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Professor Karen Healy AM is Head of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Queensland. A leading social work academic, she is deeply committed to health equity, family inclusion, integrated care, and social justice. Her research examines and develops community-based responses to child and family welfare and to health and wellbeing across the life course with people experiencing adversity and disadvantage. She also conducts research on trust breaches and repair in a range of community group and non-government organisations.

Karen has established and leads a program of research partnerships with government, non-government and lived-experience organisations, underpinning a collaborative program of work with strong policy and practice impact. She has led award-winning initiatives such as Young Mothers for Young Women, a midwifery–social work–peer support program for young parents. Working closely with Micah Projects, Karen leads a team conducting the first Australian practice trial of Family Connections, a family inclusive approach to keeping child safe and families together. She has also contributed to the development of integrated care models for people experiencing homelessness, combining physical, mental, and maternal health services. She is the author of several influential books on social work theory, methods and communication.

Professor Healy chairs Clinical Care and Governance for Anglicare Southern Queensland, which provides health and community services across the life course.

In 2016, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her contribution to social work in child protection, higher education, and research. In September 2018, she was appointed a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK).

Michael Healy is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He is a structural biologist with expertise in protein structure determination, membrane trafficking, and computational protein design.

Michael's early research focused on the Commander complex, a key regulator of membrane trafficking in cells. He resolved the first structure of this complex using a combination of X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and machine learning approaches, including AlphaFold2. This work was published in Cell (2023) and established him as a respected member of Australia's computational structural biology community. Where he is known for training researchers from diverse backgrounds in the application of AlphaFold2 and its derivatives.

Currently, supported by NHMRC funding, Michael is developing novel biologics that target membrane trafficking complexes. His work investigates, Molecular tool development, Biosensor design and development of therapeutic candidates. His research combines cutting-edge computational protein design with experimental validation to advance new strategies for probing and manipulating membrane trafficking pathways.

Kerry Heckenberg is currently an active research member in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland with experience in teaching both science (physiology) and art history at this university.

We are currently investigating biological processes that valorise waste carbon, typically gaseous compounds such as CO2, CO​, or CH4. Microbial biotechnology is our focus due to its scalability, efficiency, and stability - being capable of utilising typical catalysis contaminants such as NOx and H2S. Further, certain hydrogenotrophs and methanotrophs (H2 and CH4 utilising organisms) have metabolic properties that make them attractive for use in the circular carbon economy (e.g. co-uptake of CO2 and CH4 as sole carbon and energy sources). A wide-range of products can also be made, from short-chain alcohols to polymers and tailored animal feeds. To better understand their ability for real-world application, we characterise their metabolism using multi-omics analysis methodologies and then optimise it through data-driven hypotheses and testing. My main interests include

• identifying genes (and their regulation) essential for desirable traits, and methods for manipulation of those genes to enhance a bioprocess.
• (methods for) identifying and alleviating bottlenecks in metabolism.
• creating novel C1 metabolic pathways through culturing of synthetic microbial consortia and/or metabolic engineering.

​James recently submitted completed his PhD, where he was also working in the Marcellin Group. Prior to this, he studied for a BE(Hons.) in Chemical and Process Engineering (with Bioprocess minor) at the University of Canterbury (NZ) and became interested in further study after a summer research internship. His PhD research employed systems biology and bioprocess engineering principles to build datasets that expanded our understanding of gas fermentation in an industrially relevant manner. In partnership with LanzaTech, the World leader in commercial gas fermentation, this analysis focused on the industrially-relevant and model acetogen Clostridium autoethanogenum. Current interests in reducing global CO2 levels and high efficiencies encouraged us to investigate this biological system as a potential CO2 recycling platform.

Stephen Heimans is a Senior Lecturer in The School of Education at The University of Queensland. He writes and teaches about education policy/ leadership enactment, education research methodology and schooling in underserved communities. He is interested in the post-critical possibilities of Jacques Rancière’s thinking and the philosophy of science of Isabelle Stengers- especially experimental constructivism.

Stephen contributes to the International Teacher Education Research Collective (ITERC), a recently established group collaborating around research on teacher education in several countries including Australia, the UK, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Japan, Hong Kong and Sweden. The Collective is currently exploring three interrelated research themes: how professionalism is ‘claimed’; the ethics and politics of teachers’ knowledge; and the knowledge base of teacher education. https://twitter.com/_ITERC

Dr. Michael Tobias Heitzmann is the Co-Director for the Centre for Advanced Materials Processing and Manufacturing (AMPAM) and a Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at The University of Queensland. The centre he co-directs brings together over 60 researchers and 110 PhD students working with over 124 different industry and research partners.

He is an expert in composite materials and processes with a strong industry focus. His research group at The University of Queensland is focused around the two areas: ‘High temperature Composites’ and ‘Composite durability’. His expertise includes manufacturing process development and modelling, materials characterisation and composite mechanics. In the last 5 years, he has been awarded over $8.5M AUD in research funding as chief investigator (CI) of which over $3.5M AUD have been obtained as the lead CI. He has secured significant funding across the funding spectrum including, direct industry funding, CRC, ACARP, ARC Linkage and ARC Discovery projects. Since joining The University of Queensland in 2014, he has produced over 45 academic publications and is the inventor of 3 patents. He has graduated 6PhD students, 2 MPhil students and is the current supervisor of 10 PhD students and 3 research fellows.

As an academic with a strong industry focus, Dr. Heitzmann prides himself on his impact beyond tractional academic outputs. For example, he and his team have developed coal seam gas sucker-rod wear guides that are now use across Australia with over 1 million guides sold. In collaboration, with Prof. Glen Lichtwark, he developed the Cricket Australia test standard for cricket balls and overseen the certifications of all cricket balls currently being played in Cricket Australia men’s competitions. He has also pioneered the development of high temperature ceramic matrix composites for hypersonic applications in Australia. His team has successfully developed and demonstrated the manufacture of polymer-matrix and ceramic-matrix composites for test campaigns including industry primes such as Lockheed Martin and Thales. He also played a significant role in the establishment of the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Eagle Farm Facility and has helped to shape the current high temperature composites development that is undertaken within DST.

From 2012 to July 2015, he was the project leader of the CRC-ACS “Plant fibre biocomposites” project (CRC-ACS P1.1), a 6.5M five year project. He was responsible for leading a multinational team of over 10 researchers including project partners form Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Thailand and Malaysia. Since taking over the project lead, he has successfully established a steering committee for the development of biocomposite design guidelines, engaged three additional research providers and introduced two new commercial end-users to the project. The license for commercialisation of the project outcomes has been issued to Queensland based agronomy company Agri Fibre Industries.

Before joining the University of Queensland he worked as a Senior Research Engineer for the commercial entity of the CRC-ACS, Advanced Composite Structures Australia. In this role he contributed and led composite research and development projects for major local and international companies such as QBE insurance, Brisbane Transport, Australian Aerospace, Airbus and PETRONAS.

As part of the management executive of the Program in Complex Traits Genomics (PCTG) based at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences (IMB) Anjali is responsible for the day-to-day running of the PCTG, including the coordination of their research activities and strategies, research governance and supervison of their high-through put genomics laboratory. Anjali has over 15 years experience in managing complex, large-scale research programmes and specialises in facilitating and managing interdisciplinary collaborations and consortiums.

Prior to moving to UQ, Anjali was the Senior Project Manager for the Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory at the Queensland Institute for Medical research (QIMR) where she held an integral role in the management of large human research projects collecting biological samples for down stream genomics. Her significant contribution to these projects has been recognised by her inclusion in publications and commentaries.

Margaret teaches in the literature area in the School of Communication and Arts. Her teaching interests are literary theory, contemporary women’s writing, and postmodern fiction.

Margaret is the author of Marking Feminist Times: Remembering the Longest Revolution in Australia, a study of Australian feminist cultural memory; Kathy Acker: Punk Writer; and co-author with Anthea Taylor of Postfeminism in Context: Women, Australian Popular Culture, and the Unsettling of Postfeminism. She is the co-editor of Terra-Recognita: New Essays in Australian Studies, Manifesting Australian Literary Feminisms: Nexus and Faultlines, and Things that Liberate: An Australian Feminist Wunderkammer. She has also published numerous articles on feminist fiction and culture, and autobiography.

She has been a consultant to the National Museum of Australia, advising on a modern Australian women's movement collection. Her current project is a monograph on women’s punk and post-punk memoirs.

Amanda Henderson has an extensive career in nursing education, research and leadership in both academic and clinical settings internationally and in Australia. Her substantive position is Nursing Director, Nursing Practice Development Unit at the Princess Alexandra Hospital where she provides leadership and guidance for education initiatives and directives across Metro South Health. Her scholarship is focused on the establishment of clinical settings that promote learning in practice, including the development and utilisation of health care knowledge.

Associate Professor Julie Hennegan’s research aims to improve the menstrual and reproductive health of the two billion women and adolescent girls who menstruate around the world. She is a mixed-methods researcher and disciplinary hybrid, blending expertise in social and behavioural science, epidemiology, and the design and evaluation of complex interventions.

Associate Professor Hennegan is a Principal Research Fellow and NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow (2022-2026). She joined the Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research (AWaGHR) Centre in 2025. She leads the Centre’s thematic pillar on Health Equity, and brings expertise in global women’s and adolescent health.

Her research impact has included developing a consensus definition of menstrual health, mid-level theory through the integrated model of menstrual experience and developing core measures used menstrual health research and global monitoring efforts. She leads the Adolescent Menstrual Experiences and Health Cohort (AMEHC) Study in Bangladesh, following 2,000 adolescent girls’ journeys to understand their changing needs and model the effect of menstrual health needs on life outcomes. She also undertakes research to advance monitoring and evaluation for menstrual health interventions across East Africa, East Asia, and the Pacific, along with studies to understand menstrual health needs among diverse groups in Australia and the role of new technologies such as reusable menstrual products.

She holds a DPhil and MSc in Evidence Based Social Intervention from the University of Oxford, following undergraduate training in psychology and social science at the University of Queensland.

Dr Joerg Henning is a Professor in Veterinary Epidemiology at the School of Veterinary Science. He is the Director of Students and Admissions, the International Student Mentor and International Recruitment Coordinator for the BVSc (Honours) program. He has over 15 years of research experience in epidemiology and biostatistics with a focus on international animal health. He was the main operational scientist in research projects in Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia. He also worked as a consultant for international organisations such as the FAO, World Bank, ILRI and others.

A key focus of Dr Joerg Henning’s research is to identify sustainable and acceptable interventions to improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in developing countries. His research interests included zoonotic diseases such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1, infectious diseases and management of poultry, attitudes and behaviours of small-scale farmers, extension programs to improve livestock health, the translation of research outcomes while considering farmer’s attitudes, behaviours, cultural background and literacy and research linking livestock production to human nutrition.

Dr Henning's research interest also includes the analysis of wildlife data, including anthropogenic threats to koalas, the development of citizen science approaches to support koala conservation and investigations into snake envenomation in domestic animals.

Dr Leah Henrickson is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Cultures at the University of Queensland. She is the author of Reading Computer-Generated Texts (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and other peer-reviewed articles about how we understand text generation systems and output, artificial intelligence, and digital media environments. Dr Henrickson also studies digital storytelling for critical self-reflection, pedagogy, community building, and commercial benefit. She is the author of Digital Storytelling: An Introduction (Polity, 2025).

Dr Henrickson serves as the School of Communication and Arts' Deputy Director, Teaching and Learning. She is also an elected non-professorial member of the University of Queensland's Academic Board, and a nominated member of the Academic Board's Digital Learning Sub-Committee. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) and the Executive Committee of the Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH), and serves on the Editorial Boards of New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia and Anthem Press' 'Anthem Studies in Book History, Publishing and Print Culture' series.

Dr Henrickson is especially keen to collaborate on projects involving digital methods and media, hermeneutics, histories of communications media, and unconventional text production and dissemination.