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Elizabeth-Rose Ahearn is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Queensland (UQ). Her research centres on measuring and evaluating the impact of charitable not-for-profit organisations, as well as other purpose-driven entities, including those in the public sector, social enterprises, corporate social responsibility efforts, and social impact bonds. She has a particular interest in leveraging digital technologies to enhance impact measurement, improve management processes, and support evidence-based decision-making. Elizabeth-Rose has extensive experience as an evaluator, having collaborated with a diverse range of for-purpose organisations, including a research secondment with the Department of Social Services focused on digital tools for advancing Australia's social impact investing sector. Alongside her role at UQ, she serves as the Co-Chair of the Queensland chapter of the Social Impact Measurement Network of Australia (SIMNA).

Lemi Baruh (Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, 2007) is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland. He is the co-founder of the Social Interaction and Media Lab at Koç University, Istanbul. His research spans various topics, including the effects of social media on interpersonal attraction, surveillance, online security, privacy in online environments, and the role of media in shaping public opinion. His recent work also investigates misinformation and conspiracy theories in the context of health communication, with a particular focus on the COVID-19 pandemic and the influence of news and social media on public perceptions and behaviors related to health.

Janeen Baxter is Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course and Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow in the Institute for Social Science Research.

Janeen has research interests in social disadvantage, gender inequality, household and family dynamics, life course and longitudinal studies and has published widely in these areas, as well as supervising the research of numerous higher degree students and research fellows.

Janeen has served on several editorial boards for national and international journals and has been a member and Chair of the College of Experts for the Australian Research Council. Janeen is an elected fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. She is currently a member of several government advisory committees including theCommonwealth Department of Social Services Child Support Expert Committee and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Life Course Data Initiative Household and Family Structures Working Group. Janeen is also a member of the CEDA Council on Economic Policy and the Social Policy Research Centre Advisory Board.

Leanne is an academic specialising in Indigenous public health. She has a strong background as a health practitioner, executive manager in both the Australian Government and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services, and as an international public health consultant. She has extensive experience teaching using a strengths-based approach as opposed to the deficit model, and supports other staff to utilise culturally-safe teaching practices across health professional education programs at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. She was a co-lead on the Game Changing Education - Embedding Indigenous knowledges in the training and development of the health workforce in a culturally safe transformative learning environment project, funded through both teaching fellowship and teaching innovation grants, which have been implemented in both the HaBS and Medicine faculties. Leanne and the Indigenous Health Education and Workforce Development team from UQ and the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health were awarded two prestigious and highly competitive awards: the Business & Higher Education Roundtable Award for Outstanding Collaboration in Higher Education and Training, and the Australian Awards for University Teaching Award for Programs that Enhance Learning. Leanne brings this knowledge and experience to her role as Co-Chair of the World Federation of Public Health Associations' Public Health Professionals' Education and Training Working Group, which has published the results of a curriculum mapping project benchmarked against the Global Charter for the Public’s Health. She is also a member of the Steering Committee and Technical Advisory Group for the World Health Organization project on national workforce capacity to implement the essential public health functions.

Dr Nathalia Costa is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland's cLinical TRials cApability (ULTRA), located within the Centre for Clinical Research in Herston. Her career goal is to enhance the evidence base from clinical trials and deepen the understanding of healthcare issues through qualitative and mixed methods, with a focus on theoretically grounded, critical, reflexive and collaborative approaches. She is passionate about bringing different types of knowledge and stakeholders together to generate perspectives that create change and make research, practice and education more inclusive and nuanced. She advocates for pluralist inquiries and believes research should go beyond the dualism “quantitative/qualitative” to achieve the intersubjective understandings needed for impactful collective action. Her methodological expertise includes:

• Systematic, scoping and rapid reviews
• A range of qualitative methods and methodologies including but not limited to interviews, photo-elicitation, ethnography, Delphi studies, surveys, focus groups, document and policy analysis, thematic analysis, content analysis, and discourse analysis
• Embedding qualitative research in feasibility trials to inform large-scale clinical trials
• Conducting qualitative research to inform the development of implementation strategies
• Use of systems-thinking frameworks to identify opportunities for interdisciplinary and intersectoral action to target health problems
• Applying social theory to deepen understanding of healthcare and health more broadly
• Participatory and collaborative research with key stakeholders (e.g., patients, clinicians, academics, policymakers)

Her publications (45+) span a diverse range of themes, including musculoskeletal conditions, pain, policy, sociology and culturally responsive care. She has also taught across a range of disciplines, including research methods, musculoskeletal physiotherapy, sociology applied to health, fundamentals of physiotherapy, fundamentals of health care, health policy, health economics and health systems finance.

Her research focuses on aspects of low back pain - from exploring ways to navigate uncertainty in low back pain care to identifying avenues to improve it within the Australian healthcare system. She is currently investigating how to optimise recruitment within the FORENSIC trial, which aims to evaluate if lumbar fusion surgery is more beneficial than continuing with best conservative care for patients with persistent severe low back pain who have already undergone non-surgical treatment.

Alongside collaborators, Nathalia has garnered grants (AUD$6M) and awards, including an international award for one of her PhD studies, awarded by the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine – the 2021 ISSLS Prize for Lumbar Spine Research (Clinical Science).

Prior to her current appointment, she was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (UQ - 2021), a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Sydney School of Public Health (The University of Sydney, 2021-2022), and a Lecturer in Physiotherapy at the Sydney School of Health Sciences (The University of Sydney, 2023). Nathalia serves as an Associate Editor for Qualitative Health Research and the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation.

Dr Katherine Cullerton is a Research Fellow in the School of Public Health. Katherine joined the School of Public Health in August 2018 after completing postdoctoral research at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK where she investigated whether it’s ever acceptable for nutrition researchers to engage with the food industry and if it is, under what conditions. Her current research involves understanding the barriers to evidence informing public policy and how advocates can better influence policy in Australia with a particular emphasis on the effects of framing and public opinion.

Dr Cullerton is also the academic lead for external engagement for the School of Public Health.

Dr. Debashish Dev is a social researcher with expertise in energy transition, agricultural development, and communication & information studies. His current research explores social risks in coal seam gas waste management, local benefit-sharing models, public discourses on energy policies, social impact assessments, and the mobilization and prioritization of information for energy transition. He has also contributed to developing a participatory community-based monitoring framework for regional development in the Northern Territory, Australia.

Dr Dev's previous academic roles at the University of Queensland involved tutoring in courses such as COMU2030: Communication Research Methods, COMU1130: Data & Society, HHSS6000: Research Design, and COMU7102: Communication for Social Change—Foundations. These courses focused on research methodologies, data analysis, and the role of communication in societal transformation.

He was also involved as a sessional academic in developing a course, QUT You 003: Real Action for Real Change, for the Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Dr. Dev developed several teaching materials and a course outline focused on real-world challenges such as climate change, health epidemics, data, and food security that require system change at the institutional, community, and individual levels.

He previously researched and taught in Bangladesh, concentrating on agricultural extension, organization management, climate change adaptation, and gender dynamics. He holds a Bachelor's (Honours) in Agricultural Science (Bangladesh Agricultural University), a Master's in Agricultural Extension (Bangladesh Agricultural University), and a PhD in Climate and Development (UQ). He is certified in Carbon Literacy and is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK).

Pedro Fidelman leads strategic projects in the Social and Environmental Sustainability theme at the UQ Centre for Policy Futures, including the Centre's contribution to the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program and Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre.

Pedro’s research focuses on environmental policy and governance with an emphasis on the role of institutions (e.g., regulations, norms, and decision-making processes) in addressing global environmental change (e.g., over-exploitation of natural resources, biodiversity loss and climate change). He is also interested in the process of policy making and associated social and political actors and contextual factors.

His research is predominantly empirical, drawing on case studies in the context of marine and coastal social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and natural resources management in Australia, Southeast Asia and Brazil. Current research includes governance, policy and regulatory implications of using novel and emerging technologies for environmental outcomes, and policy and regulatory innovation in the context of environmental, social and technological change.

Prior to joining UQ, Pedro held research positions in Brazil (e.g., University of Brasilia) and Australia (e.g., ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Sustainability Research Centre of the University of the Sunshine Coast).

Professor Christian Gericke is Clinical Dean and Professor of Medicine at the University of Newcastle, Director of Research and Neurologist at Calvary Mater Newcastle, Honorary Neurologist at the John Hunter Hospital, and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Fiji National University. He is the Convener of the Specialist Medical Review Council (SMRC), Australian Government, a Member of the Queensland Neurology/Neurosurgery Medical Assessment Tribunal, and regularly acts as an Independent Medical Expert for the Supreme Courts of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia, and the Queensland Coroners Court. He consults privately in Brisbane.

Before this, he was the Clinical Director of Neurology at The Prince Charles Hospital, Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland, Executive Director of Medical Services, Director of Research and Consultant Neurologist at Cairns Hospital and Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Public Health at James Cook University. He also chaired the Far North Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).

From 2013 to 2016, he led the Wesley Research Institute, a non-profit medical research institute based at the Wesley Hospital in Brisbane, as its CEO and Director of Research. In 2016/2017, he spent a sabbatical as Consultant Neurologist with a special interest in Epilepsy at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Since 2013, he has been an Honorary Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland.

From 2010 to 2012, he was Professor of Public Health and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and Deputy Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care for the English South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC).

From 2006 to 2010, he was Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Centre for Health Services Research at the University of Adelaide. He also held various roles for the Australian Commonwealth and State Governments, including as Medical Director for Safety and Quality for the State of Tasmania.

From 2003 to 2006, he was Senior Research Fellow /Associate Professor and Deputy Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Systems Research and Management at Berlin University of Technology, one of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies hubs. He has experience working as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company and as an advisor to the European Commission, WHO, GIZ and the World Bank. His expertise and research interests are in health systems research and health policy, health services research, and the economic evaluation of health interventions. He initiated and directed a new Master's programme in Health Economics and Policy at the University of Adelaide. He is an Editorial Board Member of Frontiers in Neurology, Australian Health Review, Internal Medicine Journal and PLOS ONE.

Prof Gericke studied medicine at the Free University of Berlin and spent one year as a DAAD scholar at Tufts and Harvard Medical Schools in Boston, Massachusetts. He was awarded an M.D. research doctorate (magna cum laude) in cognitive neurology from the Free University of Berlin. After completing clinical specialist training in neurology, epileptology and clinical neurophysiology at the Charite University Hospital in Berlin and the University Hospitals of Strasbourg and Geneva, he studied tropical medicine at the University of Aix-Marseille, obtained an M.P.H. from the University of Cambridge, an M.Sc. in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, an MBA from Deakin University, and a higher doctorate (Habilitation) in health systems research from Berlin University of Technology. He also holds an Advanced Diploma in Medical Law from King's Inns School of Law in Dublin and is a Certified Independent Medical Examiner (CIME) with the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners (ABIME).

He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in Neurology, the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (FAFPHM), the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP Edin), the European Academy of Neurology (FEAN), the American Neurological Association (FANA), the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) and Associate Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (AFRACMA).

He is the Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists (ANZAN) Therapeutics Committee, Chair of the Ethics Section of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) Research Committee and a Member of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Standards and Best Practice Council. He also serves on the Federal Council of the Australian Medical Association (AMA).

Sandya's primary research focus lies in the study of ocean sustainability, regional fisheries management organizations, conservation and sustainable utilization of marine biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), and the management of Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). Recently, she has expanded her research interests to include the examination of biopesticides and agriculture policies and laws, with a specific emphasis on understanding decision-making processes related to food security. She possesses proficient knowledge in qualitative research analysis using NVivo and Leximancer, as well as quantitative research methods employing SPSS.

Professor Brian Head joined the University of Queensland in mid-2007 after holding senior roles in government, universities, and the non-government sector. He is the author or editor of several books and numerous articles on public management, governance, social isues and environmental policy. His major interests are evidence-based policy, complex or 'wicked' problems, program evaluation, early intervention and prevention, collaboration and consultation, public sector integrity, and leadership. He has undertaken several consultancies on program evaluation, policy review, organisational performance, and good governance processes. He has strong interests in applied research across many areas of public policy and governance, and is committed to building closer links between the research and policy sectors. His recent books include Wicked Problems in Public Policy (2022, Palgrave, open access), Reconsidering Policy (2020, Policy Press, co-authored), and Learning Policy, Doing Policy (2021, ANU Press, co-edited).

Professor Karen Healy AM is the Head of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work. Professor Healy's work examines and develops community-based approaches to improving health, wellbeing and safety with people and families across the life-course. She is committed to improving outcomes with people and families experiencing disadvantage and marginalisation.

Professor Healy's research themes are family and community-led practice, child protection, research co-design, health equity, and social inclusion. Karen, and her research group, lead a large research program on community-based and family inclusive approaches to child protection. This includes a national project on empowering parents and families as partners in child protection. Together with Micah Projects and Professor Diane Depanfilis from City University New York, Karen's team is conducting a trial of ‘Family Connections.’ This is a family inclusive approach to promoting children's safety and family wellbeing in families at increased risk of child removal by child protection authorities.

Karen collaborates with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to support culturally responsive practices across health and human services sectors and to continue to build recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, doing and being. Karen has supervised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research higher degree students to complete projects on community-led approaches to health, safety, and wellbeing.

Karen is an experienced university educator. Her teaching practice focuses on developing health and social work professionals’ capacity to collaborate with people receiving services and their families. She has led initiatives in simulated learning on foundational and advanced communication skills, family group meetings and mediation, and teamwork.

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

Paul is Professor of Digital Sociology and Social Policy. He is a Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), and Lead of the Social Services Focus Area in the Centre. Having degrees in sociology/social policy and computer science, and having worked in the public service, Paul has a unique insight into the intersection of digital technologies and their social implications.

For over 20 years, Paul's research has focused in the development, design, deployment and evaluation of digital technology, automated decision making and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in government and social services. Taking a multi-disciplinaray perspective, he explores the implications of automation and AI on policy, service delivery, service users and citizenship, governance and practices of power. His work considers the ethical, legal, social and pratical considerations of AI and automation.

Paul's research is regarded as influential in the development of Digital Welfare State and Digital Social Policy literatures. Past publications include Governing Electronically (Palgrave 2010), Performing the State (Routledge 2018), and Adminstering Welfare Reform (Policy, 2006). He is currently finalising Digital Government in an Age of Disruption with Professor John Halligan, which takes an international comparative, institutionalist approach.

His current research focus is on using critical social science to inform the development of practical digital and AI tools to advance pro-social outcomes,

• Data navigation for lawyers. Working with Economic Justice Australia and welfare rights community legal centres, Paul is working with colleagues to co-design and produce a data extraction and navigation tool. This tool will assist lawyers to better provide legal advice and support to clients who are contesting decisions by the Australian government's Services Australia and Centrelink.
• Trauma Informed Algorithmic Assessment Toolkit. Working with human service delivery agenies, this project is piloting a practical, online Toolkit to enable organisations to design and deploy AI and algorithmic enable services that is safe, responsible and avoids causing harm.

Michelle is a sociologist and lawyer: her research focuses on decision-making and the operation of law and regulation in practice for people with disabilities and other impairments to communication and legal capacity. She has research interests in the sociology of law, decision-making (supported and substituted), legal personhood, the UNCPRD, disability law, legal and administrative transition to adulthood, communication impairments, and profound intellectual disability. Her work examines decision-making in practice in a range of areas, including health and aged care, banking and finance, income support, and the NDIS. Michelle is trained in both qualitative and quantitative methods, and has extensive experience in research development, design, and practice, as well as health consumer research and co-design.

Michelle works on the MRFF funded project: Unspoken, Unheard, Unmet: Improving Access to Preventative Health Care through Better Conversations about Care. She leads the experience gathering stage of the project, the co-design elements of the work, and the development of guidelines about communication, decision-making, and aged care.

Michelle is also a consumer and disability advocate, with experience in strategic policy development, implementation, and evaluation, including the co-design of state level strategy for transition to adulthood health care, and on Australia’s National Living Evidence Taskforce. She is also the consumer board Chair of Child Unlimited, a consortium of researchers, clinicians, and consumers working towards best evidence-based practice in health care for children and young adults with chronic ill health and disabilities, and co-chair of the consumer advisory committee for the ARC Centre of Excellence Life Course Centre.

Associate Professor Nina Lansbury (also published as Nina Hall) is an environmental public health research and teaching academic at The University of Queensland’s School of Public Health. Her current research at UQ examines environmental health aspects that support the health and wellbeing of remote Indigenous community residents on both mainland Australia and in the Torres Strait in terms of housing, water and sanitation, and women's health. She also investigates the impacts of climate change on human health, and this involved a role as Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6 WG II). Within the research sector, she was previously a senior research scientist at CSIRO, manager of the Sustainable Water program at The University of Queensland, and senior research consultant at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS. Within the non-government sector, she was previously the director of the Climate Action Network Australia and research coordinator at the Mineral Policy Institute.

Sharlene is a Saltwater woman, with family ties to the Garigal, Awabakal, Darug and Wiradyuri peoples, of NSW.

She is the Director of the UQ Business School Indigenous Business Hub and the Associate PRME Director - Indigenous Engagement for UQ Business School.

Her PhD is in Business, having obtained her Doctor of Philosophy (Business) in 2016. The thesis title is 'Private-sector employment programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: Comparative case studies'. Sharlene was the first Aboriginal person to gain a PhD in Business from the University of Newcastle.

She completed her Honours thesis in 2006, entitled 'Is mentoring an effective Human Resource strategy to redress labour market disadvantage for Indigenous Australians: A qualitative study of mentoring outcomes for Indigenous trainees at the University of Newcastle'.

Sharlene is a staunch Unionist and Activist with left wing political views.

Research Expertise Sharlene's current research areas include: Closing the Gap on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage in Education and Employment, Labour Market disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment strategies, Managing Diversity in Organisations, Employment Relations and the importance of unions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander labour history, Indigenous Entrepreneurship / Indigenous Social Enterprise / Indigenous Leadership, Indigenous Enabling education & Indigenous HDR success.

She is a member of the UQ Business School Social Impact Hub, Sustainable Infrastructure Research Hub, and the Business Educators Hub, in addition to leading the Indigenous Business Hub.

Teaching Expertise Sharlene is leading the Indigenisation of curriculum for the UQ Business School. Other teaching expertise are: Industrial relations, diversity management, negotiation and advocacy, Aboriginal studies, Aboriginal labour history, Aboriginal employment, enabling courses for Aboriginal students.

Administrative Expertise 13 successful grants

Collaborations Research collaborations include: Building resilience of Scoial Enterprises in QLD, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community engagement, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inclusion in the workplace, Workplace mentoring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Increasing participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Business Schools, Aboriginal leadership, Stolen Wages, Disability in employment, Indigenous research methods, Enabling Pedagogies, Enabling education.

Service / Leadership Sharlene is an active participant in university and community service roles. At a University level, Sharlene sits on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Employment Consultative Committee and the NTEU Branch Committee as the Aboriginal representative. At a Faculty level, Sharlene is on the Bel RAP Implementation Committee and the Indigenous Staff Network group. At a school level, Sharlene is the Director of the UQBS Indigenous Business Hub, the Associate PRME Director for Indigenous Engagement, and leads the Indigenisation of the curriculum within the UQ Business School. External to the university, Sharlene is the Treasurer and director of Hymba Yumba Indpendant School, the Chair of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy Committee, a member of the Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) First Nations Committee and the Deputy Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Committee of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). Sharlene is the secretary of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium (NATSIHEC), the peak organisation for Indigenous Higher Education. Sharlene is the President of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduates Association (NATSIPA) and sits on the National representative Committee and the Board of the Council of Australian Postgraduates Association (CAPA).

Sharlene was an elected member of Academic Board from 2021-2023 and the HDR committee of Academic Board for the same period.

Awards Sharlene was the recipient of the Dr Robert (Uncle Bob) Anderson award in 2023 for outstanding contribution to the union movement, the BEL Faculty EDI Award in 2022, the UQ Business School Recognition of Outstanding Achievement Award for Excellence in Community, Diversity and Inclusion in 2021 and a UQ Commendation Award for Excellence in Reconciliaiton in 2021 and 2022. In 2008 Sharlene was the recipient of an Australia Day Award from the Council of Women NSW - Office of Women - Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Suri Li is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland and the Centre of Excellence for Children & Families over the Life Course. Her current work centres on gender inequality and family dynamic across life course and explores the interplay of gender relations in the public and private spheres.

Prior to her current position, she holds a BSc and MSc in Finance, as well as an MA in Public Policy from the University of Edinburgh, the UK and a PhD in Sociology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her DPhil Thesis focus on the relationship between household resources and child wellbeing in Ireland, Australia and the UK using longitudinal data from birth cohort studies.

Renuka is an applied economist and Asia-Pacific expert who specialises in a broad range of topics from trade wars (specifically the US-China trade war) to the sharing economy (AirBnb, Uber DiDi etc). Her areas of interest and expertise also extend to empirical and policy analysis in development and agricultural economics, tourism economics, international trade, and productivity growth analysis, using econometrics and macroeconomic models