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Associate Professor Lauren Kearney is a registered midwife and nurse and is employed as a Conjoint Associate Professor in Midwifery between the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, UQ and the Women's and Newborn Services, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. Lauren’s teaching expertise is within the postgraduate and higher degree by research areas. Her research track record is strongly focused upon maternal and child health; specifically, within the domains of evaluation of models of care (relating to the perinatal period and early years), intravenous fluid management and access during labour and birth, and facilitators to promote a positive and physiological spontaneous vaginal birth. She is also committed to enhancing women's opportunity to breastfeed and thrive in the postpartum period. Lauren has strong industry collaborations. The recipient of several competitive research grants, Lauren is passionate about improving the experience of health care for women and children through translation of high-quality evidence into practice.

Supervised by Andrew Fitzmaurice, I wrote my PhD on the history of the early modern common law in England, focusing on the seventeenth century clashes over the role of the judiciary. The major result has been to demonstrate the efforts of early modern common lawyers to articulate their independence from the sovereign king. Faced with assertions of judicial subordination to monarchical will, common law judges retorted that holding judicial office entailed the interpretation and application of custom. Custom, found in precedents established by earlier judges, was a source of law that originated beyond statute created by king and parliament. Empowered by custom, common lawyers could restrain the sovereign’s power.

My current work tests the hypothesis that the early modern clash between custom and sovereignty has been imported into the Australian context, where it plays a critical role in native title jurisprudence. Since the early 1990s, the Australian High Court has heard a series of disputes over the customary rights of First Nations peoples in Australia and the power of Crown sovereignty. If correct, this suggests that modern High Court jurisprudence is a new iteration of a centuries-long unresolved battle within the common law tradition, stretching from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. Initial findings are published in Law and History Review and the Historical Journal. Non-academic articles exploring related questions are published in Australian Book Review, Meanjin, and Sydney Review of Books. These questions are also addressed in Our Muddle, a podcast series with Associate Professor Ryan Walter.

Before joining the University of Queensland, I worked as a policy writer in Canberra.

Associate Professor Shelley Keating is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist (AEP) and an Associate Professor in Clinical Exercise Physiology at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland. With a strong grounding in exercise metabolism and body composition, Shelley leads a program of research aimed at changing the way we prioritise, access and deliver lifestyle intervention for people with obesity, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), type 2 diabetes and liver cirrhosis. She leads a multidisciplinary research program advancing the integration of exercise into standard cardiometabolic and hepatology care pathways. Her program is co-designed with clinicians, health services, and people living with MASLD to develop sustainable, meaningful exercise solutions that can be embedded into routine hepatology care. A/Prof Keating is also a member of the Global NASH/MASH Council and the EASL Global Liver Advocacy Network, contributing to international advocacy and multidisciplinary collaboration in steatotic liver disease.

A/Prof Keating is the Director of the Exercise Physiology and Liver Disease Translation Group (EP-Liver), which is advanding liver health through exercise, implementation and partnership. The Exercise Physiology and Liver Disease Translation Group conducts clinical trials and implementation research to integrate exercise physiology into the prevention, assessment and management of steatotic liver disease and cirrhosis, with the goal of advancing liver health across the disease spectrum.

The Exercise Physiology and Liver Disease Translation Group (EP-Liver) has three core pillars:

Transforming Workforce: Builds workforce capacity and implementation frameworks that embed exercise physiology within multidiciplinary care for steatotic liver disease and cirrhosis.

Translating Evidence: Generates and translates clinical trial evidence on exercise as a therapeutic intervention for steatotic liver disease and cirrhosis into guidelines and models of care.

Amplifying Voices: Centres the perspectives of people living with steatotic liver disease and cirrhosis through co-design and engagement, ensuring models of care are equity-informed.

Julia Keenan is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM), Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland. She has over 15 years' experience working on the social dimensions of resource development.

Julia's work explores the interface between resource development and communities, especially in contexts involving Indigenous rights, customary land systems and community governance institutions. She investigates how organisations, practitioners and partnerships translate high-level commitments and policy frameworks into practice and outcomes for people affected by extractive industries.

As an applied social scientist, Julia works closely with research partners to understand how resource development intersects with locally defined aspirations, development pathways and community futures. She has maintained long-term relationships with practitioners and stakeholders across the extractive sector and has worked across Australia and internationally.

Her work spans agreement-making and benefit sharing, consultation and consent, Indigenous self-determination, gender, community development, corporate social performance, social impact assessment, mine closure and post-mining transitions. Through comparative research across jurisdictions and sustained engagement with operations and communities over time, she examines how responsibility, accountability and authority shape the distribution of benefits, burdens and decision-making authority associated with resource development.

Julia contributes to research, training and advisory projects with industry, governments, community organisations and international institutions. Recent work includes implementation of United Nations Environment Assembly Resolution 4/19 on Mineral Resource Governance, involving consultations with more than 1,200 participants across 23 global meetings; and the Social, Cultural and Economic Studies of the Strategic Regional Environmental and Baseline Assessment for the Beetaloo Sub-basin.

Since 2023, Julia has coordinated CSRM’s involvement in the Community Smart Consultation and Consent Project (CSCC), which focuses on improving natural resource governance through community-based consultation and FPIC.

Julia holds a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Arts (Hons in Linguistics) from The University of Queensland.

I am the Founder and Director of the Hearing Research Unit for Children, leading three research teams investigating (1) middle ear assessments in neonates and infants, (2) hearing screening and diagnostic assessment of school-aged children, and (3) assessment of auditory function of adults and children using electrophysiologic measures including otoacoustic emissions, auditory brainstem response, steady-state evoked potentials, wideband absorbance and wideband tympanometry. My special interest in technological advances and my mission to improve hearing health services through the use of cutting-edge technologies have inspired me to become a world leader in detecting ear diseases in newborns, infants and children. As a world leader in the field of tympanometry and advanced middle ear assessments for children, I have been invited to present on the use of wideband tympanometry with infants and children at international seminars and institutions.

As of July 2024, I have a career total of 249 publications - consisting of 1 book, 4 book chapters, 2 chapters in the Encyclopedia of Human Communication Sciences and Disorders, 132 peer-reviewed journal papers and 110 conference abstracts. Internationally, I am ranked as the most productive author in the world in the field of Tympanometry (a test of middle ear function) and advanced middle ear assessments for all years (1994-2024) and for the last 5 years (Web of Science, February 2024). My work has been cited in 25 different subject categories including Medicine, Health Professions, Neuroscience, Physics, Astronomy, Engineering and Computer Science (Scopus, February 2024). Furthermore, my work has been widely cited internationally by authors in 83 countries ranging from the United States to Europe, Asia and the Middle East (Scopus, February 2024).

Professor Veronica Kelly’s research interests include pantomime, burlesque and melodrama, contemporary Australian theatre, and colonial star actors and their repertoires.

Her current research includes star actors of the early Australian stage, early twentieth-century commercial managements, gender, nationalism and performance.

She is the author of:

• Articles on Australian colonial and contemporary drama and theatre history. Specific authors: Charles Harpur, Marcus Clarke, Garnet Walch, Louis Nowra, Janis Balodis, Michael Gow, Nick Enright. Specific topics: recent Australian drama, colonial theatrical culture and performance conditions, Orientalism in Australian performance, theatre reviews in the Sydney Bulletin, glamour postcards sent in Australia, Julius Knight and costume drama.
• The Theatre of Louis Nowra (1998).
• Read research articles on Julius Knight the Australian matinee idol (2004; theatre criticism in the Bulletin (2000), J.C. Williamson's production of Parsifal (1995), Orientalism in early Australian theatre (1993); the banning of Marcus Clarke's The Happy Land (1983).

Editor of:

• Garnet Walch's colonial pantomime Australia Felix.
• Collection of critiques of Louis Nowra.
• Our Australian Theatre in the 1990s (1998).

Co-editor of: Australasian Drama Studies (1982-present).

I am a consultant Accredited Practising Dietitian and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Online Health. I have a PhD in technology-supported lifestyle interventions and delivering dietary education to improve people’s dietary self-management. My research program focuses on technology-enabled health systems and interventions for improving patient-centred care in chronic disease and simplifying nutrition communication for clinicians and people living with chronic conditions. I work in private practice, primarily providing professional consultancy services for kidney nutrition. I also provide consultation for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. You can learn more about my private practice here - https://www.mynutritionclinic.com.au/renal-dietitian/

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interests are in 1) Nutrition & Dietetics – primarily diet quality and focusing on methods to improve diet quality in people with chronic kidney disease and other complex chronic conditions; 2) Health Service Delivery & 3) Digital Health – specifically focused on preparing to workforce, codesigning and testing technology-assisted interventions to deliver lifestyle interventions. My current work focuses on technology-enabled health systems and interventions for improving patient-centred care in chronic disease and simplifying nutrition communication for clinicians and people living with chronic conditions.

Adjunct Associate Professor Ian Kemish AM is a former senior Australian diplomat and company executive with interest and expertise in the history of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and in Australia’s engagement with those regions. He divides his time between UQ, writing, personal philanthropy, business advisory work and the not-for-profit sector. Ian originally graduated with Honours in modern Southeast Asian history from the University of Queensland. Ian received a UQ Alumni Excellence Award in 2014.

At UQ, in addition to his adjunct role, Ian personally supports a number of scholarships at the university. He and his wife Roxanne Martens sponsor an enduring scholarship for a female Australian indigenous student, and Ian is also a co-founder and ongoing supporter of an annual Berlin residency for UQ humanities graduate students to study in the German capital.

Ian’s 25-year Government career included service as High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Ambassador to Germany, Head of the Prime Minister’s International division and DFAT’s Southeast Asia Division. He was awarded membership of the Order of Australia for his leadership of the consular response to the 2002 Bali bombings. Mr. Kemish moved to the private sector in 2013, supporting companies to improve their sustainability and community development outcomes in the Indo-Pacific.

Mr. Kemish is an independent strategic adviser to a number of private and public sector clients. He is also a Distinguished Advisor at the ANU's National Security College, an Industry Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, and a Director of the Australia-Indonesia Centre at Monash University. He is Chairman of the not-for-profit Kokoda Track Foundation, a director of 3rd Space, which provides services to the homeless in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, and a Business Champion of the Australian Government’s New Colombo Plan.

Ian is a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Deanna is a leading international expert focused on the social and political challenges of the global mining industry. She specialises in industry-engaged social science that bridges company and community perspectives on extractive industries. Particular areas of expertise include company-community conflict, displacement and resettlement, and human rights and development challenges. Deanna studies how the global mining industry is organised, resourced and incentivised to respond to these pressing challenges.

Deanna Co-chairs the Board of Trustees for the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB), and the New Member Review Panel for the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). She is a Senior Associate of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership, a member of the International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA) and the International Network of Displacement and Resettlement (INDR).

After commencing her research career with UQ in 2006 as a Senior Research Fellow with CSRM, in 2012 she became Associate Professor and CSRM’s Deputy Director, and in 2016 Professor and Director of the Centre. Deanna has made significant contributions to positioning CSRM as a world-leading centre of research excellence. In her current role, Deanna develops and delivers high-profile research, leads diverse project teams, and oversees more than 40 staff and PhD students.

Industry Engagement

Deanna engages with most of the world’s major mining companies, and many of its peak industry bodies, including the International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM). She also engages with international finance institutions and other norm-setting bodies. She has collaborated with international non-government organisations—including Oxfam and Human Rights Watch—on industry-related studies. Before her academic career, Deanna held senior positions in the mining industry, working in corporate and operational roles at BHP, and as an advisor to a number of other global resources companies.

Collaborations

At The University of Queensland, Deanna has collegial relationships with the School of Social Science, including the Institute of Social Sciences Research (ISSR). She also has a range of national and international collaborative projects, including with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Monash Indonesia. She has in the past collaborated with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government on joint research.

John Kemp is a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland. He first developed a keen interest in genetics while studying a Bachelor of Science at the University of Pretoria (RSA). After being awarded a first for his honours degree, he secured a scholarship from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) to study a master’s degree in medical genetics, which he subsequently completed with distinction. John was awarded a Wellcome Trust PhD studentship in molecular genetics and life-course epidemiology at the University of Bristol (UK). He duly completed his PhD, focussing on the genetics of osteoporosis (OP). His expertise lies in the genetic mapping of complex traits related to OP, and his research has yielded a step change in understanding the genetic architecture of OP. Through his extensive network of experts in functional genomics and murine genetics, he has mapped may OP loci to target genes and identified nine genes that represent new opportunities for drug development. These findings have since been published in top-tier journals such as Nature Genetics, and his contributions have been further recognised by the way of several international young investigator awards. His other interests include applying new statistical genetics methodologies to OP research, including approaches for causal modelling through Mendelian Randomization. John’s expertise extends beyond statistical genetics, as he has >6 years of experience performing advanced molecular genetics laboratory techniques and has used these to advance his OP research.

Dr Kemper is a postdoctoral fellow in statistical genetics. She joined UQ in 2016 after obtaining a PhD and postdoctoral experience at the University of Melbourne (2006-2016). Her expertise and research interests span a range of topics in quantitative genetics, including genomic prediction, modelling the epidemiological consequences of genetic change in disease and population genetics. Current research areas include:

• genetic analysis of longitudinal traits
• estimation of non-additive genetic effects
• genomic prediction in admixed populations

Emeritus Professor Justin Kenardy is a research and health sector leader. He is also an active disseminator of evidence-based practice in clinical and health psychology, mental health care, and health service delivery. His work is outcomes focussed and is engaged with health users, providers and industry. He is known for his interdisciplinary research work on the psychological impacts of trauma and injury. This is situated at the intersection of mental health, and physical health. His work includes the development and application of preventative, integrative and novel intervention approaches. His published work demonstrates the interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach to collaborating with psychology, medical specialties, allied health, nursing, law, and health economics. He has a practical, respectful and strategic leadership style. He is style is goal-driven and consultative which aims to bring others along to achieve the goal. He is also a mentor and consultant. He provides service to the profession of psychology and the broader community through his range of roles in the Australian Psychological Society, the Psychologists Board of Australia, and the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council, to the field of research through his leadership roles within Queensland Health, the NHMRC, and ISTSS, and to the Jamieson Trauma Institute and Gallipoli Medical Research Institute. He is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia, Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society, Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of both the Australian Psychological Society's President's Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology and the Ian Campbell Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Clinical Psychology. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Psychology and Cogent Mental Health. He is also an Officer of the Order of Australia.

Dr Sarah Kendall is an interdisciplinary scholar with expertise in criminal law and procedure and evidence law. She is particularly interested in the intersections between law and science. Sarah's work focuses on justice responses to domestic, family and sexual violence, and emerging and re-emerging national security threats. Currently, she is researching victim-centric, trauma-informed criminal justice approaches in domestic, family and sexual violence matters. Alongside this research, she is examining the nature, effectiveness and appropriateness of the criminal law response to espionage, foreign interference and sabotage. Sarah uses a range of methods to conduct her research, including empirical (qualitative and quantitative) methods.

Prior to joining Griffith University, Sarah worked at the Queensland Law Reform Commission (QLRC), leading the review of Queensland's non-fatal strangulation offence. She has also previously worked at the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) on a number of inquiries, including the Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws inquiry and Justice Responses to Sexual Violence inquiry, and at the Department of Justice Queensland where she progressed the Criminal Justice Legislation (Sexual Violence and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2024 (Qld).

In addition to her research, Sarah has taught Foundations of Law and Evidence Law at UQ and guest lectures on various topics.

Professor Bradley Kendall is a clinical academic Gastroenterologist and Cancer Epidemiologist. He is currently a Senior Staff Gastroenterologist (Eminent) at the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane with over 30 years of experience in clinical practice. His clinical training included Fellowships in the United States at the University of Virginia and the University of California – Los Angeles. Mid clinical career he commenced higher degree studies and in 2014 was awarded a PhD in Cancer Epidemiology from The University of Queensland for his work on Barrett’s oesophagus and obesity. He is actively involved in ongoing research into the epidemiology of pre-malignant and malignant gastrointestinal diseases via his clinical appointment and appointment as a Professor in the School of Medicine at The University of Queensland.

Professor Kendall is involved with national and international collaborations, including projects with the US National Cancer Institute supported International Barrett’s and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Consortium and the NHMRC supported multicentre Australian Progression of Barrett’s Esophagus to Cancer Network. Currently, he is a Chief investigator in a Cancer Australia funded multicentre Australian collaborative study of the impact of the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program on colorectal cancer outcomes for people with severe mental illness.

I use geochemistry to investigate the roles of fluids and volatiles in geological processes stretching from the Earth's surface to the deep mantle. I am particularly interested in hydrothermal alteration, metasomatism/metamorphism and magmatism. The common link between these areas, and the aim of my recent research, has been to investigate the longterm exchange of volatiles between the Earth's surface and mantle reservoirs, stretching from the seafloor, through subduction zones and into the mantle. I participated in Expedition 360 of the International Ocean Discovery Program in 2016, to the slow-spreading Atlantis Bank core complex on the SW Indian Ridge, where I acted as shipboard geochemist and crossed the equator by boat for the first time. I have long standing interests in fluid inclusions as tiny recorders of past fluid activity and special interests in the halogen and noble gas groups of elements.

I moved to UQ in 2019 from the Australian National University where I was a continuing Fellow and had held an ARC Future Fellowship. Prior to that I had an ARC QEII Fellowship at the University of Melbourne (2008-2013) and postdoctoral appointments at the University of Melbourne (2004-2008) and the Geological Survey of Norway (2001-2003). I did my PhD at the University of Manchester (2001) and undergraduate studies in Geology at the University of Edinburgh (1996).

Simon is an intellectual historian specialising in the history of legal, political and religious ideas. He is currently working on a number of projects: the political uses of the fifth commandment ("Honour your father and mother") in the early modern period, resistance theory in the Reformed Protestant tradition, and the idea of constituent power in the early modern period. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest in early 2023, and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Danube Institute, also in Budapest. His first book was published with Edinburgh University Press in 2022, and is entitled Reforming the Law of Nature: The secularisation of political thought, 1532-1689. His second book is on education, entitled Against Worldview, and published with Lexham Press.