Find an expert

Professor Jason Acworth is a Paediatric Emergency Physician at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, is the Medical Lead for the hospital’s Rapid Response System and is Director of the STORK Statewide Simulation Service. Jason has a long-held passion for paediatric resuscitation and simulation education and research. His current research work is focussing on paediatric rapid response systems in Australia and New Zealand and components of high quality paediatric CPR. He is the current President of Advanced Paediatric Life Support Australia, is the paediatric representative on the Australian Resuscitation Council and is a member of the ILCOR Paediatric Life Support Task Force. ILCOR is the international peak body in resuscitation and sets the international standards for Resuscitation Councils around the world. Jason was a part of the group that established the PREDICT (Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative) paediatric emergency research network, serving as its inaugural Vice Chair (2004-2008) and later as Chair (2008-2009). He was also Chair of the international Paediatric Emergency Research Network (PERN) in 2010. Jason has co-authored over 60 publications in peer reviewed journals and in the last 10 years and has shared in research funding support of over $5 million.

As a teaching-focused academic, Louise Ainscough is passionate about education research, and how it can be applied to encourage the development of her students as learners, citizens and healthcare professionals. She teaches physiology and histology to a range of healthcare professional students, including occupational therapy, pharmacy, dentistry, physiotherapy, speech pathology, health science and medicine. Louise draws on her expertise in the scholarship of teaching and learning to develop curricula and assessment that is both evidence-based and rigorously evaluated. She has received funding through both UQ New Staff and Early Career research grants for projects in self-regulated learning and the related field of self-efficacy. She is also actively involved in supervising undergraduate research and Honours students, including mentoring these students in educational research methodologies and academic writing. Louise takes immense pleasure in guiding students in their development as learners, both on an individual basis and in large undergraduate classes. Louise is renowned for making learning fun. She takes the fear out of learning science, and encourages students to find their own voice as learners and future healthcare professionals.

Lisa Akison is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences (SBMS) at the University of Queensland. She has conducted research using rodent models for over 30 years and has been a reproductive biologist since 2005. She completed her PhD (2013) and early Post-doctoral training at the Robinson Institute, University of Adelaide, where she examined the molecular regulation of ovulation and oviductal function. Following her move to UQ in 2015, her research focussed on the developmental origins of health and disease, where she examined developmental programming of various organs and physiological processes. In particular, she has examined the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure, examining impacts on the embryo, fetus and adult offspring. She is also interested in the role that the placenta plays in mediating these effects.

Lisa received training in systematic review and meta-analysis methodology in 2016 and has since published systematic reviews on diverse topics in child and infant health. She now teaches critical appraisal of clinical studies and systematic review methodology to 3rd year biomedical science students, as well as endocrinology, physiology and histology. She has research interests in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and is a current member of the Biomedical Education Research Group at SBMS.

Dr. Albornoz is an early career researcher who has training in neuroscience, immunology, and pharmacology. Prior to migrating to Australia, he completed a bachelor's in Biochemistry followed by a master’s degree in Chile, he then gained experience working in Chile as a research assistant in the Millennium Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, focusing on neurodegeneration and the immune response in the context of Multiple Sclerosis. Later, he was awarded a UQ international scholarship to undertake a Ph.D. at the Institute for Molecular Biosciences (IMB), under the supervision of Prof Matt Cooper, his Ph.D. project has assisted in the development of next-generation NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors, and to validate NLRP3 as a druggable therapeutic target for Parkinson’s disease. He completed his Ph.D. in 2019 and continued his post-doctoral research studies under the supervision of Prof Trent Woodruff. A key focus of his current work is testing novel drugs in preclinical models and understanding the role of the peripheral innate immune response in neurodegenerative diseases including motor neuron disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Huntington's disease, and Parkinson's disease.

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.

Professor Rachel Allavena is a specialist veterinary pathologist, multidisciplinary researcher and Deputy Head of School, at the School of Veterinary Science, Gatton. She develops cancer treatments called immunotherapies which wake up the immune system so it fights the cancer. Her unique approach uses pet dogs with natural cancer to conduct the research. This helps the dog and it's family, as well as progressing the development of veterinary treatments and simultaneously advancing human medicine. As Deputy Head of School she aims to support staff and students to make UQ one of the top school's in Australasia, supporting both pets and people. Rachel is a multi-award winning teacher, lecturinging in veterinary pathology, toxicology, animal welfare and laboratory animal science. Her specialist expertise is nationally and internationally recognised in forensics, animal cruelty and toxicology where she acts as an expert witness in criminal and civil legal cases. She is a strong advocate for racing animal welfare, investigating racing animal injury and deaths and conducting research on how to improve animal welfare in sport, society and research. Prof Allavena has an active media profile and has been featured in national and international media including The Conversation, ABC national and regional radio and TV news, commercial and community TV and radio. In 2022-2023 she is a 'Flying Scientist' for Queensland's Office of the Chief Scientist. Rachel really enjoys doing presentations to school students and teachers as well as public outreach events to promote science to the general public. She has presented a TEDx talk on how dogs can help us cure cancer.

Prof Allavena has a PhD in Comparative Medicine from Cornell Univesity in New York, and undertook her pathology specialistation at Ontario Veterinary College. She has worked in drug safety research and development in the pharmaceutical industry in preclinical safety testing and discovery research in the United Kingdom. Her research interests are strongly focused on comparative and translational medicine and animal model validation and development in rodents, dogs and other laboratory animal species. Her major research projects include developing novel cancer immunotherapics and diagnostics for pet dogs naturally suffering from cancer both as a veterinary therapy and comparative model for human cancer. Further, she has extensive research in drivers of koala population decline in SEQLD. She has wide ranging research collaborations specialising in the pathological assessment and study design for animal models in a variety of areas including novel therapeutics, drug safety, toxicology and natural envenomations, biometallic implants, and animal welfare in laboratory animals and domestic species. She is a board certified veterinary anatomic pathologist with the American College of Veterinary Pathologists (ACVP) and a registered specialist veterinary anatomic pathologist with the Veterinary Surgeon's Board of Queensland through the Australian Veterinary Boards Council. She is the lead diagnostic anatomic pathologist in the UQ School of Veterinary Science Veterinary Laboratory Service, and in her professional capacity she oversees cases for Racing Queensland, Queensland Police and RSPCA Queensland, with a special interest in animal welfare and forensic pathology. She has an extensive successful track record of training anatomic pathologists for American College of Veterinary Pathology board certification. She was awarded a Faculty of Science Teaching Excellence Award in 2015 and a UQ Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2021. She has served as an office holder in the Pathobiology chapter of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists and the Australian Society of Veterinary Pathologists.

Dr Yoon-Kyo An is the “Head of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)” at Mater Hospital Brisbane and the “Clinical Lead of the IBD Clinical Trials Unit” at Mater Research, a world class centre of clinical and research excellence. The centre is among the largest IBD clinical research units in Australia. She is also a gastroenterologist who specialises in IBD, combining public and private practices at Mater Hospital Brisbane, Mater Private Hospital Brisbane, and Mater Private Hospital Redland. She holds a senior lecturer position at the University of Queensland. Dr An is a co-founder of digital healthcare education platform ‘GutTalk’, which aims to empower patients and communities by closing the communication and knowledge gap in Gut Health.

Dr An completed her Medical Science degree (BMedSc) at the University of Sydney and her Medical degree (MBBS) at the University of Queensland. She undertook her physician and advanced gastroenterology training at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and Mater Hospital Brisbane. She completed a clinical and research fellowship in IBD at Mater Hospital Brisbane and completed the executive business and leadership program at the University of Oxford Said Business School. She is currently pursuing a PhD through the University of Queensland and an MBA through Griffith University.

Dr An is a passionate advocate for optimising patient outcomes through a holistic approach to care including personalised treatment plans to manage digestive health and incorporation of clinical and translational research. She is an active IBD clinician and researcher as well as a patient advocate. Her own research focusses on real-world effectiveness of biologic therapy in IBD and the use of intestinal ultrasound to monitor disease activity and predict responses to therapy. She drives collaborative research projects throughout Australia and is actively involved with the Australia New Zealand Inflammatory Bowel Disease Consortium (ANZIBDC), the Gastroenterology Network for Intestinal Ultrasound (GENIUS) and the Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA).

Dr An has been successful in competitive research funding from industry and philanthropic organisations. She was the recipient of the inaugural GENIUS fellowship. She has affiliations with many Gastroenterology and IBD societies and has a national presence through her numerous symposia and conference presentations. She also serves on several Medical Advisory Boards including Chiesi, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and NPS Medicine Wise as well as sitting on the Council of Therapeutic Advisory Group. She is a GESA representative on the GP Aware Program committee and works collaboratively with Crohn’s and Colitis Australia (CCA).

Current Appointments

• 2021 – current: Executive Committee Member – Secretary, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Australia and New Zealand Inflammatory Bowel Disease Consortium (ANZIBDC)
• 2020 – current: Scientific Committee Member, Australia and New Zealand Inflammatory Bowel Disease Consortium (ANZIBDC)
• 2020 – current: Board Member – Research Officer, Gastroenterology Network for Intestinal Ultrasound (GENIUS)
• 2020 – current: Executive Committee Member – IBD Liaison Officer, Young GESA Network, Gastroenterological Society of Australia (GESA)
• 2020 – current: Expert Advisory Group member, The Council of Therapeutic Advisory Groups (CATAG)
• 2020 – current: GESA representative, CCA-GESA GP Aware Program Committee, Crohn’s and Colitis Australia (CCA)
• 2020 – current: Expert Working Group Member, bDMARDs Gastroenterology Design Forum, NPS Medicine Wise
• 2020 – current: Stakeholder Panel (GESA representative), Value in Prescribing bDMARDs Program, NPS Medicine Wise

Stephen is a physiologist with expertise in endocrinology and student learning. In laboratory research Stephen investigates the hormonal control of metabolism, growth, appetite, and reproduction - unravelling how hormones regulate physiological mechanisms in healthy individuals versus the dysfunction that occurs in disease states. Stephen also has a scholarly interest in self-regulation of learning and metacognition.

Stephen has taught physiology at UQ to about 40,000 students in biomedical science, animal and veterinary sciences, health science, exercise science, human movement and nutrition science, dentistry, pharmacy, speech pathology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and medical doctor programs. He has been the recipient of numerous teaching excellence awards, including a national ALTC Citation for Outstaning Contribution to Student Learning in 2009.

From 2019 to 2024 Stephen was Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Biomedical Sciences, and during his tenure received a UQ commendation for Service Excellence for leading his School's teaching response to the COVID pandemic, and was recognised as Academic Leader of the Year in 2020 within the UQ Faculty of Medicine.

Associate Professor Anthony Angwin is a speech pathologist conducting research on word learning and neurogenic communication disorders. In particular, his research interests are focussed upon the use of psycholinguistic and neuroimaging methodologies to investigate language processing and word learning in both healthy adults as well as people with Parkinson's disease, stroke and dementia.

Dr Lauren Aoude was awarded a PhD in melanoma genetics from the University of Queensland in 2014. Her research focused on large scale genetic sequencing projects that described novel melanoma predisposition genes. In 2016, Dr Aoude was awarded an NHMRC Early Career Fellowship to investigate precision medicine for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.

Currently, Dr Aoude is a UQ Amplify Fellow in the Surgical Oncology Group at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute. Her research primarily focuses on ways to better predict treatment responses and outcomes for patients with cancer, particularly melanoma and oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Her research integrates genomic sequencing data from both tumours and circulating tumour DNA with clinical, pathological and imaging information. The results of her research will inform treatment decisions and improve health outcomes for patients through the integration of genomics into the clinic.

Prof. Derek Arnold

Prof. Arnold studied at Macquarie University before taking up research positions at the University of Sydney and University College London. He took up a continuing position at the University of Queensland in April, 2006.

Prof David Ascher is currently an NHMRC Investigator, immediate past Director of the Biotechnology Program, and Deputy Associate Dean (Research Partnerships) in the Faculty of Science at the University of Queensland. He is also Head of Computational Biology and Clinical Informatics at the Baker Institute.

David’s research focus is in modelling biological data to gain insight into fundamental biological processes. One of his primary research interests has been developing tools to unravel the link between genotype and phenotype, using computational and experimental approaches to understand the effects of mutations on protein structure and function. His group has developed a platform of over 40 widely used programs for assessing the molecular consequences of coding variants (>7 million hits/year).

Working with clinical collaborators in Australia, Brazil and UK, these methods have been translated into the clinic to guide the diagnosis, management and treatment of a number of hereditary diseases, rare cancers and drug resistant infections.

David has a B.Biotech from the University of Adelaide, majoring in Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Pharmacology and Toxicology; and a B.Sci(Hon) from the University of Queensland, majoring in Biochemistry, where he worked with Luke Guddat and Ron Duggleby on the structural and functional characterization of enzymes in the branched-chain amino acid biosynthetic pathway. David then went to St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research to undertake a PhD at the University of Melbourne in Biochemistry. There he worked under the supervision of Michael Parker using computational, biochemical and structural tools to develop small molecules drugs to improve memory.

In 2013 David went to the University of Cambridge to work with Sir Tom Blundell on using fragment based drug development techniques to target protein-protein interactions; and subsequently on the structural characterisation of proteins involved in non-homologous DNA repair. He returned to Cambridge in 2014 to establish a research platform to characterise the molecular effects of mutations on protein structure and function- using this information to gain insight into the link between genetic changes and phenotypes. He was subsequently recruited as a lab head in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne in 2016, before joining the Baker Institute in 2019 and the University of Queensland in 2021.

He is an Associate Editor of PBMB and Fronteirs in Bioinformatics, and holds honorary positions at Bio21 Institute, Cambridge University, FIOCRUZ, and the Tuscany University Network.

Dr Melinda Ashcroft is a Research Fellow on Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Climate Change) in the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Queensland (UQ). Her current research focus is on Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and how NTM infections are associated with climate change and major weather events. Previously Melinda has worked at Monash University as a Research Fellow on the Sero-epidemiology of Klebsiella spp., at the University of Melbourne as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Genomic Epidemiology of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and as a Research Associate at UQ on the genomics and epigenomics of extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli. Melinda was awarded a Bachelor of Applied Science (Biotechnology/Biochemistry) in 2004 from Queensland University of Technology and a Master of Biotechnology in 2013 from UQ. She then switched fields to Microbial Genomics and was awarded a PhD from UQ in 2019 for her thesis: Evolution and function of mobile genetic elements and DNA methyltransferases in extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli.

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.

Evan Bailey is a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular and Systems Medicine Group at the School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute. His current work focuses on the interplay between innate immune signaling and cellular metabolism in neurodegenerative diseases utilising his skills and experience in molecular genetics, cellular physiology and computational biology.

Evan started his career as a Research Assistant in the lab of Dr. Natasha Kumar at UNSW, Sydney, studying functional plasticity in chemoreceptive brainstem neurons in response to chronic hypercapnia (elevated CO2) before moving to UQ to pursue a PhD in evolutionary-developmental neuroscience. His PhD work under the supervision of Dr. Laura Fenlon and Dr. Rodrigo Suarez focused on the evolution of cellular mechanisms controlling neuronal differentiation and fate specification in the neocortex of marsupial and placental mammals, resulting in publications in Nature Communications and PNAS. Throughout his research career, Evan has had a keen interest in how cells establish and maintain their functional identity across a wide range of contexts and how homesostatic programs (e.g. energy metabolism) influence cell identity and phenotypic transitions.

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)