Find an expert

I am an accomplished research leader capable of building multidisciplinary teams that develop innovative solutions to complex problems. I have an international reputation for improving health of communities by creating knowledge, translating it into real life scenarios and evaluating improvements for people, health care providers and funders. My work spans primary care, community care, hospital services, allied health, health promotion and wellbeing and health policy.

I have a clinical background as an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian and Exercise Physiologist, which has provided me with an understanding of the way health professionals and their services enable heatlh and wellbeing in people, groups and communities. My research career to date has been exemplary, as evidenced by multiple awards and accolades, including two NHMRC fellowships, a national award for excellence in PhD supervision, fellowships of learned societies and several awards for research excellence.

I am a collaborative, ambitious worker with a strong ability to bring people together and generate large-scale research endeavours that have maximum impact for health and wellbeing.

Carmel Fleming is a mental health professional with the Queensland Eating Disorder Service (QuEDS) and conjoint Clinical Lecturer with Queensland Health and the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Queensland where she teaches in Advanced Practice in Health. At QuEDS Carmel is senior social worker, clinical educator, and clinical supervisor providing consultation and service development across Queensland as well as coordination of QuEDS family and carer services. Prior to this she developed and led the QuEDS statewide education and training program for ten years. Carmel has specialised in mental health and eating disorders since 1992 with a focus on low intensity and specialist interventions such as self help and cognitive behavioural programs as well as family work. Carmel completed her PhD into the effectiveness of services for families of adults affected by eating disorders and maintains a special interest in the clinical support and supervision of other health professionals.

Kitty is an Occupational Therapist and Senior Research Fellow in the Queensland Centre of Excellence in Autism and Intellectual Disability Health. Kitty is leading the Health Services Development team in the National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health.

Her research program is focused on improving the health and wellbeing of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She completed her PhD at The Kids Institute in Perth, WA. Following this, she undertook a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at UNSW Sydney which involved co-leading the development of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Autism in Adults (ALSAA). Kitty is passionate about conducting research which is co-developed and co-produced. This includes working with people with intellecutal disability and autistic people in research development and implementation.

Professor Brenda Gannon is an international interdisciplinary leader providing evidence and solutions for health and social care systems, spanning across economics, medicine and social science, in collaboration with academia and industry. She brings extensive experience and expertise in program and policy development related to health, social inclusion, and citizen science, fostering and advancing excellence at the intersection of many disciplines.

Working at the interface of health service delivery, strategic planning and practice influence, and health economics more broadly, across many sectors, enables her research to inform optimisation of health care and workforce organisation. The models are translatable and transferrable across many sectors, including ageing, mental health, child and the working populations.

She is a Professor in the School of Economics and an Affiliate Professor at the Mater Research Institute, The University of Queensland. She is also an affiliate member of CEPAR (ARC Centre for Research Excellence in Population Ageing Research). Since 2022, she is Honorary Adjunct Professor at University of Galway, Ireland. She was Director of Research in the School of Economics from 2018-2023. . She has developed a range of projects on topics of dementia, physical activity and cognition, health and health care utilization, and consumer directed care and home care. She has led and worked extensively on interdisciplinary research with gerontologists,several clinicians and methodologists. Her work has been influential in the development of programs for falls preventions and informing policy on disability and social inclusion, and has positively impacted on the health of many older people across the world. Her work also spans across the lifecyle from birth, and she has worked with clinicians on trials for newborns with breathing difficulities. She is the Health Economics and Epidemiology lead for the Queensland Family Cohort (QFC) Study, the pilot led by Mater Research, and is on the QFC Governance Committee, focusing on maternal mental health, inequalities of opportunity, alcohol use and related health care use and costs.

Professor Gannon’s research carries a dual role, (1) as an applied health economist using big and complex data, utilising health economics theory and concepts to test the validity of causal hypotheses, (2) collaborator across all Faculties leading critical economic evaluations. Her research is funded by her position as chief investigator on projects from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, MRFF, EU H2020, Health Research Board, Ireland and the National Institute for Health Research, UK. She is the lead economist on projects in dementia, emergency care and paediatric care. All studies incorporate methodological innovations and applied research. She has provided advice to government at senior levels, and had a Ministerial appointment, on the Medical Services Advisory Committee Evaluation Sub-Committee 2017-2021. She sits regularly as a panel member of various NHMRC and MRFF grant review committees and has also previously appointed to the EU Commission grant panels. She has been invited to give several talks at international fora, including a key note talk on ageing and longevity at the National Academy of Medicine, Global Roadmap to Healthy Longevity, in Washington DC. Professor Gannon was an elected Professorial member of the Academic Board at UQ 2018-2022. In 2023, Professor Gannon was elected a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been elected as a Council Member of Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2024.

Dr Kristiana Ludlow is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Services Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences, the University of Queensland, and an Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University. She completed her Bachelor of Psychology with first class Honours in 2015, her Master of Research in Medicine and Health Sciences in 2017, and her PhD in in Health Innovation in 2020. Dr Ludlow has expertise in co-design, qualitative research and Q methodology. Her research interests include co-designing interventions and digital health tools with end-users, frailty, education, aged care, person-centred care, the role of family caregivers in care, missed care/unfinished care, and care prioritisation. She is passionate about collaborating with consumers, service users and health professionals to improve the delivery of healthcare and mental health services.

Dr Morley is an epidemiologist by background who works in health policy and health services research. Her broad areas of research interest are the intersections between healthcare provision and non-health sectors (e.g. the criminal justice system, transport infrastructure), particularly in relation to mental health and substance use. She is also interested in the evaluation of complex interventions using mixed-methods approaches involving administrative data.

Prior to joining UQ, Dr Morley was a Senior Research Leader and Deputy Director of the Health and Wellbeing Research Group at RAND Europe, a not-for-profit policy research organisation based in the UK. In this role she led two major research projects investigating government policy: an evaluation of the UK government investment in drug and alcohol treatment and recovery systems (NIHR205228), and an assessment of the mental health impact of a major high-speed rail infrastructure project on surrounding communities (NIHR132761). She is a co-investigator for the Birmingham, RAND and Cambridge Rapid Evaluation Centre, one of five UK rapid evaluation centres funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR156533). She has also conducted research for the European Commission, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the UK Department for Health and Social Care.

Before working at RAND Europe, Dr Morley was a Senior Lecturer at the King's College London Institute for Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IOPPN), based at the National Addiction Centre. While at the IOPPN, she led research focused on using electronic health records to understand the unmet physical and mental health needs of people who use alcohol and other drugs. She also taught research methods and statistics on MSc programmes and was a member of the post-graduate research committee. Before this she held positions at University College London, the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Melbourne.

Zoe is a Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. She also currently holds an appointment as a Senior Research Officer with the Mental Health Evaluation Research Stream at Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research (QCMHR), where she leads and manages large-scale evaluation projects that seek to enhance mental health services within Queensland. During her time at QCMHR, she has worked on several state-wide evaluations for Queensland Health - including of their Crisis Support Spaces, Adolescent Day Program and Youth and Adult Step-Up-Step-Down Programs.

Zoe's research work largely focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions that seek to promote positive health behaviours and which improve social and mental health outcomes. Previously, she developed and trialled a behavioural support program (Active Choices) for the Department of Veterans Affairs, with the aim of increasing self-managed physical activity and social connectedness in Australian Defence Force veterans. Zoe has also designed and evaluated a brief motivational intervention for cannabis users (iAx), which is now in routine use at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

In addition to her work as a researcher, Zoe has held roles in health consulting where she assisted State and Federal Government agencies, PHNs and peak bodies to design, implement and review health services, programs and policies.

Zoe's educational background in psychology, having completed a Bachelor of Psychological Science (2013) and Doctor of Philosophy (2020) in this discipline.

Dr Caley Tapp is a Research Fellow with the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland, based at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research.

Caley holds qualifications in psychology and epidemiology. She has a PhD in social psychology and completed a post doctoral fellowship on an ARC funded project examining a disease avoidance basis for stigmatisation.

Caley’s role is with the Analysis and Reporting Component of the Australian Mental Health Outcomes and Classification Network (AMHOCN), which leads the design, analysis and reporting of the National Outcomes and Casemix Collection (http://www.amhocn.org/). In this role she is involved in a range of projects designed to improve the measurement of patient- and service-level outcomes in Australia’s specialised public sector mental health services. She has experience in conducting systematic literature reviews, as well as conducting experimental, quasi-experimental and qualitative studies. Caley’s other research interests include examining the stigmatisation of people with obesity.

Caley is available to supervise honours, Masters and HDR students on a variety of topics; please get in touch to discuss.