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Stephen is a physiologist with expertise in endocrinology whose research examines how hormones regulate metabolism, growth, appetite, and reproduction. He works closely with animal nutritionists and veterinary clinicians on challenges in animal health and production, with current research focused on phosphorus deficiency in Australian cattle.

Alongside his scientific work, Stephen is a recognised educational leader with strengths in teaching strategy, curriculum renewal, and student success. As Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Biomedical Sciences (2019–2024), he led the School’s response to COVID-19, receiving a UQ Service Excellence commendation and the Faculty of Medicine Academic Leader of the Year award. He has guided the renewal of the UQ Bachelor of Biomedical Science, shaping a future-focused program that strengthens student engagement, belonging, and graduate capability. His leadership has also influenced biomedical science education nationally and internationally through school–university pathways, curriculum reviews, science communication projects, and the development of physiology MOOCs. He was recently awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

Stephen’s educational leadership is grounded in extensive teaching experience. He has taught physiology to more than 40,000 students across biomedical, health, animal, and veterinary programs, earning multiple teaching awards including a national ALTC Citation. His educational research focuses on how students learn complex concepts in physiology, particularly in contexts involving uncertainty and integration. Reappointed in 2025 as Director of Teaching and Learning in Biomedical Sciences, he also serves as interim Deputy Associate Dean (Academic) for Student Experience and Success in the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences.

A life-long fascination in sciences provided me with the inspiration to graduate in exercise physiology (University of Sherbrooke, Canada, 2004), complete a PhD in physiology/biophysics (University of Sherbrooke, 2009) and continue in my current role as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS) of The University of Queensland. I am a physiologist first and foremost with a particular interest in understanding how skeletal muscle cell normally functions so as to try and elucidate what changes or factors contribute to various forms of muscle weakness with ageing, inactivity or various chronic diseases.

During my previous postdoctoral appointment at La Trobe University (Melbourne, 2010-2017), I have gained considerable experience using the "mechanically skinned muscle fibre" technique in animal muscle. Importantly, I have developed this technique for the first time in human muscle which allows the exciting opportunity to investigate cellular mechanisms of muscle weakness in different clinical population. This is vitally important since most of our existing knowledge on muscle function comes from studies on muscles obtained from animal models. This technical breakthrough has been recognized by editorials of different leading scientific journals in the field of Physiology. I’m now a world recognized expert of this technique which has immense potential for examining any number of physiological questions and even allows for biochemical analyses of any protein of interest in the same cell.

Dr Odette Leiter is a postdoctoral research fellow in the research group of Dr Tara Walker, investigating systemic brain rejuvenation. She was awarded a PhD in Neuroscience in 2018 by the Technische Universität Dresden in Germany. Her research focus lies on the regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis by physical exercise, a process critically involved in learning and memory.

To support her research at the Queensland Brain Institute, Dr Odette Leiter has received two postdoctoral fellowships, a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service, followed by a Walter Benjamin Fellowship awarded by the German Research Foundation, allowing her to investigate the role of platelets in mediating neurogenesis-related learning and memory, and the capacity of platelet-released factors to restore cognitive function in ageing. More recently, Dr Leiter has been awarded a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) to investigate the precise mechanisms through which platelets interact with adult hippocampal neural stem cells following exercise.

Dr Melanie White heads the Dynamics of Morphogenesis Lab at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), University of Queensland and is an ARC Future Fellow. She completed a PhD in Neuroscience at University College London followed by postdoctoral research at The University of Edinburgh. During this time Mel engineered viruses to modulate gene expression in the brain to investigate neuronal function and as a therapeutic approach for neurodegenerative disease. Her work was published in Neuron and PNAS, featured in Nature Reviews Neuroscience and received extensive international media coverage (including the BBC and The Guardian).

In 2012 Mel switched fields to apply quantitative imaging in developmental biology. Her work revealed key mechanisms driving the earliest morphogenetic events in mammalian embryogenesis and was published in Cell, Science, Nature Cell Biology, Developmental Cell and Nature Protocols. Her research was featured on the cover of multiple journals including Cell and she was awarded the inaugural American Society for Cell Biology Porter Prize for Research Excellence (2018).

In 2020, Mel joined the IMB where she will combine her passion for neuroscience and developmental biology to investigate the dynamics of neural tube morphogenesis.

Research overview

The brain and the spinal cord control most of the functions of the body and the mind, yet the dynamics of how they first form is poorly understood. Both structures arise from a common precursor, the neural tube, which forms very early in embryonic development. To generate the forces that sculpt and shape the neural tube, changes in cellular architecture must be tightly coordinated in space and time. These morphological rearrangements occur concurrently with biochemical signalling pathways that specify early neural cell fates.

Our research aims to understand how cellular properties and transcriptional regulators interact with mechanical forces in real time to direct vertebrate neural tube formation and neural cell fate specification. We study the dynamics of neural tube formation by applying advanced imaging technologies in transgenic avian models and human stem cell models.