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Sally Babidge is a sociocultural anthropologist in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland and current Director of the Bachelor of Social Science and Master of Development Practice program. Her research is focussed on the social and cultural dimensions of ecological and economic change, especially that driven by the extractives industry and experienced by Indigenous Peoples in Chile and Australia. Current projects consider the political, practical and epistemological problems of 'seeing' harms from large scale mining projects, especially in the 'critical minerals' extraction boom (see a recent short FILM made with research collaborators in Chile), and in relation to groundwater and associated community futures. Ethnographic methodologies and theory that rely on sustained, engaged, and ethical relationships characterise her practice in Australia and Chile and resulting publications.

She has recently published a monograph, "Groundwater Politics: Advanced Extractivism and Slow Resistance" (Berghahn, 2025).

She designs courses for and teaches in the undergraduate major in anthropology, multidisciplinary teaching in theory and methodology for Humanities and Social Science Faculty Honours students. HDR students in anthropology and mixed social science undertake research under her supervision on questions associated with ecological futures, especially water, territorial relations, and in areas of political and environmental anthropology, decolonial, feminist and other critical foci of theory and methodology.

I'm a linguistic anthropologist who studies how communicative events in Indonesia figure in the building and maintenance of social relationships and common knowledge among Indonesians. During my PhD and post-PhD early years my research often involved long periods of fieldwork in Indonesia. As research funding and sabbatical have become scarce, I have increasingly turned to publically available data, such as Indonesian films, newspapers, social media and so on. I have published extensively on my research, including Language, Migration, and Identity: Neighbourhood Talk in Indonesia (Cambridge University Press, 2010); Language and Superdiversity: Indonesians Knowledging at Home and Abroad (Oxford University Press, 2015), Global Leadership Talk: Constructing Good Governance in Indonesia (Oxford University Press, 2020); Reimagining Rapport (Oxford University Press, 2021); Rapport and the discursive co-construction of social relations in fieldwork settings (Mouton De Gruyter, 2019); and Contact Talk: The Discursive Organization of Contact and Boundaries (with Deborah Cole and Howard Manns, Routledge, 2020).

Dr Kelly Greenop is an Associate Professor within the School of Architecture and is co-Director of the Architecture Culture Theory History (ATCH) Research Centres within the School. Her research has focused on work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in urban Brisbane, using ethnographic techniques to document the place experiences and attachment, and the importance of architecture, place, family and country for urban Indigenous people. She also conducts research into the intercultural place heritage of the Brisbane region, and the urban cultural history of Brisbane’s suburbs.

Kelly's latest research is in Digital Cultural Heritage, utilising 3D laser scanning of heritage environments and buildings in South East Queensland. She has been working with researchers from ATCH, School of Architecture, CSIRO and site managers at Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to scan and archive fragile, remote and at risk sites, and research the use of scanning in architectural heritage practice.

With colleagues from AERC she has also conducted research into Aboriginal housing, particularly with respect to crowding and homelessness. Kelly’s research has been supported by grants from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the Queensland Government, the Australian Federal Government and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

Awards

National Trust (Queensland) John Herbert Memorial Award (best heritage project in the state) for Agency Programs, in collaboration with Queensland Rail, 2018

National Trust (Queensland) Gold Award for Agency Programs, in collaboration with Queensland Rail, 2018

Queensland Premier’s Sustainability Awards for Heritage: ‘Highly Commended’ for Moreton Bay Digital Cultural Heritage Projects, 2014

Best Paper, Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand Conference, 2013

Memberships

Member, International Association for People Environment Studies (IAPS)

Member, Society of Architectural Historians (US)

Member, Society of Architectural Historians Australia New Zealand (SAHANZ)

Member, Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA)

Member, Association of Critical Heritage Studies Member (Appointed), Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

I am a social anthropologist specialising in migration, refugee protection, and religious politics in Southeast Asia, with particular expertise in Malaysia's treatment of displaced populations and Muslim identity formation. My research combines ethnographic fieldwork with policy analysis to understand how states, communities, and individuals navigate questions of belonging, protection, and cultural identity.

Academic Background I hold a PhD in anthropology and sociology from La Trobe University, with previous degrees in Social Anthropology and Politics/International Relations from the University of Kent. I was an Australian Research Council DECRA research fellow (2014-2017) and the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia (2023-2024), spending time at the National University of Singapore and Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Research Focus My work spans political anthropology, development studies and migration studies, with particular focus on:

• Refugee and immigration policy in Southeast Asia
• Religion-state relations and Muslim identity politics
• Urban refugee experiences and protection frameworks
• Faith and spirituality in the modern world
• Participant observation methodology in sensitive research contexts

Publications and Engagement I am author of Modern Muslim Identities: Negotiating Religion and Ethnicity in Malaysia (NIAS Press) and co-editor of volumes on human security and urban refugees published by Allen & Unwin/Routledge. As a regular media commentator and course director for UQ's MOOC "World101x: Anthropology of Current World Issues," I translate academic research for broader audiences through traditional and digital platforms.

I am an applied linguist specializing in intercultural and public health communication. I am deeply engaged in using multimodal discourse analysis to understand how language, gestures, eye gaze, and material objects co-create meaning in social life. Previously, I investigated the processes of language and cultural learning in multilingual settings, such as studying abroad and language classrooms.

My recent work focuses on communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have published in top-tier international journals on public health topics, including mask wearing as well as reporting and narrating pandemic events. My COVID-19 project draws on over 600 hours of press-conference recordings and more than two million public online comments to understand what worked and did not in public health crisis communication. In 2025, I published a research monograph, Health crisis communication: Multimodal classification for pandemicpreparedness. The book examines the role of multimodal classification in promoting pandemic preparedness and provides a list of ready-to-use strategies for explaining pandemic categories to the public. The book received the 2025 High Distinction Award from the Taiwan Association of Medical History.

My new project examines how health professionals communicate infectious diseases to high-risk populations: children, pregnant women, and older adults with underlying health conditions. This involves analyzing video recordings of health consultations and conducting interviews with clinicians and individuals from high-risk groups. The goal of the project is to develop tailored communication strategies and guidelines for effectively conveying health information, including vaccination, to these populations.

My research on public health communication has been recognized by the 2021 Humanities Traveling Fellowship from the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the 2025 Young Scholar Research Award from the North America Taiwanese Professors' Association (NATPA).

I am available to supervise PhD/MPhil/Honours projects on the following topics: health discourses, intercultural communication, and language learning and teaching. Please contact me to discuss your proposal.

Professor Paul Memmott is an anthropologist and architect and for some decades was the Director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre at the University of Queensland (School of Architecture and Institute for Social Science Research). This has now become the Aboriginal Environments Research Collaborative (AERC) within the School of Architecture, Design and Planning. The AERC has provided and continues to provide an applied research focus on a range of topics in relation to Indigenous populations, including institutional architecture, vernacular architecture, housing, crowding, governance, well-being, homelessness, family violence and social planning for communities.

Paul was the first full-time architectural-anthropological consultant in Australia, being principal of a research consultancy practice in Aboriginal projects during 1980 to 2008. His research interests encompass Aboriginal sustainable housing and settlement design, Aboriginal access to institutional architecture, Indigenous constructs of place and cultural heritage, vernacular architecture, social planning in Indigenous communities, cultural change and architectural anthropology.

Paul’s scholarly research output includes over 300 publications (including 11 books and monographs), 215 applied research reports and 40 competitive grants. He has supervised over 50 postgraduate and honours students and has won a number of prestigious teaching awards in Indigenous education (including an Australian Award for University Teaching – AAUT). One of his books, titled 'Gunyah, Goondie + Wurley: Aboriginal Architecture of Australia', received three national book awards in 2008 (Edition 1), including the prestigious Stanner Award from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and then upon the publication of an expanded edition 2 in 2022, another three national book awards.

Paul also has extensive professional anthropological experience in Aboriginal land rights claims, Native Title claims and associated court work since 1980. He has presented evidence and been examined in a variety of Australian courts as an expert witness on a cross-section of Indigenous issues, in addition to the Native Title work.

Awards

• AIA Neville Quarry Award, 2015
• Best Exhibit, Australian Architectural Exhibit, Venice Biennale 2018 (Team led by Baracco + Wright Architects, Melbourne)

Memberships

• Life Member, Academy of Social Sciences (Australia)
• Life Fellow, Australian Institute of Architects
• Fellow, Australian Anthropological Society

I'm a researcher with interdisciplinary interests spanning social and biological sciences. I'm currently an ARC Future Fellow at UQ working on social and temporal dynamics of bone metabolism in humans. My technical expertise is in skeletal histology, which I have applied to a range of questions and samples across different disciplines, including bioarchaeology, biology, biomedicine, forensics, and palaeontology. What fundamentally unites all this research is understanding how the environment and societal structures impact skeletal growth and health. My research has attracted ~$1.7 mln in funding as a PI, including an ARC DECRA and Future Fellowship, totalling ~$3.3 mln including collaborative grants.

I am the current Editor-in-Chief of Anthropological Review and Vice-President of the Australasian Society for Human Biology, In 2024, I was awarded the Trail-Crisp medal for outstanding contribution to microscopy as an essential tool for the study of natural history by The Linnean Society of London.

In my previous roles over the last 10 years I was a Martin & Temminck Fellow at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands; spent almost 7 years at the Australian National University in Canberra working as an ARC DECRA Fellow, Senior Lecturer, and Lecturer; and worked as a Research Assistant in medicine at Imperial College London. Until 2014, I spent about 8 years at the University of Kent in Canterbury completing a BSc Hons, PhD (2014), and PGCHE, and working in various teaching roles, including tutoring, lab demonstration, sessional lecturing, and lecturing. I was also previously Treasurer of the Australasian Society for Human Biology, Editor and Associate Editor of The Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, and Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports and Anthropological Review.

I am a cultural anthropologist with expertise in medical anthropology and critical global health. I have conducted extensive ethnographic research in Indonesia on health care, gendered violence, education, and racial stigma. My work in Papua/West Papua has tried to document and understand evolving forms of racism and violence, including how people resist and create change. Over the past 15 years I have worked with local Papuan and international research teams on studies of maternity care and hospital experiences, older women's life stories, and HIV/AIDS. I recently completed a study with Els Tieneke Rieke and Meki Wetipo on how urban Papuans understand and experience hospital childbirth, as part of an effort to understand dire maternal health in this location (2023, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology), published in a special issue on 'Reproducing Life in Conditions of Abandonment in Oceania', edited with Alexandra Widmer (York University, Canada). Another recent study funded by the Australian Research Council looked at vulnerabilities in Indonesia with Professor Lyn Parker (University of Western Australia) and others from the UK and Indonesia. The study used ethnography and surveys to develop a deeper, contextual understanding of who is vulnerable, how and why, and thus shed light on the concept of vulnerability and what it means. Recent publications look at education in gender inequality in Indonesia's frontier economy, older women’s narratives of economic agency and survivance (co-authored with Yohana Baransano), and the challenges faced by newlyweds.My article in Asian Studies Review, "West Papuan ‘Housewives’ with HIV: Gender, Marriage, and Inequality in Indonesia," was awarded the 2025 Wang Gungwu Prize by the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA).

Funded by the Australian Research Council, I am currently expanding my research on obstetrics and c-sections to understand the cultures and inequalities of maternity care in Indonesia, both in terms of local cultural needs and preferences, and in relation to the cultures of medicine and obstetrics that exist in hospitals and birth centres. This project is conducted with Dr Els Rieke (Universitas Papua), Associate Professor Najmah (Universitas Sriwijaya), and Dr Elan Lazuardi (Universitas Gadjah Mada). I also maintain ongoing collaborations with researchers at the National University of Singapore and Fiji National University, focused on maternity care. In 2026 I will begin ethnographic research on maternity care in the Fiji Islands, supported by an ARC Future Fellowship.

I am an experienced PhD supervisor in medical anthropology. I am interested in working with research students who wish to conduct anthropological research in Indonesia or the Pacific Islands. I teach undergraduate and postgraduate courses in medical anthropology (ANTH2250/7250), Pacific anthropology (ANTH2020) and gender (SOCY2050).

Dr Stefanie Plage is a Research Fellow with the Life Course Centre at the School of Social Science at UQ. Her expertise is in qualitative research methods, including longitudinal and visual methods. Her research interests span the sociology of emotions, disadvantage and health and illness. Stefanie has taught introductory and advanced courses in sociology and medical sociology, research design and qualitative inquiry, including the use of software for qualitative research (i.e. NVivo). Her work is multi-disciplinary. She completed her PhD at the Centre for Social Research in Health at The University of New South Wales. In her study she employed a mix of longitudinal qualitative interviews and visual elicitation methods to explore the lived experience of people with cancer. Currently, her research seeks to understand and improve the interactions of families experiencing social disadvantage with the social and health care systems.

Dr. Maram Shaweesh's is a qualitative researcher. Her interdisciplinary research spans several humanities and spatial disciplines, including architecture, housing adequacy, migration, multiculturalism, everyday encounters in the Australian suburb, urban design, and young people's experiences in urban spaces.

Maram has conducted various research projects focused on housing. For instance, she investigated everyday life in suburban housing as experienced by the Australian Lebanese community. This research utilised social qualitative research methods to explore the relationship between housing design and policy, and the social and cultural context in Australia, such as changing family ideals, household composition, children's wellbeing, parenting values, and social marginalisation. Additionally, Maram has experience working with remote Indigenous communities, having contributed to the "Gunana Futures" research project investigating housing adequacy in Mornington Island.

Maram was also involved in the team working on the Growing Up in Logan project as part of Growing Up in Cities. Collaborating with Logan City Council (CityStudio) and Beenleigh State High School, the project aims to understand adolescents' perceptions of urban space to better comprehend how local environments impact their everyday lives.

As part of her role at the UQ Institute for Social Science Research, Maram worked across several externally and internally funded projects, including Foundation Partner for a National Centre for Place-Based Collaboration (Nexus Centre for place-based collaboration); Targeted Review of Student Equity in Higher Education Programs and System Level Policy Levers; Social Isolation and Loneliness - Research, Analysis and Best Practice; SMBI Community Intiative - Learning by doing; Empowered Communities Partnership Lessons Learned Project; Place-based Approaches to Road Safety; and, Sharing with Friends (co-housing model for older women in Australia).

David Trigger works on the different meanings attributed to land and nature across diverse sectors of society and in different countries. His research encompasses academic studies of how land and sense of place inform the cultural identities of citizens with diverse ancestries. His research is mostly focused on Australian society. In Australian Aboriginal Studies, Professor Trigger has carried out more than 35 years of anthropological study on Indigenous systems of land tenure, including applied research on resource development negotiations and native title claims. In collaboration with colleagues he has in recent years sought understanding of the overlaps and divergences of senses of place among those with Euro-Australian, Asian and Aboriginal ancestries. This work includes projects focused on a comparison of pro-development, environmentalist and Aboriginal perspectives on land and nature. Of particular interest are the issues of ‘nativeness’ and ‘invasiveness’ as understood in both nature and society, with implications for issues of land, cultural identity and environmental management.

Mair Underwood is an anthropologist in the School of Social Science who specialises in bodies. In particular she explores how body modifications (such as tattoo or bodybuilding) are used to create, reflect and disrupt social boundaries such as those of gender and class. She is especially interested in the social lives of image and performance enhancing drugs: how they acquire meaning through social interactions and how they alter social interactions.

She also has an interest in assessment practice and has conducted research into assessment techniques that promote student engagement and academic integrity and compiled them into a searchable database called the UQ Assessment Ideas Factory

Mair is passionate about community engagement and engages with the community through her YouTube profile and podcasts such as this one with VPA Australia https://www.vpa.com.au/podcast

Mair Underwood coordinates two courses:

SOSC2190 Human Bodies, Culture and Society

SOCY1060 Gender, Sexuality and Society: An Introduction

I am an Australian Research Council Future Fellow working in the field of bioarchaeology in Australia and New Guinea.