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Dr Tamara Butler is an Aboriginal woman of the Undumbi people from the Sunshine Coast region of Queensland, Australia and a NHMRC Emerging Research Fellow at the University of Queensland. She works withing the First Nations Cancer and Wellbeing Research Program. Her work is focused on women’s cancers with the goal of improving cancer outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, families, and communities. Broadly Dr Butler’s research interests also include First Nations research methods and process, co-design, wellbeing, and psychosocial aspects of cancer care.

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.

Jared is a proud Yuwi man, pharmacist and early-career researcher with interests spanning from culturally safe and effective pharmacy practice through to new technologies for pharmaceutical development and delivery. After graduating from UQ with a Bachelor of Pharmacy (Honours) in 2012, he worked as a community pharmacist before returning to undertake a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences, focusing on discovering new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout his PhD, Jared developed an interest in teaching and tutored for many pharmacy courses. Ultimately this led to his current role as a Lecturer with UQ School of Pharmacy upon finishing his PhD in 2021. Jared also works as a clinical and research pharmacist with the Institute of Urban Indigenous Health (IUIH).