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).
I am a Senior Lecturer in Logic (continuing position) at the University of Queensland (Australia). Before this, I was a postdoc in mathematical logic in the Department of Knowledge-Based Mathematical Systems at Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria) on an FWF project on residuated structures. Overlapping with this, I also worked on a GACR project on predicate graded logics in computer science. I received my PhD from the University of Otago (New Zealand) in 2017. From 2022-2025, my research is supported by an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE220100544). There was a workshop to kick off the project in 10-12 November 2022. I serve as an editor for Archive for Mathematical Logic and Journal of Multiple-Valued Logic and Soft Computing.
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)
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.
Research at the interface between applied statistics and quantitative genetics with extensive publications on the analysis and interpretation of multi-way data from large-scale plant breeding experiments, particularly those involving genotype by environment interaction. Theory and application of pattern analysis - clustering and ordination procedures - appropriate for data collected from plant breeding experiments and/or stored in germplasm databases. Analysis, interpretation and impact of genotype x environment interaction for primary economic plant attributes (yield and quality) and data management, integration and analysis (bioinformatics).
Other Activities:
Past President of the International Biometric Society (2010-11) and the Statistical Society of Australia Incorporated (2005-07). Life member of the Statistical Society of Australia Incorporated (2010). Australian Medal for Agricultural Science from the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (1998).
Previous Head of the School of Land, Crop and Food Sciences (2001-10).
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Australian Institute of Company Directors, Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology and Institute of Statisticians (which has merged with the Royal Statistical Society).
Member of the Board of Trustees of the International Rice Research Institute (2013-15).
Darryn Bryant's research interests are in combinatorics, specifically in graph theory and design theory.
He received his PhD from The University of Queensland in 1993. His current research projects concern fundamental open problems on graph decompositions and a new design theory-based approach to signal sampling via compressed sensing.
Benjamin Burton's research interests include computational geometry and topology, combinatorics, and information security. He also maintains an active role in gifted-and-talented programmes for secondary school students.
Benjamin Burton's research involves a blend of techniques from pure mathematics and computer science. His main interest is in computational geometry and topology in three and four dimensions, looking at problems such as how a computer can recognise whether a loop of string is knotted, or how it can identify large-scale geometric structures in a three-dimensional space. He is the primary author of the open source software package Regina, which implements state-of-the-art algorithms in this field.
His multi-disciplinary background includes a PhD in geometry and topology, an honours degree in combinatorics, research experience in information security, and three years as a research analyst in the finance industry. He has worked at several universities in Australia and overseas.
He maintains a strong interest in enrichment programmes for gifted and talented high school students, including the Mathematics and Informatics Olympiads and the National Mathematics Summer School. From 1999 until 2008 he directed the Australian training programme for the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), and from 2009 to 2014 he holds a seat on the international IOI Scientific Committee.
Benjamin is an active member of the UQ Ally Network, an award-winning program that supports and celebrates diversity of sexuality, gender and sex at UQ and in the broader community.
I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Digital Health and Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD) interested in the prevention and management of noncommunicable diseases, especially obesity, across the lifecourse.
Through research, I aim to add health to life and equity to health by changing policies and practices to reduce the impact of obesity.
My research program aims to forge a new nexus across dietetics, digital health and public health to improve healthy weight. In my Postdoctoral Fellowship, I have established a new evidence base that supports precision public health approaches to the prevention and management of obesity, including innovate methods of public health surveillance that can use data from sources such as electronic medical records. I trained as a Paediatric Dietitian and have experience as a clinician-researcher working in Queensland's healthcare system, specifically in preventing and managing childhood obesity via clinical, community, and public health programs.
I have used epidemiology, public health informatics, action research, co-design, and ethnographic methods to generate new knowledge in obesity and digital health. I was awarded my PhD (UQ) in November 2020, which developed and validated i-PATHWAY, a clinical model to predict childhood obesity from the first 1,000 days to help guide its prevention. This research was the first of its kind in Australia and uncovered new evidence for risk factors for childhood obesity that are evident from the early years.
At The University of Queensland (UQ), I am a member of the Queensland Digital Health Centre, located within the Centre for Health Services Research (Faculty of Medicine). I established and currently Co-Chair the UQ Digital Health HDR Cohort, which provides research mentorship and support to ~20 PhD, MPhil and Honours research students.
Our team partners closely with multiple healthcare and research organisations across Australia to innovate and translate obesity research into practice, including Health and Wellbeing Queensland (public health and prevention of chronic diseases), Queensland Health (healthcare system) and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (digital health research). I hold an Honorary Appointment with Health and Wellbeing Queensland, and an Affiliate Research Fellow position with the Faculty of Medicine (UQ) to help bridge the gap between obesity research and practice.
Dr. Gary Chan is a NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow at the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research. His principal research interest lies in the field of substance misuse prevention and the application of cutting-edge statistical method for longitudinal analysis and causal inference. His recent publications have been focused on polysubstance use (including alcohol, tobacco and cannabis) profiles in adolescent populations, examinations of urban-rural differences in substance use, and the epidemiology of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use. He collaborates extensively with leading researchers in major national and international institutes, including the University of Washington, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, University of Melbourne, and University College London. He has also served as a consultant at the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime to improve exisitng methods for monitoring global trends of illicit substance production, trafficking and use. This work has made significant impact on how global data will be collected, and these new data will be used by the United nations and many national governments to inform drug policy decision making. He is a Deputy Statistical and Methodology Editor for the journal Addiction.
Dr. Chan is also a statistical advisor at the School of Psychology, providing statistical advice to academic staff and RHD students. Since 2016, he has also delivered several advanced statistcal workshops at the School on R and statistical modelling.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Shakes an imaging expert that leads a strong deep learning, artificial intelligence (AI) focused research team interested in medical image analysis and signal/image processing applied to many areas of science and medicine. He received his Ph.D in Theoretical Physics from Monash University, Melbourne and has been involved in applying machine learning in medical imaging for over a decade.
Shakes’ past work has involved developing shape model-based algorithms for knee, hip and shoulder joint segmentation that is being developed and deployed as a product on the Siemens syngo.via platform. More recent work involves deep learning based algorithms for semantic segmentation and manifold learning of imaging data. Broadly, he is interested in understanding and developing the mathematical basis of imaging, image analysis algorithms and physical systems. He has developed algorithms that utilise exotic mathematical structures such as fractals, turbulence, group theoretic concepts and number theory in the image processing approaches that he has developed.
He is currently a Senior Lecturer and leads a team of 20+ researchers working image analysis and AI research across healthcare and medicine. He currently teaches the computer science courses Theory of Computation and Pattern Recognition and Analysis.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Dr Archie Chapman is an Associate Professor in Computer Science in the School of IT and Electrical Engineering.
Archie develops and applies principled artificial intelligence, game theory, optimisation and machine learning methods to solve large-scale and dynamic allocation, scheduling and queuing problems. His recent research has focused on applications of these techniques to problems in future power systems, such as integrating large amounts of renewable power generation and using batteries and flexible loads to provide power network and system services, while making best use of legacy network and generation infrastructure.
Prior to joining UQ, Archie was Research Fellow in Smart Grids at the University of Sydney (2011-2019), and a postdoc fellow at the University of Southampton (2009-2010), where he completed his PhD.
A/Prof Mark D. Chatfield is a highly experienced statistician and clinical trialist working at the UQ Clinical Trials Centre.
In collaboration with health and medical researchers, he has published >200 times in academic journals. He has been an investigator on 27 NHMRC/MRFF funded (>$50M) studies (mostly clinical trials). He has co-supervised 5 PhD students to completion, and is currently an advisor to 4 PhD students. He has over 20 years of experience as a biostatistician in Australia (Brisbane | Darwin | Sydney) and the UK (Cambridge, 2002-2009).
He plays an active role in the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Statistics in Trials Interest Group.
Stata users around the world enjoy using his table1_mc command.
He is an Honorary Fellow (Associate Professor) with Menzies School of Health Research.
Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology
Availability:
Available for supervision
2003 - 2006 Bachelor of Photonics and Nanoscience (Hons 1), Griffith University.
2008 - 2009 Graduate Certificate in Research Management, Southern Cross University.
2007 - 2014 Ph.D. Griffith University. Title: Adsorption of CO2 by coal and activated carbon: A study using in-situ small angle X-ray scattering and sorption manometry.
2018 - 2021 Research Assistant, The University of Queensland.
2021 - present Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland.
My current research examines the coal to coke transition and potential additives for a more environmentally sustainable coke product for steel-making applications. I primarily use the techniques of petrography, rheometry, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and small-angle X-ray scattering to study the composition, thermoplastic properties, volatile release behaviour and pore structure of the coals.
Main collaborators: Vale, Anglo American, School of Chemical Engineering (UQ).
Dr Darsy Darssan is an Accredited Professional Statistician® (PStat®) and a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA). He obtained three degrees in Statistics at mathematical sciences schools of three different universities: a Bachelor of Science with Honours in 2005 at University of Jaffna, a Master of Applied Science in 2008 at RMIT University and a Doctor of Philosophy in 2014 at Queensland University of Technology.
While doing his two years full time traditional face-to-face master degree, Darsy worked as a part-time Statistician at Australian Council for Educational Research for a year.
Between the two bouts of postgraduate studies, Darsy worked for two years: as a Statistician at the University of New South Wales for a year and another year as an Associate Research Fellow in Applied Statistics at the University of Wollongong.
While doing the highest degree in Statistics Darsy worked as a sessional academic, contributed to teaching introductory statistics to various cohorts of first-year undergraduate students. Upon completion of the doctoral degree, Darsy moved to the University of Liverpool in the UK to do his Postdoctoral research in Biostatistics. Darsy returned home in late 2015 and worked as a Biostatistician at The University of Queensland for three years before taking the current position.
Career Statistician:
As a career statistician, Darsy is interested in developing or extending statistical methodologies to solve problems that arise in real-world data analysis and data collection in Biomedical research.
Service Statistician:
Darsy has experience working as a service statistician. He mainly worked on clinical trials where he was involved in study designs, randomisation, protocols development, statistical analysis plans, final statistical reports. He actively participated in data safety monitoring boards. Darsy provided statistical service to Biologists, Rheumatologists, Ophthalmologists, Nephrologist, Endocrinologist and Health Service Researchers.
Professor Annette Dobson's research interests are in: Biostatistics (generalised linear modelling, clinical biostatistics, statistical methods relevant to longitudinal studies), and Epidemiology (tobacco control, cardiovascular disease, women's health).
Adrian grew up in Perth and double majored in Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Western Australia. Soonafter, he ventured to Canberra to undertake a PhD, focussing on analytic number theory: an enchanting area where one perplexingly uses calculus and analysis to study discrete structures such as the set of prime numbers.
After this, he worked as a derivatives trader at Optiver APAC for five years and stayed on there as Head of Academic Partnerships. He currently straddles both industry and academia and believes they both have much to offer mathematicians.
Adrian is available (and invariably keen) to supervise honours, masters and PhD projects in analytic number theory.
Dr Stephane Dufau is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Cognitive neuroscience within the Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland. Stephane is a Senior Research Fellow at Mater Research (Mater Epilepsy Unit Research group). He worked as a Research Engineer at CNRS, France (currently on unpaid leave).
Professor Jason Ferris, is the Director of Research and Statistical Support Services (RASSS), University of Queensland. While providing service primarily to the Faculty of Medicine the service is expanding to support other organisation units. He is also a leading research academic at the Centre for Health Services Research (CHSR) where he is the Program Leader for Global Substance Use and Mental Health (GSUMH) unit. He holds an honorary professorial role at Turning Point, Victoria (2018-) and is also the Chief Data Scientist for the Global Drug Survey (2013-). Since 2019 he has held a ministerial appointment as an Advisory Council Member to the Queensland Mental Health Commission and is an interRAI Fellow (interrai.org).
Since 2020, Professor Jason Ferris, in collaboration with Dr Dom Gorse (Director of QCIF Data Science) and many others across QCIF and UQ, have been working on the development and deployment of UQ KeyPoint - an innovative data infrastructure, data governance and digital solution enabling researchers to access, manage, analyse and share sensitive research data in a scalable, fully governed and highly secure environment. The work has received a number of accolades. In 2023, The University of Queensland recognised the value of KeyPoint winning the Award for Excellence in Innovation. In 2022, the Faculty of Medicine recognised his commitment and leadership to the University awarding him and the team the Innovators of the Year Award. Professor Ferris has received other recognition as well. In 2021, the Faculty of Medicine recognised the outstanding support of RASSS with a Service Excellence Award. In 2020, The University of Queensland recognised his contributions to his research field: he was awarded the Faculty of Medicine Leader of the Future Award (Academic) and The Director's Choice Award for contributions to the Centre for Health Services Research. In 2019, he was awarded The Outstanding Mid-Career Researcher within the Centre for Health Services Research and was also chosen as a finalist for the Faculty of Medicine Leader of the Future Award (Academic). Additionally, across the Faculty of Medicine, his Research and Statistical Support Service, was nominated for a Service Excellence Award (2019 and 2020). In 2015, he received the University of Queensland, Early Career Researcher Award within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science. In September, 2014, he received a Highly Commended Early Career Researcher Award within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science.
He has been involved in a number of key projects: The Queensland Evaluation of the Alcohol Fuelled Violence Policy (QUANTEM), The Overarching Evaluation of the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program (CHYME), the evaluation of ProjectSTOP (a decision-making national database for pharmacists aimed at preventing the use of pseudoephedrine based products as a precursor in the manufacture of methamphetamine), and a national review of the links between random breath testing and alcohol-related road traffic accidents. Jason has over 20 years of social science and public health research experience. He has a well-established publication record with a strong focus on alcohol and drug research and public health. With a Master degree in biostatistics he has well developed and expansive quantitative methods skills and a broad range of experience in many of the facets of both social science and medical research. In 2014 his PhD on alcohol epidemiology was conferred.
Previously, as a senior statistician at the Institute for Social Science Research he developed and taught a number of training models in research methods and statistical analysis as part of the Methods for Social Analysis and Statistics (MFSAS). Since its inception in 2012 he has been course coordinator and trainer for a number of these training modules (see below). From 2016-2018 he was the Director of MFSAS. Between 2016-2017 he was also the ISSR Co-postgraduate Coordinator.
