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As a lecturer and First-Year Teaching Director in Physics at the University of Queensland, Dr Margaret Wegener teaches both aspiring physicists and physics service courses; she is interested in the educational problems of contextualising physics, and the transition between school and university.

Her PhD was awarded for laser diagnostics of a Superorbital Expansion Tube, by multiple holographic recordings. As well as holography showing the rupture process of a light diaphragm in an expansion tube, this included holographic interferometry of high-speed gas flows around models, and analysis of the resulting images to yield quantitative information about the gas flow structures.

She pursued an interest in physics education by completing further study in Tertiary Teaching. A major concern of her work is to effectively engage students in order to make physics fundamentals meaningful. This includes developing experiments for undergraduate learning.

She is also deeply interested in the interrelationships between science and the arts.

Prof Andrej Atrens's research interests are in: the service performance of engineering materials and alloy development.

He received a PhD from the University of Adelaide in 1976, a DEng from the University of Queensland in 1997, and became FHEA in 2018.

His current research projects are in the fields of:

• Mg Corrosion
• SCC
• Hydrogen embrittlement

Gloria Dall'Alba is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland and higher education consultant at GD Higher Ed Consulting. Her research focuses on learning and teaching in higher education and the workplace, with a particular interest in educating for the professions and the philosophy of higher education. After completing a PhD at Monash University in Australia and Postdoctoral Fellowship at Gothenburg University in Sweden, she has held positions at the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and RMIT University, as well as at Karolinska Institute and a secondment to Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. She has published widely on a range of issues relating to higher education, workplace learning and research inquiry. A strong strand of her research is interdisciplinary. She has collaborated with researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and the USA from the fields of higher education, pharmacy, business, dentistry, engineering, forensic science, medicine, nursing, philosophy and physics.

For further details on publications: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8337-0530

I obtained my PhD in Pure Mathematics from the University of Adelaide in the area of Convex Sets with Lattice Point Constraints. Following my PhD, I was a mathematics lecturer at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In 2012, I joined UQ as a teaching focused academic in the School of Mathematics and Physics.

I have extensive teaching and administrative experience at the secondary-tertiary interface. Prior to my PhD, I taught senior high school mathematics in Singapore, where, as head of the mathematics department, I oversaw the delivery of the senior high school mathematics curriculum for over 2000 students. In my current role as Director of First Year Mathematics, I have led and implemented course improvements. These include the development of a comprehensive range of graded learning resources for key first year mathematics courses and specific initiatives to address the secondary-tertiary mathematics transition. One such initiative that has been especially rewarding is the Support Learning Tutorial (SLT), an intervention program that I designed and implemented to support at-risk first year students. SLT students have consistently outperformed the general cohort in pass rates and quality of results. Another significant initiative which I led is the MATH1051 (Calculus and Linear Algebra I) UQ2U Blended Learning Project. This project introduced changes to the delivery of MATH1051 in 2019, through the integration of online and high-value on-campus activities. A key innovation is the creation of a complete set of videos for MATH1051 and the implementation of collaborative workshops. The success of the MATH1051 project has led to the subsequent redesign of several large first year mathematics courses.

The impact of my teaching and research has been recognised through eight teaching awards (five UQ and three national awards). I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Fellowship (SFHEA) and 2022 Australian University Teacher of the Year.

Awards and Fellowships

• Australian Awards for University Teaching, Australian University Teacher of the Year, 2022
• Australian Awards for University Teaching, Award for Teaching Excellence, 2022
• UQ Faculty of Science Sustained Teaching Excellence Award, 2021
• UQ Award for Teaching Excellence, 2021
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), 2020
• UQ Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology Special Teaching Excellence Award, 2018
• Australian Awards for University Teaching Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, 2017
• UQ Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, 2016
• UQ Faculty of Science Award for Teaching Excellence, 2014

Dr. Vilim Filipović’s area of interest are in environmental soil science and ecohydrology with expertise in soil physical processes, vadose zone hydrology, contaminant/nutrient transport, and numerical modelling. His research explores the complex interactions between soil, water, and contaminants/nutrients, with applications in environmental sustainability, agricultural resilience, and mine rehabilitation. By integrating long-term field monitoring, experimental research, and computational modelling, his work assesses environmental pressures and evaluates management strategies for soil and water resources.

Dr. Filipović obtained his PhD in Environmental Soil Science and Hydrology from the University of Zagreb, Croatia. He has held academic and research positions in Europe and Australia, and still currently holds an Adjunct Associate Professor position at the University of Zagreb. In 2022, he joined The University of Queensland, where he contributes to research and teaching in environmental soil science, vadose zone ecohydrology, and numerical modelling.

With an extensive international network, Dr. Filipović has led numerous national and international research projects on soil-plant-atmosphere interactions, preferential flow, and contaminant fate in soil systems. His research collaborations span institutions in Australia, Europe, and North America, and he has been a visiting scholar at CSIRO (Australia), SLU (Sweden), Penn State University, University of California, University of Florida (USA), BOKU (Austria), and ZALF (Germany), among others.

At UQ, Dr. Filipović plays an active role in undergraduate and postgraduate education, employing a research-led teaching approach in environmental soil science. He coordinates and lectures in key courses, including LAND2003, AGRC7053, LAND3005, and GEOS1100, emphasizing hands-on field and laboratory experiences, active learning methodologies, and the integration of cutting-edge research into student learning.

Dr. Filipović is a recognized leader in his field, serving as an Associate Editor for the Soil Science Society of America Journal, Vadose Zone Journal and Applied Soil Ecology. His contributions have been acknowledged with prestigious awards, including the Soil Science Society of America Early Career Award (2019) Visiting Fellowship at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (2021) in Germany and CRC TiME Award winner for Outstanding Research Communication award (2024), among other recognitions.

Dr. Filipović has held significant leadership roles, including Head of Department at the University of Zagreb, leadership of a Critical Zone Observatory, panel membership for national science foundations, curriculum development, and various committee positions. His work continues to contribute to advancing soil science research, education, and environmental management on national and international scale.

Research Interests

• Environmental sciences and agroecology
• Preferential flow and non-equilibrium transport processes in heterogeneous soils
• Fate of contaminants in soil (i.e., nutrients, pesticides, trace metals, pharmaceuticals)
• Vadose (critical) zone processes
• Soil physics and hydrology
• Soil hydraulic properties estimation

Teaching

• LAND2003 The Soil Environment (coordinator)
• LAND3005 Soil Plant Relationships
• AGRC7053 Sustainable Soil Management (coordinator)
• GEOS1100 Environment & Society

I am interested in students' transition from high school to university mathematics, as well as the teaching and learning of first-year mathematics.

My main research area is the transition from high school to university mathematics. My 25+ years’ teaching experience on both sides of the secondary-tertiary transitional fence gives me an excellent understanding of student knowledge, allowing me to focus my teaching on specific, known problem areas such as algebra, calculus and contextual understanding.

I do not just rely on my background knowledge and communication skills, but also take a scholarly approach to generate new knowledge that informs my teaching. I use technology such as UniDoodle to gather data and then design innovative resources that support diverse student cohorts, including the SmartAss self-testing system. In 2015 I was awarded an OLT Award for Teaching Excellence. In 2010 I was awarded an ALTC Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

I have been successful in attracting competitive grant funding for teaching innovations. For example, I led an OLT Extension Grant on diagnostic testing. This grant saw the implementation of a unique diagnostic test system, GetSet, in four Australian universities. In 2008 I was part of a team that was awarded a UQ Teaching and Learning Strategic Grant to design the competency test (that is now GetSet) for first-year engineering students to assess knowledge of high school level mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and also the ability of the students to apply this knowledge. I was also a Chief Investigator on a Carrick Grant that developed a powerful and flexible electronic system called SmartAss that creates unlimited questions accompanied by fully worked solutions. This innovative system has been used with great success over a range of mathematics, science and business courses for the past 15 years. The system is also used in high schools.

I have also led numerous internally funded projects. These projects have developed a comprehensive range of new small-group learning resources for students in core engineering courses to complement a redeveloped student-focused mathematics learning space, an online diagnostic test with automatic correction and feedback to students and staff, numerous study guides for first-year mathematics courses, and a $99,000 Technology Enhanced Learning grant to update and improve SmartAss. All of these teaching innovation grants are aimed at improving students’ mathematical understanding along with their first-year experience.

I have been heavily involved in the work of the School’s Teaching and Learning Committee that has been responsible for improving the overall quality of teaching within the School. I mentor new staff, providing advice on teaching and assessment design.

I have also been involved in the development and review of the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics, and foster links between high school teachers and university lecturers through my role as Executive Committee Member and Treasurer of the Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers.

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the UQ College of Peer Observers, and one of three members of the First Year in Maths National Steering Committee.

In my PhD I continued my research on subject selection and students’ mathematical understanding, which has allowed me to further improve my teaching.

Prof. Amin Abbosh specializes in Medical Microwave Imaging and Microwave and Millimeter-wave Engineering. His work focuses on designing and developing advanced imaging and sensing systems using electromagnetic techniques at radio-wave frequencies.

Prof. Abbosh’s significant contributions include the creation of innovative imaging systems that leverage his expertise in applied electromagnetics and microwave engineering. He has developed comprehensive analytical and computational frameworks, incorporating signal-processing techniques for detection and AI for classification. This approach has led to a new modality for detection and imaging, combining physics-guided and data-driven methods. His work is protected by over 16 patents.

In Communication Technologies, Prof. Abbosh's work focuses on designing flat-panel, low-cost reconfigurable antennas. These antennas form ground satellite terminals that communicate with low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellites, providing reliable broadband access to remote and regional communities. This technology supports e-health services, distance education, and business productivity, and can be used in various on-the-move environments.

Organic functional materials development (design, synthesis & characterisation) for quantum based optoelectronics

Associate Professor Shih-Chun Lo (Lawrence)

Lawrence held a prestigious Swire Scholarship while carrying out his PhD study on semiconductor material development for organic solar cells and light emitting diodes (LEDs) at Oxford University, UK (1996-2000). His post-doctoral research at Oxford University focused on the design, synthesis and characterisation of fluorescent and phosphorescent dendrimers for highly efficient LEDs. Dendrimers have been recognised internationally as the third main class of LED materials, alongside small molecules and polymers, in which he played a key role. In December 2007, he joined the University of Queensland as a Lecturer in Chemistry of Materials. His research work has focused on the development of new functional semiconductor materials for quantum based optoelectronic applications (e.g. solar cells, LEDs, photodetectors, sensors, superconductors & organic lasers) as well as clean energy generation.

Professor Justin Cooper-White is a global leader in using engineering to solve problems in biology. In addition to holding the position of Head of School and Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Chemical Engineering, he is Affiliate Professor in the AIBN, Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility-Queensland Node, Research Director of the Herston Biofabrication Institute (a partnership between UQ and MNHHS) and co-Director of the Australian Organoid Facility at UQ. Professor Cooper-White is a past President of both the Australasian Society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering and the Australian Society of Rheology and held the position of CSIRO Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader. He has previously held a Visiting Professor Fellowships at ETH Zurich (2007) and Politecnico di Milano (2012-2013). Professor Cooper-White is the Australian representative and Past President of the Asian Biomaterials Federation; an elected Fellow of and Australian representative on the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBE), and an elected Fellow and past vice President of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Professor Cooper-White has many past and currently active international collaborations with world leading research groups at MIT (US); Stanford (USA); ETH (Switzerland); EPFL (Switzerland); SNU (Korea); University Of Grenoble (France); Politecnico di Milano (Italy); UCL (UK); and the Max Planck Institute (Germany). He has performed contract research and consultancy work for many multinational companies, including Unilever in the UK; Nestle International, Switzerland; Rhodia, US; Inion, Finland, Syngenta, UK; and NuFarm, AU since 2001.

He is the Editor-in-Chief of APL Bioengineering (American Institute of Physics Publishing); serves or has served on the editorial boards of Rheological Acta, Soft Materials, Biomicrofluidics and the Open Biomedical Engineering Journal; and is a reviewer of major international journals, including Nature Materials, Nature Methods, Advanced Materials, Lab on a Chip, Stem Cells, Stem Cells and Development, Biomacromolecules, Tissue Engineering, Langmuir, Biomaterials and Journal of Non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics.

Professor Ryan Ko is Chair Professor of Cyber Security, Centre Director of UQ Cyber Research Centre, Director of Research at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and an elected member of the Academic Board at the University of Queensland, Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering)(Hons.) (2005), and PhD (2011) from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Ko has held senior scientific leadership, executive, and directorship roles across industry and academia, and has more than 15 years of board, governance and advisory experience across government, industry and NGOs across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and USA.

He currently serves on the Audit and Risk Committee for the board of the global not-for-profit ORCID, and has served on boards and advisory groups for AustCyber, Queensland Government, Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), and the NZX-listed (NZE:LIC) Livestock Improvement Cooperation (LIC).

He has also served as expert advisor to INTERPOL, the government of Tonga, NZDF, NZ Minister for Communications' Cyber Security Skills Taskforce, and is a Technical Advisor (one of four nationally-appointed) for judges relating to the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, Ministry of Justice. He has also served as independent technical expert for Australian law firms in court cases, litigations and class actions.

He is a registered external expert for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), and a member of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) Accreditation Committee. He has experience reviewing course proposals and served in governance roles for higher education institutes.

He is Adjunct Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology, and Affiliate Faculty Member at NIATEC at the Idaho State University, USA.

He has been a co-founder of 4 start-ups, including First Watch Ltd (NZ) – an industrial cybersecurity spin-off based on his patented OT security and provenance research at the University of Waikato.

Since joining UQ in 2019, he has served as:

• Deputy Head of School (External Engagement) (2021-2022)
• Founding Discipline Leader of the Cyber Security and Software Engineering discipline (2020-2021)
• Group Leader - Cyber Security (2019)

Ko has successfully established several university-wide, multi-disciplinary academic research and education programmes, including establishing and leading:

• UQ Cyber Research Centre - interdisciplinary cyber scurity research centre involving 60+ academics and their respective teams from the 6 Schools (EECS, Business, Economics, Law, Social Science, Mathematics & Physics), the Centre for Policy Futures, and 4 Faculties since 2019.
• UQ's interdisciplinary postgraduate programme (MCyber, PGDipCyber, GCertCyber) involving four UQ faculties in 2019,
• NZ's first cyber security graduate research programme and lab (Cybersecurity Researchers of Waikato (CROW)) in 2012,
• NZ's first Master of Cyber Security (encompassing technical and law courses), the NZ Cyber Security Challenge since 2014, and
• NZ Institute for Security and Crime Science – Te Puna Haumaru as its founding director, the Evidence Based Policing Centre (at Wellington with NZ Police and ESR), and Master of Security and Crime Science in 2017 with the University of Waikato, NZ.

Over his academic career, Ko has been awarded A$20+million in competitive grants as lead Chief Investigator, and ~A$40+million as co-investigator. Prior to UQ, he was the highest funded computer scientist in New Zealand, as Principal Investigator and Science Leader of the largest MBIE-awarded cloud security research funding for STRATUS (NZ$12.2 million; 2014-2018). STRATUS' research was awarded 'Gold' by MBIE (i.e. top performing project, 2017), adopted by INTERPOL and featured in NZ's Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet's NZ Cyber Security Strategy 2016 annual report.

Ko has a track record developing international and national cyber security curricula, including:

• Co-creation of the gold-standard (ISC)2 Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) curriculum (2014-2015)
• Authoring the draft of the NZQA's Level 6 Cybersecurity Diploma qualification as part of the NZ Cyber Security Skills Taskforce on behalf of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Ko has also experience developing competitions and coaching competitive cyber security teams, including:

• Co-founding the NZ Cyber Security Challenge in 2014, and leading the NZCSC from 2014 to 2018. NZCSC is now the premier national cyber security competition in NZ.
• Co-founding the Oceania Cybersecurity Challenge (OCC) in 2020, and leading the competition from 2022 to present. OCC is now the regional qualifiers for the International Cybersecurity Challenge
• Co-founding the International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC) as part of the Steering Committee in 2022. ICC has been held in Athens (2022) and San Diego (2023). It is aiming to be the world cup of cyber competitions.
• Head Coach of Team Oceania for the ICC. 2022 Results: Overall 4th; 2023 Results: Overall 2nd in the world.

He contributed to the establishment of the Government of Tonga CERT and CERT NZ, and has been a keynote speaker regularly on cyber and cloud security research across the globe, including the OECD, Republic of Korea National Assembly (2018), INTERPOL (2017), TEDx Ruakura (2017), and the NZ Members of Parliament (2016).

Within the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27, Prof Ko was Head of Delegation for the Singapore national body, served as Editor, ISO/IEC 21878 “Security guidelines for design and implementation of virtualized servers”, and hosted the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 meetings at Hamilton, NZ, in 2017. He is currently one of the editors of the ISO/IEC PWI 5181 Data Provenance Reference Model. In 2022, Ko co-chaired the development of the Singapore standard TR 106:2022 Tiered cybersecurity standards for enterprises in collaboration with the SPSTC and Singapore Cyber Security Agency.

Ko serves as an assessor for the Australian Research Council (ARC), Irish Research Council, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and NZ MBIE College of Assessors (since 2015).

Ko has externally examined 11 PhD and 3 Masters theses for universities in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore.

For his contributions to the field, he was elected Fellow of the Australian Computer Society, Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Fellow of Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) (2016). He was awarded the Singapore Government (Enterprise Singapore)’s Young Professional Award (2018) for his leadership at ISO, and awarded the inaugural CSA Ron Knode Service Award 2012 for the establishment of Cloud Data Governance and Cloud Vulnerabilities Research Working Groups. He is also recipient of the 2015 (ISC)2 Information Security Leadership Award.

For his research and teaching excellence, he was awarded the University of Queensland Awards for Excellence - Leadership (Commendation) (2023), EAIT Nominations for Most Effective Teacher (both semesters of 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), University of Waikato's Early Career Excellence Award (2014), Faculty Teaching Excellence Awards (2014, 2015, 2018), and the Nola Campbell eLearning Excellence Award (2014). During his PhD, he was also awarded A*STAR SIMTech's Best Student Award (2009), and clinched the 1st Prize of the IEEE Services Cup 2009 at IEEE ICWS (CORE A*) in Los Angeles, CA.

Earlier in his career, Ko was a systems engineer, and subsequently founded two start-ups (one was a social enterprise which became an events/conventions management contractor with IMG at mega-events in Singapore, including the inaugural Youth Olympics in 2010).

He is an active science communicator and is regularly interviewed and featured by Australian (ABC News, SBS News, 7 News, 9 News, Courier Mail, Network 10, AFR), Singaporean (Channel NewsAsia, CNA Radio938), NZ (NZ Herald, Dominion Post, Stuff.co.nz, Waikato Times, TVNZ, Central TV) and international media on topics of cyber security, cybercrime and data privacy.

Megan O’Mara is a Professor and Group Leader at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), UQ. Her group uses multiscale modelling techniques to understand how changes in the biochemical environment of the cell membranes alters membrane properties and modulates the function of membrane proteins. She has research interests in multidrug resistance, computational drug design and delivery, biopolymers, and personalized medicine. Megan completed her PhD in biophysics at the Australian National University in 2005 before moving to the University of Calgary, Canada, to take up a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2009, she returned to Australia to join University of Queensland’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences as a UQ Postdoctoral Fellow, before commencing an ARC DECRA in 2012 where she continued her computational work on membrane protein dynamics. In 2015, Megan joined the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University in 2015 as Rita Cornforth Fellow and Senior Lecturer. In 2019 she was promoted to Associate Professor and was Associate Director (Education) of the Research School of Chemistry ANU in 2019-2021. In April 2022 she relocated to AIBN.

Recent News

August, 2019: Post Doctoral Researchers/Resercah Associates/PhD Candidates

A/Prof Abeyratne is accepting (2021) post-doctoral researchers/covering the areas of: pattern recognition, machine learning, respiratory sound analysis, digital signal processing and smart phone programming. Qualified students are invited to apply for PhD scholarships on a competitve basis.

June 2021:

Snore sound based Sleep Apnea diagnostics intellectual property developed by Dr. Udantha Abeyratne and his team are available for commercialisation. The technology is the culmination of 20 years of ground breaking work leading to four patent applications including two granted ones in the USA (the rest are under examination at various stages) and a large portfolio of peer reviewed publications in international scholarly journals. A Matlab implementation of re-trainable technology and performance comparions against American Academy of Sleep Medicine scoring critera of 2007 (AASM 2007) are available. Prior comparisons on Chicago Criteria ("AASM 1999") are also available via peer-reviewed literature. Our software models indicate that the technology can diagnose sleep apnea at a sensitivity and specificity approching that of a standard facility-based polysomnography (sensitivity, specificity around 90%, 90%-- cross validation studies). Note that the model development data sets available to us (n=100 approx) had been scored per AASM 2007 clinical criteria. Thus, the resulting models require a straight-forward re-training (re-calibration) process on AASM 2012 data before they can be used on subjects diagnosed under AASM 2012 criteria (which is the clinical scoring standard in effect since 2012).

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Assoc./Prof. Udantha Abeyratne is the inventor of the cough-sound based respiratory diagnosis technology (ResApp Health Ltd. (ASX: RAP)) and snore sound based sleep apnea diagnosis technology SnoreSounds.

He earned a PhD (Biomedical Engineering) from Drexel University, USA, and MEng and BScEE degrees in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Tokushima U, Japan and U Peradeniya, (video here) Sri Lanka respectively. He also received formal post-graduate training in Higher Education (Grad Cert , U of Queensland, Australia) and Paediatric Sleep Science (Grad Cert., U of Western Australia, Australia). He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE, USA), and a full Member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).

​Dr. Abeyratne started his research career with a paper on coding techniques for low-bandwidth communication channels. His master's thesis was on a machine learning approach to the human brain activity analysis using electroencephalography (EEG, Brain Waves) and evoked potentials. This approach won the best paper award in ISBET Brain Topography Conference (Osaka, Japan, 1990) and also placed Dr. Abeyratne as a finalist at the Young Investigators' Competition in IFMBE World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, 1991 (Kyoto, Japan). He completed his PhD (1996) with Prof. Athina Petropulu as the advisor, working on Higher-Order-Spectra and medical ultrasound imaging. The thesis developed slice-based low-complexity algorithms for blind signal identification, tumor detection in ultarsound images, and image deconvolution.

Teaching Activities:

Assoc/Prof. Abeyratne has designed and taught university level courses on digital signal processing, electronic circuits, medical and general instrumentation, medical signal processing, medical imaging, control systems, project management and electromagnetic waves. He has supervised both undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation thesis projects in these areas. Within the last decade five students supervised by him won competitive awards at the UQ Innovation Expo.

Current Research Profile:

Assoc./Prof. Abeyratne's research interests encompass digital signal processing, machine learning, medical instrumentation, medical imaging, electrophysiology, bio-signal analysis and electronics. Over the last two decades A/Prof. Abeyratne has conceptualized, initiated and led the development of a number of innovative technologies funded by prestigious granting agencies such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Australian Research Council and the A*-Star Singapore. His research programmes are characteristic of unorthodox approaches resulting in pioneering outcomes that produced spin-off companies, patents and scholarly publications. His research has recieved multiple peer accolades at the international level.

1. Electronic Instrument Design: hand-held ultrasound devices for medical, agricultural and industrial use; stethoscopes for the 21st century (The "Magithescope(c)", winner of two UQ Expo awards in 2013, 2014); biomimetic sensing devices (e.g. electronic nose, e-tongue), low-cost, portable electronic devices ("Tricoders") for diagnosing diseases such as apnea, asthma, pneumonia; wearable electrophysiological devices; real-time fatigue measurement and warning systems; hand-held instruments for the condition monitoring of machinery such as power transformers. Development of diagnostic and treatment devices for sleep apnea. Dr. Abeyratne is especially interested in developing accurate, multi-purpose and low-cost in-situ decision devices for applications in resource-poor regions of the world.

2. Diagnostic and Treatment Technology for Sleep Disorders: speech-like analysis of snore and breathing sounds; sleep diagnostic instrument design; sleep polysomnography, brain wave (EEG) analysis in sleep, quantification of fatigue and sleepiness; sleep apnea; design of apnea treatment devices (CPAP, dental devices); interaction of apnea and chronic diseases. mHealth approaches in sleep diagnostics. A/Prof. Abeyratne pioneered speech-like processing of respiratory sounds, leading to patents, papers and a spin-off company. He conceptualized and led the development of EEG based technology to quantifiy sleepiness in real-time in actual work environments. Outcomes of this program have recieved wide coverage in international media outlets due to its groundbreaking nature and the potential impact.

3. Respiratory Diagnostic Technology: diagnostic instrumentation and algorithm design for respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia, bronchiolitis, asthma, bronchiectasis and COPD; cough sound analysis in respiratory medicine; imaging technology for respiratory diagnosis; Portable diagnostic technologies and mHealth approaches for remote resource-poor areas of the world. About 1 million children below the age of 5 yrs die every year of pneumonia alone, mainly in remote resource-poor areas of the world. Poor access to diagnostics and medical treatment are the major reasons for pneumonia fatalities. A/Prof. Abeyratne proposed a ground-breaking new technology to diagnose pneumonia centred about cough sound analysis. For this research Dr. Abeyratne received funding from UQ, UniQuest and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which lauded the project (Page 4) as an exmaple for an innovative idea with high impact. Outcomes led to scholarly publications and contributed to patents as well as a spinoff company by UQ.

4. Signal Processing and Machine Intelligence: the analysis of bio-signals such as electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG); speech and industrial sound analysis, bowel sound analysis and the characterisation of inflammatory bowel disease; cardiovascular signal processing, source localization and blind source separation, higher order spectra, wavelets, pattern recognition, classifier design. Developing technology for monitoring the condition of Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVAD).

5. mHealth: research on smart phone and other consumer devices as a platform for healthcare delivery. A/Prof Abeyratne is actively engaged in developing mHealth diagnostic solutions, including translating and customising sleep and respiratory technologies. He is also in the process of expanding the work to include meaningful deployment of the technology in both the developed and developing worlds, in collaboration with international NGOs, experts in community medicine, and the UQ spin-off companies resulting from the research program. New national and international collaborations are currently being negotiated to fund and facilitate this work.

The Research Team, Past & Present:

Associate professor Udantha Abeyratne, Dr. Keegan Kosasih (Past PhD graduate); Dr Duleep Herath (past PhD gradute, )Dr. Shahin Akhter (Past PhD graduate), Dr. Vinayak Swarnkar (Past PhD graduate ); Dr. Yusuf Amrulloh (Past PhD graduate); Dr. Shaminda de Silva (Past PhD graduate); Dr. Samantha Karunajeewa (Past PhD graduate); Dr. Suren Rathnayake (Past PhD graduate), Dr. Xiao Di (Past PhD graduate), Dr. T. Emoto (Past PhD work in UQ while at UT), ; Mrunal Markendeya (Current PhD Student); Karen McCloy (current PhD student), Ajith Wakwella (Past MPhil graduate); Lee Teck Hock (Past MPhil Graduate), Tang Xiaoyan (Past MPhil Graduate), Dr. Zhang Guanglan (Past MPhil Graduate), Dr. Syed Adnan (Past MPhil Graduate) and many past and present dissertation thesis students.

Research Collaborators:

Dr. Craig Hukins & Brett Duce (Princess Alexandra Hospital), Prof. Y. Kinouchi & Dr. T. Emoto (U of Tokushima, Japan), Dr. Sarah Biggs (Monash), Dr.Simon Smith (QUT), Dr. Chandima Ekanayake (Griffith U), Dr. Paul Porter (PMH Hospital), Prof. Anne Chang (Menzies School of Health Reserach, CDU), Dr. Scott Mckenzie (Princess Charles Hospital), Dr. Nirmal Weeresekera (JKMRC, UQ), Dr. Rina Triasih (Gadjah Mada U, Indonesia), Dr. K. Puvanendran (1998-2002: Singapore General Hospital, Singapore), Prof.Stanislaw Gubanski (Chalmers U, Sweden).