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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.

Tim Barlott is an Associate Lecturer in Occupational Therapy (School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences), PhD candidate in Sociology (School of Social Sciences), and Co-Director of the SocioHealthLab. Tim has a background as a community practitioner, educator, and community-based participatory researcher in Canada, Australia, and internationally.

Drawing from (critical) social theory and postmodern philosphy, Tim's research interrogates the socio-political aspects of everyday life and social inequities, and pursues affirmative/disruptive/transformative possibilities. Tim's research primarily uses the work of postmodern philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Their work provides a useful set of theoretical tools for conceptualising social inequities, analysing the dynamic relations of complex social formations, and pursuing transformational change. Using a Deleuzio-Guattarian conceptual framework, Tim's PhD research explores the transformative potential of freely-given relationships for people diagnosed with a severe mental illness.

Current Research Projects:

• Cartographies of freely-given relationships in mental health (PhD project)
• Ethical tensions in occupational therapy practice that attends to social inequities
• Theorising the creativity and social production of occupation
• Social connectedness and ICT use by people with intellectual/learning disabilities

A/Prof Stephen Bell is a senior social scientist, advisor and international development research consultant with 23 years’ experience tackling global health challenges in settings across South-East Asia, Africa, Western Pacific and Europe. He works respectfully with not-for-profits, public institutions, businesses and community organisations, using innovative, inclusive, people-centred approaches to identify sustainable solutions to critical health challenges and accelerate health equity.

As Principal Research Fellow and ‘Theme Lead - Social Science and Global Health’ at the Burnet Institute, Steve’s role includes:

• Research on young people's sexual, reproductive and maternal health, including adolescent-responsive health services and systems, contraceptive innovation, safe abortion, enabling socio-structural environments, and the intersections of health and climate change;
• Providing methodological expertise, technical support and mentoring in social science, co-design and community-based, community-led research practice across the Institute’s global health programs and business development across working groups and programs;
• Supporting a growing regional network of youth research, advocacy and thought leadership hubs across Asia and the Pacific;
• Managing and delivering consultancy, advisory and research work for institutional partners.

Steve’s work brings together lived experience, socio-ecological systems thinking and social theory to understand what works (or not) in global health and social development. He has researched and published widely on HIV, sexual and reproductive health, maternal health, neglected tropical diseases, TB and Indigenous health. He is particularly interested in understanding the socio-structural determinants of health and social inequities, and injustices associated with marginalisation due to gender, sexuality, age and geography. He has published two edited collections on interpretive and community-led approaches in research, design, monitoring and evaluation: ‘Peer research in health and social development: international perspectives on participatory research’ (2021), and ‘Monitoring and evaluation in health and social development: interpretive and ethnographic perspectives’ (2016). With international colleagues, he is working on a third edited collection called, ‘Lived Experience: Critical Perspectives in a Changing World’. Steve is currently taking on new PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of these areas, so please do reach out to him for a chat!

Steve is Commissioner on The Lancet Global Health Commission on People-Centered Care for Universal Health Coverage, Technical Consultant (Strategy and Insights) with PSI, and Member of the International Editorial Board at Culture, Health & Sexuality. Steve has served as a Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group, and has worked in senior research and consultancy roles with international governments, NGOs, UNAIDS, UNFPA and WHO.

Dr Emma Crawford is an occupational therapist and researcher whose work centres on promoting wellbeing for infants, children, families and communities. Emma's primary focus is on cross-cultural projects that link with community organisations to create social change and reduce the impacts of disadvantage by supporting health enhancing environments and activities in early life. At the centre of Emma's work is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 - ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing across all ages. Currently, Emma is leading several projects:

1) The BABI Project (research): refugee and asylum seeker families' expereinces during the perinatal period (systematic review, qualitative focus group and interview research)

2) The Uni-Friends program (student delivered service and student placement) - a social-emotional helth promotion program that draws on cultural responsiveness (The Making Connecitons Framework) and community development principles in an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled School

3) LUCIE-NDC (research) - mothers' experiences of accessing Neuroprotective-Developmental Care in the first 12 months of their infants' lives

Emma has a strong interest in understanding human experiences, community-driven initiatives, and strengths-based, innovative, evidence based, complex approaches to wellbeing that consider individuals and systems She also carries out research regarding allied health student placements in culturally diverse settings including low-middle income countries and Indigenous contexts. She works as a Lecturer at the University of Queensland, Australia after having worked in a range of occupational therapy roles including with children with autism, with asylum seekers, with Indigenous Australians with chronic disease, and completing her PhD in Political Science and International Studies in 2015.

Dr Brooke Devlin is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian (AdvAPD), Advanced Sports Dietitian (AdvSD) and a Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, University of Queensland. Dr Devlin holds qualifications in exercise science (BExSci), nutrition and dietetics (MNutrDiet) and completed a PhD in Sports Nutrition at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her current research interests include diet and exercise interventions to optimise blood glucose control and metabolic health including chrono-nutrition and time-restricted eating. In addition to this, Dr Devlin continues to have an interest and ongoing research in sports nutrition, focusing on nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviours of athletes.

Dr Stephanie Duncombe is a Research Fellow at the School of Public Health, University of Queensland. Her research intersects understanding inequalities in physical activity through epidemiological methods and tailored interventions to reduce these inequalities using health promotion frameworks. Stephanie has specific interests in gender inequalities and paediatrics. Stephanie completed her PhD on high-intensity interval training within schools and led an intervention study titled Making a HIIT. She has a multidisciplinary background, including epidemiology, exercise physiology, and health promotion. Stephanie is also a Lecturer at the School of Public Health and coordinates courses related to work-integrated learning and health promotion.

Associate Professor Fatima is a Pharmacist, Epidemiologist, Sleep Scientist, and the Research Lead of the “Let’s Yarn About Sleep” program. Fatima's research aims to reduce the societal burden of poor sleep and associated health issues through coordinated multidisciplinary, translational research and co-designed programs and service models. She is nationally recognised for leadership in co-designing sleep health programs, workforce training frameworks and service delivery models to improve sleep health care in First Nations communities.

In response to community-identified needs and service gaps, A/Prof Fatima partnered with community members and service providers to co-develop a "ground-up" sleep health movement now known as the Let’s Yarn About Sleep (LYAS) program. The partnership discussions were initiated in late 2018 and involved extensive discussion with community Elders and key stakeholders from the partner organisations. These discussions helped understand partners' priorities, facilitated a shared understanding of decision-making processes, identified knowledge and resource-sharing strategies, and underpinned the program's co-development. The LYAS program has significantly improved community awareness and appreciation of sleep health and created pathways for sleep health integration for effective prevention and management of chronic conditions.

The LYAS program is transforming the way the sleep health needs of First Nations peoples are assessed and addressed. The program innovation lies in building local capacity, privileging First Nations voices, empowering end-users, integrating two-world views, interdisciplinary expertise, and diverse research methodologies. These efforts resulted in the UQ-led delivery of Australia’s first Indigenous Sleep Coach training, research roles for community members, and integration of sleep health programs in remote schools and health services. The team is now collaborating with 11 communities to strengthen local capacity and capability for achieving sleep health equity and minimise the human, societal and economic costs associated with poor sleep. Furthermore, many other communities and services in Queensland have invited the team for workforce training and sleep health care for First Nations peoples.

Carl (Saibai Koedal) is a PhD Candidate studying the epidemiology of rheumatic heart disease in Queensland using linked hospital and administrative data. Currently, Carl holds an academic appointment (Lecturer, Physiotherapy) in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, the University of Queensland, and maintains a clinical role as a Staff Physiotherapist at The Prince Charles Hospital. Alongside research, Carl is also working to strengthen relationships between remote Torres Strait Islander communities and UQ to explore opportunities for education, student clinical placement and research partnerships.

Dr Penny Haora (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāti Māhanga) is a Research Fellow in the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health.

Penny researches innovations and system transformation for better maternity care with a focus on First Nations families. She uses qualitative, mixed methods, community-based participatory, and realist approaches. As a First Nations Māori researcher, Penny is learning Kaupapa Māori and Indigenist research approaches and works to see the revaluing of Indigenous knowledges and science. The overall aim of her research is to support healthy families through better births. She does this by conducting and facilitating research that places the lived experiences of mums and bubs, families and community front and centre.

Penny aims for her work to incentivise action to address entrenched inequities in maternity care, such as care quality/safety (including cultural safety) and access. She has worked in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community organisations, internationally with remote communities and in post-conflict settings with local and international non-government organisations, and within diverse organisational contexts.

Penny is leading projects with a view to better understanding and evaluating First Nations-led maternity and family care and wellbeing. From 2019 to 2022, she managed the Building on Our Strengths (BOOSt) project based on the beautiful Lands of the Yuin Nation (NSW) embedded with Waminda South Coast Aboriginal Women’s Health and Wellbeing Organisation. Penny completed a Doctor of Philosophy in 2013 enrolled at the ANU working on a project based in Thailand. Her Master of Public Health research was undertaken in Rasuwa District, Nepal, and she has around six years of experience working in research/evaluation/management and clinical roles in Thailand, Nepal, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Papua New Guinea.

Penny is available to supervise PhD students, Honours and Master of Public Health projects.

CURRENT POSITIONS

· Senior Staff Specialist (Public Health Medicine), Queensland Health

· Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Clinical Research - University of Queensland

RECENT POSITIONS

· General Practitioner, Indooroopilly General Practice

· Director, Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability (to January 2021)

· Senior Medical Officer, Mater Intellectual Disability and Autism Service (to November 2020)

· General Practitioner, Cornwall Street Medical Centre (to November 2020)

Overview

Dr Adam Hulme studies complex adaptive systems and applies methods and models from the systems and complexity sciences to policy-resistant issues in various domains. His current interests lie in the areas of regional, rural and remote health and public health more broadly. Dr Hulme prefers to adopt a systems thinking or holistic perspective over a reductionist one, as doing so is to consider the whole system, or multiple interacting elements of it, as the primary unit of analysis. As an expert in systems modelling and analysis, Dr Hulme has applied an extensive list of over 20 qualitative and quantitative systems science approaches to address complex problems that threaten to disrupt performance and safety within various sociotechnical systems contexts. This includes the use of System Dynamics modelling and simulation, which is a relatively distinctive approach and practiced deeply by a select few inter/nationally. He is the #1 mid-career researcher in Australia (#10 nationally), for the topic ‘systems analysis’, placing him in the top 0.033% of 208,280 published authors worldwide on this topic (Expertscape).

Background

Dr Hulme is a Research Fellow and School Research Chair at Southern Queensland Rural Health (SQRH), Toowoomba, Queensland. He has qualifications in Sports and Exercise Science (BSc HONS; England), Health Promotion (MA; Australia), and obtained a PhD in Sports Injury Epidemiology and Systems Human Factors in August 2017 (Ballarat, Victoria, Australia). His doctoral program was completed at the Australian Collaboration for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention (Federation University Australia), which is recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as a world leading research centre.

Following his PhD, Dr Hulme spent four years as a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems (CHFSTS) at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC). In this role, he conceived, led, developed, and published the world’s first Agent-Based Model (ABM; complex systems microsimulation) of running injury causation in the sports sciences alongside an international multidisciplinary author team. Dr Hulme has also published multiple peer reviewed systems modelling and analysis applications to address various systems problems in leading international journals.

As a result of his achievements, Dr Hulme was offered employment as a full-time Research Fellow on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery project though the CHFSTS. It was during this time that he worked on the theoretical development and testing of state-of-the-art systems-based safety management methods in an effort to overcome known limitations with traditional and reductive scientific approaches. Dr Hulme has applied systems-based risk assessment and incident analysis methods to multiple work domains, including defence, construction, healthcare, manufacturing, mining, sports, transportation (e.g., road, rail, aviation, maritime), and general workplace safety.

Current role

In his current role at SQRH, Dr Hulme is advancing the complexity science and systems thinking research agenda in the area of regional, rural and remote health. He is using conceptual-qualitative and computational-quantitative System Dynamics modelling to holistically map and analyse the behaviours that occur within complex rural health systems. Dr Hulme was recently awarded a highly competitive ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award (DE 2024) to explore how climate change and extreme weather events may further impact the rural health workforce maldistribution crisis using systems science methodologies. He warmly welcomes collaborations with other researchers, both within and outside of the UQ network, and is readily available to discuss potential HDR projects that involve systems and complexity science applications to any problem in most domains.

Sheleigh Lawler is a health psychology expert, with research interests in understanding and intervening on health behaviours, particularly the psychosocial sequelae in relation to disease and intervention outcomes. Her breadth of knowledge across public health, health promotion and health psychology allows for a unique perspective, particularly on understanding the importance of communication. Her work involves multi-disciplinary teams of researchers, industry partners, and government organisations.

Carmen is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research. She is passionate about understanding why young people start using substances and dedicated to advance public health through her research. She leads a research program focused on the etiology of youth vaping and drug use, using social media data for surveillance to track trends and tackle emerging challenges. Carmen is also interested in exploring the disparities in substance use in low- and middle-income countries where she aims to deepen her understanding of substance use patterns and develop effective preventative initiatives, striving to create equitable solutions that address the unique challenges faced in these region.

Carmen has qualifications in biostatistics, public health and epidemiology and experiences in teaching and mentoring. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in addiction and mental health (Google Scholar: >8.8K citations, h-index = 37, 31% output in top 10% citation percentile). She has supported and mentored students from diverse demographic and cultural backgrounds. She’s on the lookout for self-driven, curious students with backgrounds in public health, psychology, epidemiology, or statistics to join her team.

Alexandra is jointly-appointed as Professor of Clinical Nursing, University of Queensland and Mater Health Services. She has practised extensively in acute cancer care, including chemotherapy administration, in rural and metropolitan settings. Her PhD investigated sociocultural issues related to breast cancer and while she mostly now undertakes intervention research, she maintains an interest in the sociological as well as clinical aspects of cancer care. Sandie’s current funded research has two streams. The first stream focuses upon issues related to the long term outcomes of cancer treatments, using mixed methods. The second stream concentrates on collaborative interventions to assess and manage the toxicities of acute cancer treatments.

Amy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Parenting and Family Support Centre at UQ. She is the recipient of consecutive Children's Hospital Foundation Early Career Fellowships (2018-2021, 2021-2022). Amy is a paediatric nurse and completed her PhD (Health) in 2011, for which she received the Executive Dean's Commendation for Higher Degree Research. Amy's research aims to improve heatlh and developmental outcomes for children and thier families. Areas of focus include the use of evidence-based parenting support to improve outcomes for children with chronic health and developmental conditions (e.g., asthma, eczema, type 1 diabetes, autism spectrum disorder), supporting families to develop healthy habits from early childhood (e.g., oral health, nutrition, screen use), and supporting parents in the transition to parenthood (e.g., perinatal mental health, breastfeeding).

Beatrice is a Postdoctoral Researcher with a special interest in behaviour change and digital health promotion. She has extensive experience in clinical trial management and evaluation. Following on from a Master’s Degree in Medical Science, her PhD was dedicated to the development of a mobile app that targeted adults’ physical activity and sleep health. The body of work she has contributed to has incorporated a wide range of research methods and study designs and her research outputs have added important knowledge to the field of multiple behaviour change and non-clinical sleep interventions. In more recent roles, Beatrice has worked on wide-scale implementation projects targeting the health and wellbeing of young children. Beatrice’s work is about maximising impact, both in the scientific field and out in the community by way of generating high quality data and improving equity of access to evidence-based resources.

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.

Nalini has more than 25 years’ experience in innovative design and delivery of medicine and health programs in several countries. Her medical education research focusses on curriculum and assessment design, digital and inclusive education, and integration of biomedical sciences into health professional programs. She has a particular interest in educational technologies (including AI) and cognitive load, and curricular approaches that support positive learning behaviour, wellbeing, critical thinking and professional development. Nalini's research also includes medical imaging diagnositics and the use of AI.

Nalini is the co-founder of the Health Universities Initiative, which frames a whole-of-university approach to student success and wellbeing. She has several awards (Faculty, Vice-Chancellor, Australian Award for University Teaching) for her contributions to higher education. Nalini is the Chair of the International Program for Anatomical Education (FIPAE) of the IFAA, and an Associate Editor of Anatomical Sciences Education (Impact Factor, 7.2). Nalini is a Board Member and Fellow of ANZAHPE, Fellow of the Scientia Education Academy, and Fellow of HERDSA.

Nalini currently supervises 5 PhD students in the following topics:

• Health Advocacy in Medical Education: Evaluation of current practice and implications for medical programs
• Cosmetic female surgery: A consumer-driven evaluation of demand and its implications for medical education
• Fetal and Embryological Collections: A paradigm to examine the ethical practice of informed consent
• Anatomical Education: The role of digital-based pedagogies in future practice
• Liver and Gallbladder Imaging in Paediatric Patients: Developing a pipeline for diagnostic automation

Nalini currently supervises 4 reseach honours students on the following topics:

• Relationship-based support interventions in medical programs
• An evaluation of intersex education in medicine programs in Australia
• Left ventricular compaction: evaluation of MRI diagnostic criteria
• VR in biomedical sciences education: current scope of practice

Dr Cassandra Pattinson has strong research interests in exploring the effects of sleep and circadian rhythms on health, wellbeing, and recovery across the lifespan. Dr Pattinson completed her PhD through Queensland University of Technology, Faculty of Health in 2017. Her thesis explored the effects of sleep and light exposure on child health, specifically childhood obesity, in preschool children, aged 3 to 5 years. Prior to joining UQ's Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), Dr Pattinson worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. In this role Dr Pattinson examined the effect of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on health, including the effects of TBI on protein and gene expression, as well as exploring the role of sleep on TBI-related symptom perturbation, maintenance, and recovery.

Her research has involved a range of populations from children and adolescents, through to military personnel and athletes. Dr Pattinson's research spans a range of study designs and methodologies, including longitudinal studies tracking large child cohorts (>2000 children), standard observation techniques, survey and individualised standard child assessment, as well as studies employing physiological (actigraphy, heart rate variability) and biological (hormones, proteomic, genomic) designs. Dr Pattinson also has a strong track record in research translation, these have included manuscripts in top scientific journals, reports for government and non-government organisations, development of professional development programs, as well as designing and presenting vodcasts and resources (e.g. fact sheets, workshops) to parent groups, young adults, government departments and the early childhood sector.

Dr Pattinson also prioritises research mentorship and leadership. When mentoring, she aims to create an engaging learning environment which promotes critical analysis and reflection. She has co-supervised, two PhD students (NIH). eight Masters of Developmental and Education Psychology Students (QUT), and four NIH Postbaccalaureate students (equivalent of honours) to completion. She currently supervisors two honours of Psychology students, one honours of Biomedical Science student and one PhD candidate.