.

Ning has strong expertise in delivering multi-year collaborative research projects, including complex mix-method evaluation projects (e.g., the national evaluation of the Australian Government’s Paid Parental Leave scheme and a follow-up ARC Linkage Project, funded by the Department of Social Services).

Ning has also significantly contributed to a number of projects funded by Department of Education at federal and state levels and though various research grant schemes, utilising data from LSIC, LSAC, LSAY and HILDA to investigate the impacts of a range of factors (e.g., individual, family, school and community) on disadvantaged students’ outcomes, such as socio-emotional wellbeing, academic achievement, university participation and graduate labour market outcomes.

Ning has specialist expertise in literature review, constructing theoretical framework to guide data analyses, data preparation, management, screening and analysis, which she has applied to great effect in these projects. Ning has a track record of successfully delivering accessible and policy informing documentation. She also specialises in longitudinal data analysis, and has published extensively on school climate, student engagement, and long-term education and labour market outcomes for students from equity groups.

A clinical psychologist trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy with many years of clinical experience, with interest in the understanding of psychosomatic relationships as they appear in clinical practice, and with interest in the understanding of the therapeutic relationship as instance of change, particularly in the treatment of children and young people. This translates into an interest in researching the psychotherapy process with a tendency toward the use of qualitative or mixed methods.

I am a Research Fellow in the Institute of Social Science Research at The University of Queensland.

My research interests coalesce around issues of social justice within organisations. I am particularly curious about how the way we perceive others informs our treatment of one and other in the workplace. I spend a lot of my time exploring this idea in the context of leadership. For example, collaborators and I have been working with industry professionals in Australia and North America to understand what organisational structures inhibit minority leaders' (e.g., women, racially diverse) progression and retention. We've also been investigating possible disrupters that may serve to improve minority leaders' chances of success in leadership roles.

I also spend a lot of time on applied research problems through partnering with industry to examine the effectiveness of practical initiatives or policy shifts. Recently, we've been working on understanding the supportive mechanisms that enhance boat safety in Northern Australia, while another partnership has focused on understanding how novel bail support programs can be enhanced to support young people to meet their youth justice orders.

I received my BPsycSc and MPsyOrg from UQ Psychology before completing a PhD in Leadership / Organisational Behaviour at UQ Business School. In 2019 I moved to The University of Illinois for a postdoctoral fellowship before joining the Institute of Social Science Research in 2021.

I am also an Organisational Psychologist and consult with industry on people focused challenges. I partner with business leaders and people managers to develop and implement evidence based actions and strategies.

I work with collaborators in Australia and North America, and I have the good fortune of supporting several RHD candidates at present.