Molecular Biologist, The University of Queensland I am a plant molecular physiologist in the Mitter Lab at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation. Our team primarily focuses on innovating tissue culture technologies for plant species in close partnership with industry and stakeholders. We deliver world-first propagation protocols for difficult and recalcitrant crops species as well as biotechnologies for crop improvement and cryobanking of recalcitrant plant germplasm. We also have a dedicated research stream in crop genomics and molecular biology. We aim to improve efficiency and resilience in our plant industries as well as support conservation of our key germplasm and endangered species. Our flagship species has been the avocado, and our team has been involved with producing the first genome sequence for avocado as well as the world's first commercial tissue culture pipelines for avocado propagation and cryopreservation. We are now extending this to other key crop species such as macadamia, as well as endangered native species with collaborators. Our ongoing vision is continued extension of these technologies to new species and crops for both horticultural and environmental outcomes.
Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University Allen Cheng is a specialist in infectious diseases and an epidemiologist. He is Professor/Director of Infectious Diseases at Monash Health and the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash University in Melbourne, and is involved in the treatment of patients with infectious diseases, and providing advice to governments on communicable diseases control. He is also involved in in surveillance for influenza-related hospital admissions through the FluCAN system, based at 21 hospitals nationally. He was previously Deputy Victorian Chief Health Officer, and a past Co-Chair of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and the Advisory Committee for Vaccines.
Professor in marine ecology, UNSW Sydney I'm a marine ecologist based at The University of New South Wales in Sydney. My research focuses on the impacts of climate change on marine communities and on developing restoration solutions to re-establish lost underwater kelp forests and seagrass meadows.
Postdoctoral research fellow, UNSW Sydney Aaron is a marine scientist researching how we can combine ecological, social, and economic knowledge to provide solutions to wicked problems in our world’s oceans. He works to achieve this goal, not by re-inventing the wheel, but instead by taking a creative view to the information that already exists Aaron's areas of expertise are: data synthesis and policy recommendations, spatial statistics and analysis, quantitative analysis and forecasting, and economic assessments of environmental services Aaron is currently working on consolidating information about the best way to restore our underwater forests (kelp beds). For this project he is creating the world's first database of kelp restoration projects, analyzing the efficacy of these projects, providing cost estimates of restoration. Following from this work, Aaron is calculating economic estimates of the ecosystem services provided by Nereocystis, Macrocystis, Laminaria, Ecklonia, and Lessonia forests.
Indigenous Post-Doctoral Fellow: Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice, School of Communication, Queensland University of Technology Darumbal and South Sea Islander academic, writer and journalist. Amy recently completed a PhD into Media Representations of Violence against Aboriginal Women at the University of Queensland. She has over 17 years experience working in Aboriginal and independent media. Her investigative podcast 'Curtain the Podcast', co-hosted with Martin Hodgson, delves into the wrongful conviction of Aboriginal man Kevin Henry. She has written for numerous publications including Meanjin, Griffith Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Vogue, Marie Claire, and BuzzFeed Australia amongst others. Her first non-fiction book "Black Witness" is due to be published in 2024 by University of Queensland Press, and her first children's book Day Break was published by Hardie Grant Children's Publishing in 2021. Amy's interest is in building a sovereign black media, writing on disappeared Aboriginal women, wrongful convictions and the brutality of the justice system. She is currently an Indigenous Post-Doctoral Fellow at the QUT School of Communications, under the Digital Research Media Centre and Centre for Justice.
Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia Boley is a Canada Research Chair in Planetary Astronomy and the Co-director of the Outer Space Institute
