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My research career began when I recognised that the marine world has a history and pattern that can explain the past, understand the present, and predict the future. I started studying beaches and coral reefs since they are iconic and complex systems where marine, ecological, geological and human processes interact to produce the ecosystems we see today. My goal, and that of my lab (The BeachLab), is to develop tools, gather data, and provide analyses to help coastlines and coral reefs navigate a warmer world. Our projects are focused on fundamental research questions about how coasts and coral reefs change through time. We also have applied research objectives to support the future management of coastal and coral reef systems.

I am now a teacher and researcher in Geography at the School of the Environment at UQ. Prior to my appointment at UQ, I was a teacher and researcher at The University of Sydney (where I completed my Undergraduate and PhD degrees) and in a combined post at The University of Bremen (MARUM) and the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT). Perhaps equally importantly I grew up on the east coast of Australia and I have a personal and professional passion for beaches, coral reefs, surf, and the ocean.

Peter Harrison was educated at the University of Queensland and Yale University. In 2011 he moved to Queensland from the University of Oxford where he was the Idreos Professor of Science and Religion. At Oxford he was a member of the Faculties of Theology and History, a Fellow of Harris Manchester College, and Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre. He is a Professorial Research Fellow at the Universityof Notre Dame, Australia, and a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford's Ian Ramsey Centre. He has published extensively on the philosophical, scientific and religious thought of the early modern period, and is interested in secularization theory and historical and contemporary relations between science and religion. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Oxford, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Chicago, is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion, and a corresponding member of the International Academy for the History of Science. In 2003, he recieved a Centenary Medal for 'service to Australian Society and the Humanities in the Study of Philosophy and Religion’. In 2011 he delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. He was awarded a DLitt by the University of Oxford in 2013, and delivered the Bampton Lectures at Oxford in 2019. From 2015-20 has was an Australian Laureate Fellow.

His twelve books include, most recently, Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age (Cambridge, 2024), After Science and Religion (Cambridge, 2022), co-edited with John Milbank, and The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago, 2015), winner of the Aldersgate Prize.

My research portfolio integrates, at a deep level, fundamentals of process engineering and molecular & microbiology across applications including biominerals engineering, bioenvironmental systems, valorisating & repurposing waste, bioproducts and algal biotechnology. Integrating microbial dynamics and structure – function relationships informs building robust & resilience bioprocesses and novel bioproducts. Using IDTD research, I seek sustainable approaches to mineral & water-sensitive systems

How do we feed the world, adapt to and mitigate climate change, and conserve biodiversity? My research addresses these critical questions by quantifying the trade-offs between agricultural production, climate change, and biodiversity in tropical agricultural landscapes. A key focus of my work is agroforestry—the strategic integration of trees into cultivated lands. While agroforests are not a one-size-fits-all solution, my research shows that agroforestry, when informed by a quantitative understanding of these trade-offs, can improve biodiversity and climate outcomes without compromising agricultural productivity.

Through fieldwork and conservation planning, and in collaboration with my wonderful colleagues at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science (CBCS), I aim to understand how agricultural landscapes can be optimized across large geographic areas, to best meet conflicting goals and improve biodiversity outcomes. The goal of this work is to improve sustainability outcomes across West Africa, where tropical forests have been rapidly converted in order to produce 60% of the world’s cocoa.

I am an ecologist and the goal of my research is to understand the processes driving the rise and fall of populations of animals and plants over time.

We focus on the biology of flowing freshwater ecosystems — streams, rivers, and associated wetlands. These systems provide wonderfully challenging opportunities for combining theory, observations, and experiments to discover how nature works.

More importantly, freshwater ecosystems are, per unit area, the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, and yet they remain underexplored, underappreciated, and under threat.

We hope our work can help to redress these issues.

You can find out more about our group here: http://hartlab-ecology.com

Associate Professor Nicole Hartley is the MBA Director at UQ Business School. Nicole's career as an academic has spanned 19 years at institutions in both Sydney and Queensland. She is an internationally recognised research academic in the field of services marketing and digital technology. Her specific research interests include service technology, virtualised services, customer preference and adoption, new media and service innovation. Nicole’s current research agenda focuses upon exploring customer perceptions in response to the advent of technology and various forms of disruption in the delivery of services, particularly healthcare. Nicole is also an award-winning educator with teaching expertise in marketing strategy, digital media, consumer behaviour and experiential industry-based projects. Prior to her academic career, Nicole was employed as Marketing Manager/Director for various corporations within the tourism, education and communication industries both in Australia and in the UK.

Dr Sam Hartridge is a Senior Research Fellow with the TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland in the Law and Future of War project.

Sam Harvey is a speech pathologist and post-doctoral research fellow in the Querensland Aphasia Research Centre, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. Sam is working on a number of projects aiming to improve aphasia care and outcomes.

Mehedi is a public health researcher with strong expertise in quantitative data analytics. He has over eight years of professional experience in developing and developed countries. He has built a distinguished career in public health research, focusing on critical areas such as reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH), nutrition, non-communicable diseases, mental health, sleep health, social determinants of health and health inequalities.

Mehedi completed his PhD from the University of Queensland in 2022. In his doctoral thesis titled “Future direction of maternal and child health in low- and middle-income countries”, he utilized data of over 4.3 million participants extracted from 284 national surveys conducted in 75 low- and middle-income countries to understand the future projections of maternal and child health-related indicators and gaps in progress, with geographical variations across countries. His doctoral research resulted six publications in reputed international journals and provided valuable insights for global and country leaders in their pursuit of achieving health-related Sustainable Development Goals.

Mehedi has a charming engagement with research community. He has reviewed manuscripts for eight international journals and published 45 peer-reviewed articles, many of which appear in high-impact journals. His work has gained media attention, with coverage of more than 15 research stories.

In addition to his research and professional activities, Mehedi is an active member of several professional international collaborative groups, including Global Burden of Diseases, the American Society for Nutrition, the International Health Economics Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, and Health Systems Global, where he collaborates with fellow experts and stays at the forefront of developments in his field.

Mehedi is a Global Change Scholar (2018 cohort) of the University of Queensland and a recipient of several prestigious scholarships and awards. He recently honoured with a national award in the Pregnancy Monitoring Innovation Challenge 2022 funded by the Aspire to Innovate (a2i), Bangladesh, recognizing his innovative contributions to maternal and neonatal health.

Mehedi’s current research focuses on unveiling environmental exposures in pregnancy and risk in adverse birth outcomes in Queensland, Australia.

Dr Kayoko Hashimoto’s main research areas are language policy and language education in multilingual and multicultural contexts in Australia and Asia. She is the editor and/or author of five books, including Rethinking the Asian Language Learning Paradigm in Australia (2024, Palgrave Macmillan), Japanese Language and Soft Power in Asia (2018, Palgrave Macmillan), and Beyond Native-speakerism: Current Explorations and Future Visions (2018, Routledge, with S. A. Houghton & D. J. Rivers).

I have worked in both the clinical and academic fields of clinical psychology, in Australia and the UK, before joining UQ in 2012. My research investigates the cognitive and social consequences of trauma and disease in neurological populations, and also on identity-cognition relationships in aging. In this work I have addressed questions about the integrity of cogntiive ability, notably memory, and its rehabilitation, but also the impact that impairment of these abilities have on personal andsocial identity.

My work aims to ensure all children have access to safe, stable, violence-free childhoods they need to thrive in childhood and across life. This spans from extensive work on evidence-based parenting programs to major national epidemiological work on child maltreatment, corporal punishment (smacking) & mental health & wellbeing. I am currently co-leading the Young Minds: Our Future study which is the Third Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (funded by the Dept of Health, Disability and Aging $8.3M) and I am part of the award-winning Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) team which generated the first nationally representative Australian data on the prevalence and mental health impact of the five types of child maltreatment in Australia.

In 2023, I was a ministerial appointee to the Child Death Review Board, which conducts systemic reviews of child deaths to identify areas to improve child safety in QLD. In 2024 the World Health Organisation appointed me to their International Technical Expert Group for Violence Against Children Estimations. I also serve on the Board of Directors for the Parenting & Family Researchers Alliance and on the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Social Issues a policy masthead.

As both a clinical psychologist and a research academic, I use a prevention lens to target risk and protective factors to enhance child and family wellbeing to reduce the presence and impact of early adversity & mental ill health. This includes a focus on parenting stress, family violence and maltreatment, and issues associated with balancing work and life.

As a researcher, I have received >$10 million in research funding and published extensively in leading D1 & Q1 journals. I am a sought-after speaker & am frequently called on by the media for comment. My work has featured on the front page of The Australian, as well as on commercial and ABC television and radio programs.

Alex is Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology and Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on the study of group and identity processes in organizational, social, and clinical contexts.

Together with colleagues, Alex has written and edited 15 books and published over 300 peer-reviewed articles on these topics. His most recent books are:The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power (2nd Ed. with Stephen Reicher & Michael Platow, Psychology Press, 2020), The New Psychology of Sport: The Social Identity Approach (with Katrien Fransen & Filip Boen, Sage, 2020),The New Psychology of Health: Unlocking the Social Cure (with Catherine Haslam, Jolanda Jetten, Tegan Cruwys and Genvieve Dingle, Routledge, 2018), andSocial Psychology: Revisiting the Classic Studies (2nd Ed. with Joanne Smith, Sage, 2017).

Alex is a former Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology and currently Associate Editor of The Leadership Quarterly. He has won a range of major awards from scientific organisations in Australia, Europe, the UK, and the US, including recognition for distinguished contributions to psychological science from both the Australian Psychological Society and British Psychological Society. In 2022 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia "for significant service to higher education, particuarly psychology, through research and mentoring".

A/Prof Sumaira Hasnain graduated with her PhD in December 2010 from The University of Manchester and is an Associate Professor at Mater Research with a team of eight researchers. A/Prof Hasnain was the first globally to demonstrate that immunity can modulate protein production in secretory cells in infection and chronic diseases. Her long-term vision has been to characterise these novel immune factors and manipulate them therapeutically using pre-clinical models of immune-driven pathologies.

A/Prof Hasnain holds a patent for targeted immunotherapy in metabolic disease which has led to the formation of a spin-off company, Jetra Therapeutics and venture capitalist funding. She has a rapid upward trajectory in research, evident by extensive body of high-quality publications including in Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Oncogene and Gastroenterology. She has been awarded more than $9 million in competitive funding and recently gained the National Health and Medical Research Council L1 Investigator Grant. A/Prof Hasnain has won 21 awards to date, including the Commercialisation award from The University of Queensland in 2022 and the Gastroenterological Society for Australasia; Lawrie Powell Award in 2023.

Maureen Hassall is Professor and Director of the Sustainable Minerals Institute's Industrial Safety and Health Centre at the University of Queensland. Her expertises crosses the fields of industrial risk management, safety engineering and human factors. Maureen works collaboratively with industry professionals to develop better human-centred risk management and safety engineering approaches that improve companies’ operational performance and competitiveness. Maureen also develops and delivers process safety, systems safety engineering, risk management and human factors training, education and expert advice to students and to industry. Her industry-focused research is motivated by 18 years of industry experience working in a number of different countries and in a variety of roles including specialist engineering, line management, organisational change and business performance improvement roles.