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Since returning to academia from industry in 1998, Professor Lydia Kavanagh has become a leader in engineering education and has used her background as a professional engineer to design both curricula and courses for active learning by combining real-world projects and specialist knowledge. She has had a significant impact on the delivery of UQ’s undergraduate engineering program through creative new teaching pedagogies including the Flipped Classroom, innovative authentic approaches to assessment, and the introduction of multi-disciplinary courses. As Director of First Year Engineering for almost a decade, Lydia was responsible for a significant program of extra-curricular transition support for first year students and she co-coordinated two compulsory courses that delivered what could arguably be the world's largest flipped classroom for 600 students. Recently, she has set up a Leadership and Mentoring Program for all EAIT faculty students (undergraduate and postgraduates), and continued this into a Leaders@EAIT, an ongoing academy for these students to continue to develop leadership competencies.

Lydia is now the Deputy Associate Dean Academic (Curriculum Review and Teaching Innovation) for the Faculty of Science where she has overseen a faculty-wide overview of curriculum resulting in streamlined undergraduate and postgraduate offerings. She holds a concurrent fractional position with the Institute of Teaching and Learning Innovations, where she has developed frameworks and systems for UQ shorter form credentials.

Lydia is also heavily involved institutionally with training and mentoring academics and professional staff with teaching responsibilities through the development and implementation of the Graduate Teaching Assistant program (for PhD scholars and postdocs), Teaching@UQ (for staff new to teaching), and TeachingPlus@UQ (for emerging leaders in Teaching and Learning).

Lydia’s work was recognised with a Principal Fellowship of the HEA, an ALTC Excellence in teaching award in 2011 and she has lead and participated in Carrick/ ALTC/ OLT projects on teamwork, online learning, curriculum innovation (2x), preparing students for first year engineering, and Flipped Classrooms.

Dr Danish Kazmi completed his PhD in Geotechnical Engineering at The University of Queensland (UQ) in Australia. His PhD research investigated the potential use of crushed waste glass as a sustainable alternative to depleting traditional construction sands (both natural and quarried) to backfill granular columns for in-situ ground improvement. He is a global pioneer in researching the potential use of crushed waste glass to backfill granular columns for ground improvement in clayey soil.

His research primarily focuses on developing sustainable geomaterials by recycling ever-increasing wastes as alternatives to diminishing and increasingly expensive natural aggregates in geotechnical construction, helping the transition to a circular economy.

Danish is a TEDx Speaker and delivered a TEDx Talk at TEDxBrisbane. He is also one of the youngest researchers ever from his centre at UQ to receive a PhD.

Danish won the prestigious Career Development Fellowship at UQ, funded by the Australian Government. He received the coveted UQ Global Change Scholar Award. He won the Young Science Ambassador Award for the Wonder of Science Program in Australia to help promote a STEM culture in Queensland schools. He is a passionate science communicator and a double award winner at the Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT®) at UQ’s School of Civil Engineering. His PhD research has been featured in several Australian and international magazines and has led him to win several scholarships, alongside his selection to present at well-reputed live science communication events. Danish has published three high-definition UQ-branded Video Abstracts to communicate his research to the broader society and help maximise science outreach. Danish was interviewed by Inspiring Australia as part of Australia's National Science Week celebrations to help spark the interest of students in STEM education. He has successfully initiated cross-institutional research collaborations with world-leading organisations and is an invited peer reviewer for various top-ranking scientific journals and conferences.

Danish currently works as a full-time Senior Adviser - Marine Strategic Planning at Redland City Council in Queensland Local Government. Before this role, he worked as a full-time Geotechnical Engineer in the Tunnels & Geotechnical Team (South Queensland Region) at GHD for over 2 years in the Australian industry. Previously, he worked as a full-time Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering at UQ.

Throughout his work experience in both the Australian industry and academia (university), Danish has developed a wide-ranging skill set in civil geotechnical engineering, strategic asset planning and management, and leadership, enriched by experiences gained across the Australian public and private sectors. He is passionate about developing transformative civil and geotechnical engineering solutions through leading-edge research, leveraging university-industry collaborations.

Danish is a UQ Global Change Scholar and Green Office Representative. He is a recognised UQ Future Leader awardee. He is an accredited Mental Health First Aider and a UQ Mental Health Champion. He is also a certified Carbon Literate. Danish cares deeply about the environment and believes that planet Earth is our most valuable asset. Outside work, he enjoys volunteering for sustainability, social initiatives, and science communication, connecting with nature, and spending time at the beach.

Australian Work Experience Summary (full-time roles only)

Danish's career connects Australian academia, private-sector engineering, and public-sector strategic planning and leadership (Queensland Local Government):

1. Senior Adviser - Marine Strategic Planning at Redland City Council (May 2025 to date)
2. Geotechnical Engineer at GHD (Jan 2023 to May 2025)
3. Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering at The University of Queensland (Jan 2022 to Jan 2023)

Australian Industry Experience Highlights

• Lead strategic marine and coastal planning within Marine Infrastructure Asset Management, developing strategies, guidelines, and decision-support frameworks informed by marine geotechnics insights.
• Implement evidence-based techniques to optimise site inspection workflows and enhance data-driven asset management, improving asset monitoring, performance, and tracking.
• Manage budgets and support financial planning for capital, operational, and maintenance works delivery (CAPEX and OPEX).
• Lead beach nourishment, coastal erosion mitigation, and foreshore access planning initiatives.
• Drive strategic planning, communication, stakeholder engagement, cross-functional collaboration, and community service delivery initiatives.
• Construction quality assurance and compliance (QA/QC), applying value engineering across project lifecycles.
• Asset and dam inspections, monitoring, regulatory compliance and high-level reporting
• Geotechnical site investigations (including sonic drilling, auger drilling, etc.)
• Borehole and test pit logging
• In-situ sampling of soils and rocks
• Standard Penetration Test (SPT)
• Concrete and asphalt core sampling and logging with borehole reinstatement (Airport taxiways, rigid aircraft pavement design, etc.)
• Dynamic Cone Penetration Test (DCP) and PANDA® Lightweight Dynamic Cone Penetration Test
• Packer Test (to determine the average hydraulic conductivity of underground rock formations)
• Geotechnical instrumentation (standpipe and vibrating wire piezometers, data loggers, telemetry, etc.)
• Geotechnical cost estimation, report writing and proposal development

Australian Industry Certifications or Licenses (Shortlisted)

• ​​​​​Queensland White Card (Construction Induction)
• Class C Manual Driver License (Open) (Queensland)
• Professional Certificate in Asset Management Planning, issued by the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA)
• Provide Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (HLTAID009)
• Provide basic emergency life support (HLTAID010)
• Provide First Aid (HLTAID011)
• Operate and maintain a four wheel drive vehicle (RIIVEH305F)
• Undertake first response to fire incidents (MSMWHS212)
• Communicate in the workplace (RIICOM201E)
• Apply initial response First Aid (RIIERR205D)
• Respond to local emergencies and incidents (RIIERR302E)
• Comply with site work processes/procedures (RIIGOV201E)
• Conduct local risk control (RIIRIS201E)
• Work safely & follow WHS policies and procedures (RIIWHS201E)
• Standard 11 Surface Induction (RIISS00034 Surface Coal Mine Safety Skill Set)

Professional Memberships

• ​​​​​Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS)
• Australian Coastal Society (ACS)

Dr Keane is a haematologist at Princess Alexandra Hospital and runs the Lymphoma Research Lab at the UQDI in Brisbane. His main research interest is focused on the interface between the tumour microenvironment and the malignant lymphoma cell, with a goal to build an understanding of lymphoma from an immunological and biomarkers perspective. To bridge developments between the clinic and bench-top, the laboratory has a strong emphasis on patient material, which it obtains from international and national clinical collaborators, much being from investigator-led clinical trials.

Lymphomas studied include more common lymphomas such as Hodgkin Lymphoma, Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma and Follicular Lymphoma but his lab has a particular focus on rare lymphomas such as primary central nervous system lymphoma and lymphomas that develop in patients who are immunocompromised.

Dr. Keane has been instrumental in translating work from his lab into multiple immune based clinical trials currently being run across Australia, many in rare and hard to treat lymphomas, where patients have limited treatments available.

The goals of the lab are to directly improve outcomes for all lymphoma patients by performing innovative translational science that not only generates new knowledge and brings new treatments to Australian patients but helps to train the next generation of lymphoma researchers in Australia.

Dr Elaine Kearney is a Conjoint Research Fellow in Speech Pathology between The University of Queensland and Princess Alexandra Hospital. Her background is as a speech pathologist and speech scientist. Her research interests include the brain mechanisms underlying speech changes in neurological disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease) and developing evidence-based speech therapies for these populations. She conducts both basic science and clinical research using a broad range of methods (e.g., acoustic, neuroimaging, computational modelling), and she is committed to conducting rigorous, transparent, and accessible science.

At Princess Alexandra Hospital, Dr Kearney facilitates research in the Speech Pathology department, specifically mentoring speech pathologists in building research capacity and establishing a stronger evidence base for their clinical practice. This work focuses on knowledge translation and implementation science, making real-world change in the healthcare setting.

Beth (she/elle) is Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies. Her research focuses broadly on francophone literature and visual cultures (20th-21st centuries); world literature; gender studies; global feminisms; and decolonial and transnational theory.

Her first book, Unfixing the Self in Contemporary Women's Phototexts of the Francophone World (forthcoming, Edinburgh University Press) studies works of experimental autobiography in French – including autofiction, biofiction, autotheory – that include photographs alongside text. This monograph explores the ways that the combination of photography and autobiographical text disrupts fixed modes of understanding identity and experience by challenging hegemonic narratives about the self.

Her current research focuses on contemporary narratives of sexual and gender violence in world literature. This research investigates the ways that literature can offer unique modes of conceptualising sexual and gender violence, thus offering alternative discourses to those found in judicial, medical, and psychoanalytic contexts. She is also working on two edited volumes: The Heirs of Annie Ernaux with Alexandra Pugh and Questioning Republican Feminism: Intersectional, Transnational, and Decolonial Perspectives with Josephine Goldman and Sophie Tallis.

Beth is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Treasurer for the Australian Society of French Studies, and Secretary for Women in French: Australia. She is on the editorial board of the book series Annie Ernaux International Studies (De Gruyter Brill) and is co-manager of the Annie Ernaux website – a bilingual, international resource for readers of the work of the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature laureate. She is also the proud co-founder and co-producer of the podcast Positionalities and Peer Group Leader for the WiF Mentorship Cluster.

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).

Dr Jaimon Kelly is a consultant Accredited Practising Dietitian and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Online Health, and one of Australia's and the world's leading experts in digital and telehealth-delivered nutrition care for chronic disease.

He holds a PhD in technology-supported lifestyle interventions and leads a research program that established the international evidence standard for telehealth-delivered nutrition care. His work has changed what is recommended internationally, what is funded and practised nationally, and how equitably digital nutrition care reaches the community.

Dr Kelly led the dietetics profession's first national telehealth position statement for Dietitians Australia and the national evaluation of dietetic telehealth under Medicare, and his research has been embedded in routine care, professional guidance and health policy in Australia and internationally. He was recognised with a University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor's Award for Early Career Research Excellence and, in 2024, a UQ Foundation for Research Excellence Award for promoting telehealth equity and innovation.

He works in private practice, primarily providing professional consultancy services for kidney nutrition, and also consults in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. You can learn more about his private practice here - https://www.mynutritionclinic.com.au/home/jaimon-kelly/

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research sits at the intersection of nutrition, health service delivery and digital health, and asks how technology can make high-quality, patient-centred nutrition care both effective and equitable for people living with complex chronic conditions.

My interests are in 1) Nutrition and dietetics, primarily diet quality and methods to improve it in people with chronic kidney disease and other complex chronic conditions; 2) Health service delivery, focused on models of care that move evidence into routine practice and funding; and 3) Digital health, specifically preparing the workforce, co-designing and testing technology-assisted lifestyle interventions, and building digital health trust, literacy and equity of access. A consistent thread across this work is simplifying nutrition communication for clinicians and for people living with chronic conditions, so that digital nutrition care reaches everyone, including culturally and linguistically diverse communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.