Professor Abernethy is a first class Honours graduate and university medallist from the University of Queensland, a PhD graduate from the University of Otago, an International Fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education, a Fellow of the Australian Sports Medicine Federation and a Fellow of Exercise and Sport Science Australia. He was the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences from 2014-2023 and is now Executive Director of UQ's Engagement with the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Professor Abernethy is a previous Deputy Executive Dean and Associate Dean (Research) within the Faculty of Health Sciences (2011 - 2013), Head of the School of Human Movement Studies (from 1991-2003) and from 2004 to mid-2011 was the Director and inaugural Chair Professor of the Institute of Human Performance at the University of Hong Kong.
His research interest is in the control and acquisition of skilled movement, with a particular focus upon understanding the processes underpinning the expert perception and production of patterns of human movement. The work is interdisciplinary and spans human movement and sport science, experimental psychology, neuroscience and medical and health sciences. Prof. Abernethy's research work has been supported by a range of agencies including those funding basic science, such as the Australian Research Council and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, as well as those supporting more applied research, such as the Australian Sports Commission, the Australian Football League, the Australian Cricket Board, Worksafe Australia and the Motor Accident Insurance Commission.
Tolulope's expertise lies in intellectual property law, public health law, and law and technology. More broadly, his work has come to focus on three sectors now recognized as the so-called grand challenges: pharmaceuticals and health, climate change, and food security. He completed his PhD at the City University of Hong Kong, funded by the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Germany. After completing his doctoral research, he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition. He holds a German and European Law Certificate from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and is qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He is currently a consultant to the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development at the University of Johannesburg and the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa. He is a recipient of several awards and a nominee for the Australian Legal Research Award (ECR) 2024. He is also an affiliate fellow at the Information Society Law Center of the University of Milan, Italy, and the Centre for Policy Futures at the University of Queensland. Among his past experiences, he has held teaching positions at the City University of Hong Kong and Landmark University, Nigeria.
Dr Akbar is a Pacific Fijian academic and researcher with extensive experience in community development research and teaching and has contributed to the Australian and International higher education sectors. Dr Akbar’s teaching and research are shaping how Indigenous knowledge is used to address the health inequities and social determinants of health of First Nations Peoples, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Māori & Pasifika (Pacific Islander) communities through co-designed solutions with the communities, and integrating community participatory action research and Indigenous perspectives and knowledge systems with social justice principles to promote equitable health and wellbeing. Heena's research addresses the social, cultural and economic burden of chronic conditions through a strength-based approach and impacts policy development that translates to better health outcomes for First Nations peoples, particularly Māori & Pasifika peoples in Australia and Internationally.
Dr Yibeltal Assefa Alemu (MD, MSc, PhD): is an Associate Professor of Global Health Systems at the School of Public Health. His research program focuses on Global Health, Health Systems, and Primary Health Care towards Universal Health Coverage and Global Health Security. He coordinates two courses on Health Systems (postgraduate) and Global Health & Infectious Diseases (undergraduate).
Before joining the University of Queensland in 2016, he had substantial experience in policy, program, and implementation of disease control programs (DCPs) and health systems at National and Global levels. He has also been involved in the development of implementation and treatment guidelines as well as monitoring and evaluation frameworks of DCPs at National and Global levels since 2007. He led and conducted national surveys, surveillances, and evaluations of DCPs in Ethiopia and other sub-Saharan African countries. He has also gained health systems and disease control program relevant experiences over a range of duties:
2013 – 2016: Deputy Director General, Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Coordinated national surveys, surveillance, and program evaluations on disease control programs, health systems, and nutrition and food science; supervised PhD and MPH students from Europe and Ethiopia; and, examine PhD and MPH theses.
2015 – 2016: Executive Director of the International Institute for Primary Health Care, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Established the International Institute for Primary Health Care, in collaboration with the John Hopkins University-School of Public Health; developed its plan and organizational structure; and recruited its staff.
2010 –2013: Director of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, Ethiopia: Coordinated the development of strategic and operational plans, and designed a monitoring and evaluation system for the multi-sectoral response of HIV/AIDS in the country, organize review and dissemination workshops.
2008 –2010: Director of Medical Services, Federal Ministry of Health, Ethiopia: Coordinated the design and implementation of health systems and services, hospital and primary health care reform, including emergency medical systems in the country.
2006 – 2008: Head of the Health Programs Department, Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, Ethiopia: Coordinated the health sector response of HIV/AIDS and other STIs; developed guidelines and training manuals; and coordinated training and mentorship program in the country.
2002 – 2005: Medical Director, Humera District Hospital, Ethiopia: Managed the inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes of the hospital.
2001 – 2005: General Medical Practitioner, Humera District Hospital, Ethiopia: Provided clinical services at out-patient and in-patient departments.
He has published several academic papers in peer-reviewed journals; led the development and publication of 10 national guidelines and training manuals focusing on HIV/AIDS and TB; and participated in the development of more than five global guidelines on HIV/AIDS and TB. His publications have been contributing significantly in the response against HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and other resource-limited settings. These publications are also highly referred by other publications, including the WHO guidelines. He has served on key international panels since 2007: the WHO consolidated guidelines for ARV use, 2015; Technical Evaluation Reference Group for the Global Fund (2012-2015); Core Group for the development of the patient monitoring system for the WHO consolidated guidelines for ARV use (2013-14); Advisory group for the development of guidelines for task shifting for HIV treatment (2007).
Dr Alemu has also been an invited plenary speaker in different global health meetings: Surveillance of HIV/AIDS; UNAIDS/WHO; Bangkok, Thailand, 2015; Translating Research into Policy and Practice: issues, challenges and recommendations; Ministry of Health of Ethiopia; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2014; The multi-sectoral response for the AIDS epidemic in Ethiopia; Ethiopian Public Health Association, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2012; The role of community health workers for ART delivery: successes and challenges; ITM colloquium, Antwerp, Belgium, 2011; Human resource aspects of ART delivery in resource-limited settings; Geneva health forum, Geneva, Switzerland, 2010; The effect of AIDS programs on the health system: opportunities and challenges; World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2008; Task shifting to scale up ART delivery in Ethiopia: World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007.
Associate Professor Annika Antonsson is a virologist with epidemiological training. Viruses can cause cancer, and Annika’s research has been focused on human papillomavirus (HPV) and its role in different types of cancer. HPV is the virus that causes cervical cancer.
Her current main research areas are oral HPV infections in the general population and HPV in mouth and throat cancer (mucosal squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck; HNSCC).
Some cancers of the mouth and throat are increasing and some of this increase is caused by HPV infection. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection and changing sexual behaviour is believed to have caused the increase in HPV-positive tumours of the mouth and throat. Annika is investigating how often HPV in found in HNSCCs and if there are any lifestyle factors linked with having HPV or not to have HPV in tumours.
It is not known how common the potentially cancer-causing viruses are in the mouth of the general population, and this is another area of research Annika is looking into. She has also worked on HPV in skin (normal skin and cancer), infections in breast carcinogenesis, HPV in oesophageal cancer and polyomaviruses in normal skin and skin cancer.
Associate Professor Argus is the inaugural Director of Southern Queensland Rural Health (SQRH), a Commonwealth funded University Department of Rural Health established in late 2017. Located in Toowoomba and Charleville, the SQRH footprint covers the Darling Downs, South Burnett and South West Queensland regions. SQRHs research program covers five key areas:
Rural health workforce development
Rural training strategies
Research into innovative rural health service delivery models
Health issues directly impacting on rural communities
Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
In 2022, SQRH was awarded $5M over 2 years under the Rural Health Mutlidisciplinary Training Program to establish a rural allied health training hub in St George Queensland and an aged care training hub in Chinchilla, Queensland.
A/Prof Argus is a Board Director with the Australian Rural Health Education Network and the National Rural Health Alliance.
Nigel is public health and health services researcher with interests and expertise in quantitative research methods, epidemiology, evidence-based health care, clinical trials, and digital health. He is a member of the Improving health outcomes after musculoskeletal injury group at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre, and is a chief investigator of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Better Outcomes for Compensable Injury. His work focusses on the epidemiology and burden of minor to moderate injuries, longitudinal data analyses of intervention trial data, population studies of health-related quality of life and chronic pain, and the potential of digital heath for assessment and intervention following injury.
Nigel has particular interests in new innovations in healthcare, and has previously worked in minimally-invasive surgical trials in gynaecology, and clinical trials assessing the feasibility, efficacy and effectiveness of clinical telemedicine in paediatric healthcare. His doctorate work (Awarded 2011, UQ School of Medicine) involved the design, development, and clinical/cost/acceptability evaluation of real-time telemedicine for acute consultation between a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit and four peripheral referring hospitals in Queensland. He maintains an active research interest in telemedicine, and more broadly in digital health. Between 2004 and 2015, Nigel was involved in the telepaediatric service at the Royal Children's, and the Lady Cilento Children's hospitals in Brisbane where he also co-ordinated an Indigenous Ear Health Screening Program. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare and an academic editor for PLOS ONE.
Nigel regularly participates in national and international grant review panels, and is an active HDR and occupational-trainee supervisor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH), a member of the Australian Epidemiological Association (AEA), International Epidemiological Association (IEA), the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), the Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-Research and Open Science (AIMOS), and is a qualified Justice of the Peace, JP (qual).
Urska Arnautovska is an early career clinical academic, working as a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Faculty of Medicine and as a general psychologist in private practice. Following her professional training in Slovenia, she focused her research on suicide which led her to receiving an appointment at the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention and, since 2008, a National Centre of Excellence in Suicide Prevention. In addition to her research work, she acted as a research coordinator of the Life Promotion Clinic and was involved in the management and analysis of clinical data pertaining to the patients of the clinic, which presented with complex mental health problems and suicidal thoughts and behaviour. Her subsequent research remained focused on mental health, and in more recent years, become dedicated to improving health outcomes in people with severe mental illness. Her PhD, for which she received a competitive Griffith University International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (2012-2016), investigated the motivational processes underlying physical activity in older adults and was awarded the Australian Psychology Society (APS) Award for Excellent Higher Degree Thesis in Health Psychology. She has 48 peer-reviewed publications and has over $8.5 million in competitive research funding, with leading (CIA) roles on projects related to digital health interventions for people living with schizophrenia.
I have been an academic with a deep passion for biomedical and health education for over two decades, teaching extensively across various disciplines, including medicine, nursing, paramedicine, rehabilitation science, and biomedical science. My primary teaching responsibilities have included delivering courses in physiology, anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, pathophysiology, clinical methodology, clinical bedside coaching, basic and advanced life skills, procedural skills, and virtual surgical skills to student cohorts ranging from 10 to 1,500. By integrating biomedical and clinical concepts, I have enhanced both learning outcomes and the overall student experience.
My significant contributions to health professionals' education have been recognized through numerous institutional awards and national teaching awards and nominations. Throughout my academic career, I have developed and implemented innovative teaching methodologies to enrich student understanding of basic and clinically applied sciences. These methodologies include eLearning, mLearning, VoPP, flipped classrooms, and patient- and simulation-based learning.
I take great pride in the diverse facets of my academic and professional roles, which have shaped my identity as a CBL tutor, course and module coordinator, lecturer, emerging researcher, and team leader. I am particularly humbled by the positive feedback from students, which continues to fuel my passion for fostering academic excellence and shaping the prosocial behaviors of future healthcare professionals.
Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Affiliate of Queensland Alliance fo
Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
Availability:
Available for supervision
Richard Bade is a Senior Research Fellow and ARC DECRA fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences, The University of Queensland. He obtained his PhD from the University Jaume I, Castellon, Spain in 2016, which focussed on analytical tools for the investigation of licit and illicit drug residues in water before joining the Population Health Chemistry Group at the University of South Australia in 2017, where his research focussed on the development of quantitative and qualitative methods for the determination of illicit drugs in wastewater. He is involved with the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program, funded by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, in collaboration with the University of South Australia.
His research interests are associated with the surveillance, detection and identification of new psychoactive substances in wastewater and other matrices as well as exploring the impact of chemical and pathogen exposure during mass gatherings. Dr Bade currently leads an expanding international consortium exlporing the prevalence of new psychoactive substances worldwide (currently from 23 countries, 60 sites). He is a strong supporter of collaborative research, with ongoing projects involving academic and industrial partners in Australia and around the world.
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
Availability:
Available for supervision
Dr Peter Baker is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
From 2021-2023, Peter was an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of Queensland. For twelve years until the end of 2020, he was a Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics at the School of Public Health and a senior statistical collaborator, advisor and consultant to several research projects in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health.
With fourty years experience as a statistical consultant and researcher, Peter has a passion for biometrics in agricultural research and biostatistics applied to public health and medical research. He also champions reproducible research and reporting and to this end has developed R and Make software to aid the workflow of data analysts in any field. As a statistical consultant and collaborator, he has contributed to many agricultural, genetic, public health and medical research projects. His contribution has ranged from advice on standard statistical approaches to the application of novel methods to improve statistical analysis or the development of new statistical methodology to fill a gap in the knowledge.
Peter's current research interests:
efficient statistical computing using R, Make, Git and related software for the workflow of data analysis,
reproducible research and reporting using R, Markdown, Quarto and Sweave,
tailoring R functions and developing bespoke packages for specific statistical analyses, and
applied statistlcal research in novel methods for epidemiological and medial research, including
graphical models for multivariate data in epidemiology,
statistical methods for modelling trajectories of alcohol consumption in youths,
propensity score analysis to adjust for selection bias in observational studies, and
Bayesian methods for epidemiological and medical MCMC studies.
Dr Baker is an Accredited Statistician (ASTAT) with the Statistical Society of Australia (see SSAI_Accreditation)
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
I am an academic paediatric neurologist, clinical researcher, and specialist in acquired brain injury in children and adolescence. I studied at the University of Edinburgh and British Columbia before taking up my first academic position at the University of Calgary in 2002. Here I developed and directed the Traumatic Brain Injury and Concussion Research Program at the Alberta Children's Hospital and where I cemented my interest in the biology and treatment of children with brain injuries. I have extensive clinical research experience, devising and overseeing clinical trials in children both nationally and internationally. I moved to the Child Health Research Centre at the University of Queensland, Australia in October 2017 and joined the Queensland Paediatric Rehabilitation Service and Queensland Cerebral Palsy Rehabililation Centre to facilitate research into improving the health outcomes of children with acquired brain injury in Queensland and Australia.
My research focuses on the neurobiological signatures and treatment of subtle neurological dysfunction in mild traumatic brain injury and concussion, especially the behavioural and cognitive impairments that are found in post-concussion syndrome. I use multimodal neurological assessments to do this. My research explores combining neuroimaging and neurophysiological investigations, including perfusion studies using MRI (ASL-fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation to help us understand the changes in the brain in children who are slow to recovery following a concussion. This is to help us develop and assess more effective and tailored treatments for children with concussion and traumatic brain injury. I explore novel therapies for children with persistent post-concussive symptoms in clinical trials including the use of neuraceuticals, pharmacotherapies, and non-invasive brain stimulation treatment.
I am the director of the newly-established KidStim Lab at the Child Health Research Centre. This is the first non-invasive neuromodulation facility aimed at improving the health outcomes of children with brain injury in Australia and is led by a mulitdisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists from Brisbane bring a unique clinical and scientific knowledge-base to help achieve our goals. Rehabilitation therapy in combination with repetitive transcranial direct current stimulation (rTMS) and other direct current stimulation modalities (e.g. tDCS) will be explored. It also offers the potential for treatment of the mood and behavioural disorders (e.g. depression and anxiety) commonly seen after brain injury but also so disruptive to the life of the normally developing teenager.
Dr Ben Barry is an allied health professional working clinically in aged care with Wesley Mission Queensland.
Dr Barry has a research background in adaptations of the nervous system to exercise and ageing. His research interests have progressed to health professional education, spanning digital health, interprofessional education and workforce development. Dr Barry's clinical work as a physiotherapist and exercise physiologist with a focus on healthy ageing links nicely with his PhD thesis on "Resistance training and movement control in older adults".
Dr Barry has extensive experience teaching allied health (exercise physiology), medical science and medical students. This has included coordinating degree programs and courses, leading teaching teams and discipline-wide curriculum reviews, expanding and enhancing clinical placement programs and student clinics, and innovations in online teaching of health professionals.
Dr Barry completed postdoctoral training in the Neurophysiology of Movement Laboratory at the Department of Integrative Physiology, the University of Colorado - Boulder USA, and subsequently worked for a decade at the School of Medical Sciences, The University of New South Wales, as well as holding an honorary appointment at Neuroscience Research Australia, before returning to The University of Queensland in 2017. He has a track record of external research funding and postgraduate research supervision as well as several teaching awards.
A/Prof Federica Barzi is a Principal Research Fellow in Biostatistics at the UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and within the Faculty of Health and Behavioral Sciences at The University of Queensland. She was awarded a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Sydney University in 2004 and has a BSc degree in Statistics from the University of Padova, Italy.
A/Prof Barzi is an applied Biostatistician with extensive experience on study design and data analysis of randomized clinical trials, very large observational studies and data linkage. She has worked across a variety of specialties including cardiology, nephrology, nutrition, oncology and emergency care. She has been involved in Indigenous Health since 2005 and from April 2014, with her appointment at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, A/Prof Barzi’s contribution to research focuses solely on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. She has co-authored over a hundred and thirty peer reviewed journal articles with colleagues from various institutions and has secured, as a CI, over 24M in research funding since 2006.
Dr Lizzie Beadle is a clinical psychologist, neuropsychologist, and researcher. Her research is focused on neuropsychological rehabilitation, changes to self-awareness and identity after brain injury, and use of technology in rehabilitation. She has practiced as a psychologist from acute through to community services. She is experienced in translation of research in to clinical practice. She is passionate about supporting a lifelong love of learning in students and clinicians. She is also passionate about supporting greater medical and lifestyle choice and control for individuals with disabilities.
Dr Emma Beckman is a Teaching and Research academic at the University of Queensland. Emma is passionate about engaging in research to improve the lives of people with a disability through sports, physical activity, and exercise. Following a master’s degree in Adapted physical activity, Emma completed her PhD in strength assessment for classification in Para Sport. She is currently a co-investigator in the UQ IPC Classification Research Partnership, and an internationally accredited classifier in Para Athletics.
Through her Para Sport research, Dr Beckman has seen the power of collaborative care and is committed to research that uses collaborative care models to improve health outcomes. She has undertaken projects to evaluate the impact of interprofessional education and practice on students, educators and clients and has adapted this work for different populations, including people with disabilities and university students with mental health issues.
Associate Professor Jakob Begun is the IBD Group leader in the Immunity, Infection, and Inflammation Program at Mater Research University of Queensalnd, and has a basic and translational laboratory at the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane. He is an Associate Professor in the University of Queensland Faculty of Medicine. After completing his Bachelor of Science at Cornell University Jakob attended Cambridge University where he completed an MPhil in Biochemistry. He then moved on to Harvard Medical School where he completed his MD and PhD in genetics studying the host pathogen interaction using C. elegans as a model system. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s hospital and went on to complete general gastroenterology training at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) as well as advanced training in the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).
Dr Begun first joined Mater Research - University of Queensland in 2014, and at the same time received a clinical staff appointment in Gastroenterology at the Mater Hospital Brisbane. His clinical activities are focussed on the treatment and mangement of patients with IBD. He is the director of the IBD unit at the Mater Hospital Brisbane and at the Mater Young Adult Health Centre Brisbane .In January 2015 he was awarded the University of Queensland Reginald Ferguson Fellowship in Gastroenterology to support his research activity. He leads a basic and translational laboratory at the Translational Research Institute investigating the interaction between the innate immune system and the gut microbiome, as well as genetic contributions to disease. He also performs clinical research examining predictors of response to therapy, minimising barriers of care for adolescents and young adults with IBD, improving outcomes in pregnancy and IBD, and the use of intestinal ultrasound in IBD. He is the chair of the Gastroenterology Society of Australia-IBD Faculty and of the president of the Gastroenterology Network of Intestinal Ultrasound (GENIUS).
