Find an expert

Dr Mobashwer Alam is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Horticultural Science, a theme leader of Predictive Agriculture for Improved Productivity and Value, an Advance Queensland Industry Fellow, and the team leader of the National Passionfruit Breeding and Evaluation Program (PF22000) at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, UQ. He is currently based at Maroochy Research Station, Nambour, QLD 4560, Sunshine Coast. He has more than twenty years of research and teaching experience in the public and private industries and in universities in Australia and Bangladesh. Dr Alam has experience in multi-disciplinary research, including plant breeding, quantitative genetics, genomics, plant physiology, and crop modelling. Before joining at QAAFI, Dr Alam had been working as a Senior Plant Breeder (Grain Sorghum) at Nuseed Pty Ltd. He achieved his PhD in plant molecular genetics through the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences of the University of Queensland. Before coming in Australia in 2008, Dr Alam had been working as a lecturer and assistant professor of the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding at Patuakhali Science and Technology University in Bangladesh. Throughout his academic and research career, he worked on multiple crops, including Macadamia, Passionfruit, Stone Fruits, Sorghum, Sugarcane, Lablab Bean, Tomato, Okra, and Ash Gourd. He is interested in developing rapid breeding tools and utilizing plant genomics in horticultural crop improvement.

Dr Awale is a post-doctoral fellow in the University of Queensland since 2023 and has been investigating N and P cycling and management in cotton and wheat cropping systems using chemical fertilisers and animal manures (poultry, beef-feedlot, and swine). He received a PhD degree in Soil Science in 2015 from North Dakota State University, USA with primary research focus on soil N cycling with different fertiliser N application rates, timings, and sources including enhanced efficiency N products (urease inhibitor, nitrification inhibitor, urease plus nitrification inhibitors, and polymer-coated urea) and water management practices (subsurface tile-drained vs non-drained) in poorly-drained soils under broadacre cropping systems. Between 2015 to 2018, he worked as a post-doctoral scholar at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Centre (Oregon State University, USA), where he looked into SOM dynamics, soil health, soil acidification and fertility, and crop productivity responses to tillage and residue management, crop rotation and intensification, cover cropping, mineral fertiliser application, and biochar, animal manure and crop residue amendments in dryland cropping systems. Dr Awale moved to Australia and joined the Centre for Regional and Rural Futures of Deakin University as a post-doctoral research fellow in 2020. At Deakin, he investigated the effectiveness of poultry litter amendments in improving soil health, fertility, cotton nutrition (N, P, S, Zn) and production in constrained soils of southern NSW.

Summary of Research:

• My current research at UQ is as Professor in this School (teaching AGRC3040 Crop Physiology) and as an Affiliate Professor of QAAFI. Since 2020, with full-time appointment at UQ, my research portfolio has included multiple projects in applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence into the ag domain. This area is developing rapidly and across UQ, I am engaging with faculty in multiple schools (ITEE, Maths and Physics, Mining and Mech Engineering) as well as in the Research Computing Centre to develop new projects and training opportunities at the interface of field agriculture and these new digital analytics.
• My career research has been around genetic and environment effects on physiology of field crops, particularly where drought dominates. Application of quantitative approaches (crop simulation and statistical methods) and phenotyping (aerial imaging, canopy monitoring) to integrate the understanding of interactions of genetics, growth and development and the bio-physical environment on crop yield. In recent years, this work has expanded more generally into various applications in digital agriculture from work on canopy temperature sensing for irrigation decisions (CSIRO Entrepreneurship Award 2022) through to applications of deep-learning to imagery to assist breeding programs.
• Much of this research was undertaken with CSIRO since 1996. Building on an almost continuous collaboration with UQ over that time, including as an Adjunct Professor to QAAFI, Prof Chapman was jointly appointed (50%) as a Professor in Crop Physiology in the UQ School of Agriculture and Food Sciences from 2017 to 2020, and at 100% with UQ from Sep 2020. He has led numerous research projects that impact local and global public and private breeding programs in wheat, sorghum, sunflower and sugarcane; led a national research program on research in ‘Climate-Ready Cereals’ in the early 2010s; and was one of the first researchers to deploy UAV technologies to monitor plant breeding programs. Current projects include a US DoE project with Purdue University, and multiple projects with CSIRO, U Adelaide, La Trobe, INRA (France) and U Tokyo. With > 8500 citations, Prof Chapman is currently in the top 1% of authors cited in the ESI fields of Plant and Animal Sciences and in Agricultural Sciences.

Professor Bhagirath Chauhan joined the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) at The University of Queensland in 2014. He now has a joint appointment with QAAFI and SAFS at UQ. He leads research on weed biology and weed management in different crops, including wheat, maize, sorghum, mungbean, soybean, chickpea, rice, and cotton. He has studied the seed ecology of >100 weed species and he has a vast experience in developing integrated weed management options based on agronomic approaches (row spacing, seeding rates, weed-competitive cultivars, etc.). Prof Chauhan has more than 20 years of research experience in conducting trials on the improved agronomy of new production systems and integrated weed management options in Australia and >10 Asian countries. Before joining UQ, Prof Chauhan worked at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines for seven years. He has a strong collaboration in several countries, including USA, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria and China. His research interests include weed ecology and biology, herbicide use, management of herbicide-resistant weeds, non-chemical weed management options, integrated weed management systems using agronomic and varietal components, nanoherbicides, tillage systems, and conservation agriculture systems. He is a Speciality Chief Editor with Frontiers in Agronomy and an Associate Editor of Weed Science (Weed Science Society of America). He has published over 350 articles in peer reviewed journals and several books and book chapters. He is an Honorary Member of Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) and a life member of International Weed Science Society (IWSS), Asia Pacific Weed Science Society (APWSS), and Indian Society of Weed Science (ISWS).

Dr. Javier A. Fernandez is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland. His research specializes in crop physiology, plant nutrition, corn production, and crop modelling reflected by over 30 articles (refereed journal publications, extension articles, conference proceedings, and others). He is currently engaged in the use of statistical, digital, and model technologies to assess crop growth and development, with the overall goal of enhancing production, resource use efficiency, and sustainability of agricultural systems in Australia. Javier received his BS in Agricultural Engineering from Universidad Nacional del Nordeste in Argentina, and his PhD in Agronomy from Kansas State University. He is recipient of several honours and awards from university, professional societies, and governmental organizations, including two Fulbright Commission scholarships.

Dr. Li has been making noteworthy strides as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Queensland since June 2023, demonstrating his broad expertise in environmental science. His current research endeavors are focused on soil organic carbon, mentored by the university's esteemed soil research group.

His scholarly journey was rooted in Shandong University, where he acquired a Bachelor's degree in Soil Science (2011-2015). His intellectual curiosity drove him to the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he accomplished a Master's degree in Soil Ecology (2015-2018) and later a Ph.D. in 2022. Simultaneously, he pursued a second Ph.D. at Griffith University from 2020 to 2023. This rigorous academic pathway led him to a brief but enriching Postdoctoral tenure at the Technical University of Denmark from February to May 2023.

Dr. Li's research portfolio is a testament to his intellectual versatility and commitment. It encompasses a variety of critical environmental issues, ranging from sustainable livelihoods for pastoralists in grassland ecosystems to geospatial pattern analysis, grassland degradation management, soil organic carbon studies, and wood decay fungi and community ecology. He also excels in employing bibliometric/scientometric and machine learning analysis in ecological studies. With such a wide gamut of expertise, Dr. Li stands at the nexus of several environmental science disciplines, poised to make substantial contributions.

In recognition of his academic excellence, Dr. Li has earned prestigious accolades. He received the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad in 2021, ranking him among the top 500 worldwide. The following year, he was distinguished with the President's Award for Excellence from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, positioning him in the top 400 recipients.

A/Prof Jaquie Mitchell's activities are focused around two core themes.Jaquie has worked on various Research for Development (R4D) projects based in South-East Asia with the aim of improving productivity and livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Currently she leads two R4D projects one focused on developing an integrated weed management package for mechanised and broadcast lowland crop production systems in Laos and Cambodia. While the other is a first of its kind, public private partnership between ACIAR and a private agribusiness company, aiming to establish a highly productive, sustainable, traceable, quality-assured value chain for rice in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, benefiting rice-farming households and meeting the market requirements of SunRice’s established global customers.

The second research theme includes examining genetic variation for resistance to abiotic stress, such as high and low-temperature tolerance at the reproductive stage in rice, the advantage of reduced-tillering gene in wheat grown under terminal drought, the effect of salinity and water-deficit on production of volatile compounds in aromatic rice. In close collaboration with the Australian rice industry, Jaquie currently leads two AgriFutures funded pre-breeding projects aimed to improve lodging resistance, cold tolerance and aerobic adaptation for high water productivity rice. In addition to exploring genetic variation in physiological traits and genomic regions of importance to improved water productivity, genomic tools are under development to improve breeding efficiency for the Riverina. Based at The University of Queensland, School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability, Jaquie provides specialist guidance and assistance to undergraduate and postgraduate research students within crop physiology and agronomy with extensive experience conducting research projects focused on abiotic stress, pre-breeding and rice cropping systems research.

My research focusses on soil health in cropping and pasture systems, specialising in soil carbon and soil organic matter dynamics, microbial ecology, and plant-soil interactions. I am interested in how agronomic interventions impact soil health and in developing methods to reverse soil fertility decline and build healthier, more productive soils. This includes understanding the impacts of tillage, cover cropping, crop rotational diversity, nutrient management, and organic amendments on soil functional processes and crop development and productivity.

I have extensive experience in designing and analyzing field and glasshouse experiments and implementing advanced statistical models using R. I have excellent verbal and written communication skills, maintain positive relationships with collaborators both nationally and internationally, and publish manuscripts in peer-reviewed scientific journals.