Welcome and Keynote locations:
Welcome Address and Keynote Addresses are held in KG-F509 on days 1 and 2.
The day 3 Keynote Address is held in the KG-E5 Function Space.
Drop-in consultations (outside of talk and workshop times, in room KG-E555):
Days 1 and 2: QCIF drop-in consultations
Day 3: QCIF, R and Python drop-in consultations
Prof. Paula McDonald QUT
Prof. Michael Milford School of Electrical Engineering & Robotics, Faculty of Engineering, QUT
Richelle Wight CSIRO
Halimat Atanda UQ
Jenny Tang UQ
Fang (Jane) Li QUT
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Ade Adeyinka QCIF
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Kasia Koziara UQ
Senn Oon QUT / QCIF
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Danny Meloncelli QCIF
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Dr Riad Akhundov Griffith
Dr Catherine Kim QUT
Stéphane Guillou UQ
Dr Bogdan Mamaev Australian Internet Observatory
Sharron Stapleton Griffith University
Amanda Pearson Griffith University Library
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Dr Sam Hames UQ
Betsy Alpert QUT
Dr Eve Ansell QCIF
Dr Roy Barkan UniSC
Dr Madeline Taylor QUT
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Ade Adeyinka QCIF
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Kasia Koziara UQ
Senn Oon QUT / QCIF
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Danny Meloncelli QCIF
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Dr Riad Akhundov Griffith
Dr Catherine Kim QUT
Stéphane Guillou UQ
Dr Moji Ghadimi QCIF
Anthony Truskinger Open EcoAcoustics
Philip Eichinski
Shauna Fjaagesund UniSC
Dr Florin Oprescu UniSC
Dimanthinie De Silva QUT
Nicholas Dendle QUT
Dr Alireza Y. Bavil Griffith University
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Ade Adeyinka QCIF
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Kasia Koziara UQ
Senn Oon QUT / QCIF
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Danny Meloncelli QCIF
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Dr Riad Akhundov Griffith
Dr Catherine Kim QUT
Stéphane Guillou UQ
Dr Georgia Kafer UniSC
Kaitlin Moat UQ
Dr Sara Hutchinson UniSC
Dr Abbe Winter QUT
Jillian Blacker QUT
Amy Webster QUT
Sharron Stapleton Griffith University
Kylie Burgess Griffith University
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Ade Adeyinka QCIF
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Kasia Koziara UQ
Senn Oon QUT / QCIF
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Danny Meloncelli QCIF
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Dr Riad Akhundov Griffith
Dr Catherine Kim QUT
Stéphane Guillou UQ
Robert Fleet QUT Digital Observatory
Dr Sam Hames UQ
Dr Simon Musgrave LDaCA / Monash University
Luis Alberto Porras QUT
Dr Min Zhao UniSC
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Ade Adeyinka QCIF
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Kasia Koziara UQ
Senn Oon QUT / QCIF
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Danny Meloncelli QCIF
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Dr Riad Akhundov Griffith
Dr Catherine Kim QUT
Stéphane Guillou UQ
Cameron Rutter QUT
Rani McLennan QUT
Dr Ryan Newis QCIF
Ooroosa Ali QCIF
Dr Sam Hames UQ
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Anjusree Karnavar Griffith University
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Ade Adeyinka QCIF
Dr Lachlan McKinnie UniSC
Rafael Couto Griffith University
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Kasia Koziara UQ
Senn Oon QUT / QCIF
Joanna Salerno QCIF
Dr Danny Meloncelli QCIF
Justin Scott UQ Data Science CRP
Dr Vicki Thomson QUT Research Infrastructure
Dr Riad Akhundov Griffith
Dr Catherine Kim QUT
Stéphane Guillou UQ
Celise Gibson QUT
Natasha Kitano QUT
Dr Robert Clemens ARDC
Cameron West UQ
Justin Clark Bond University
Salinda Weerasinghe QUT
Dr Sam Hames UQ
Dr Martin Schweinberger UQ, LADAL
Robert Fleet QUT Digital Observatory
Dr Zachary Amir TERN / UQ
Dr Raimundo Sanchez UQ
Dr Jesse Sharp QUT
Cheri Joy UniSC
Yuri Banens Griffith University
Dr Robert Clemens ARDC
Aleksandra Olechnowicz QUT
Murray Lane QUT
Dimitri Josephine QUT
Cameron West UQ
Amanda Miotto Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation
CSIRO’s ON Innovation Program will host an interactive panel and hands-on workshop showing researchers how to move from “grant-speak” to partnership-ready impact stories that resonate with industry, government and investors.
Unpack the core ingredients for research commercialisation success - clarity, customers, community and impact - and show how these translate into compelling value propositions for non-academic partners.
The panel will explore real-world examples of ON teams who have used customer discovery to identify industry needs, navigate institutional pathways and build collaborations that accelerate translation, from licensing and joint ventures to startups and policy influence.
In the workshop, participants will use practical ON tools (including an Impact & Commercialisation Pathway Canvas and 30/60/90-day impact roadmaps) to reframe their own projects around problems, users and value, then craft concrete next steps towards an industry conversation.
Attendees will leave with a draft impact narrative, clearer language for describing benefits to partners, and a simple action plan to progress at least one potential collaboration opportunity.
Richelle Wight , CSIRO
Richelle Wight is an Innovation Program Advisor at CSIRO, where she leads the ON Prime Program, helping researchers and technologists explore pathways to translate their innovations into real-world impact. Through ON Prime, she works closely with research teams from universities, CSIRO and publicly funded research organisations, guiding them through customer discovery, market validation and the early stages of commercialisation.
With a strong background in innovation and entrepreneurship, Richelle supports researchers to step beyond the lab - connecting them with industry, investors and the broader innovation ecosystem. Her work focuses on building the capability and confidence of research teams to test assumptions, understand market needs and shape technologies that can solve meaningful problems for industry and society.
At CSIRO's ON Program, Richelle plays a key role in strengthening Australia’s research translation pipeline, helping bridge the gap between world-class research and real-world application.
Most research code works… until it doesn’t. In this talk, I’ll walk through shifting from writing one-off scripts to building a real, deployable tool (in the genomics context with Python), and the software engineering principles that should matter for scaling and reusability. It is not a coding tutorial but a practical look at how small decisions in research code shape whether it quietly collapses under its own weight, illustrated with recommended practices and relevant supporting Python packages. It will also touch on publishing research packages for public use, with pip and conda.
Halimat Atanda , UQ
Halimat is a final-year PhD student at the Mater Research Institute-University of Queensland. Her research focuses on developing software and pipelines to analyse cancer genomes obtained from a new DNA sequencing technology. She primarily uses Python to write analysis scripts and occasionally BaSH. She is also a science writer who has authored several simplified research articles to make biomedical research accessible to a wider audience.
This interactive workshop explores how structured dialogue with AI can support research thinking, idea generation, and reflective learning.
Using examples from an experimental e-book project titled 'Idea Builder: A Billion-Dollar Brain', the session demonstrates how conversations between a human and AI can function as a cognitive workflow for developing research questions, clarifying concepts, and generating new ideas.
Participants will learn a simple Human-AI dialogue framework that transforms curiosity into researchable questions. Through guided exercises, attendees will experiment with AI-assisted thinking to explore their own research interests.
The workshop also introduces a broader philosophical perspective on learning beyond traditional classroom structures and discusses the emerging role of AI as a thinking partner in academic knowledge creation.
Fang (Jane) Li , QUT
Fang Li is a Master of Education student at the Queensland University of Technology.
Her interests include education philosophy, digital learning, and the emerging relationship between human thinking and artificial intelligence.
She is currently developing an experimental writing project exploring how dialogue between humans and AI can support idea generation, reflective thinking, and knowledge creation.
This workshop aims to show you how you can make the most of the Proceedings of Australian Federal Parliament (1901-present) in your research. We will start by showing you some of how Parliament works through their official transcripts and explore their search interface. Then we will show you how you can take things to the next level with computational tools to analyse a.) the passage of a specific piece of legislation and b.) explore how particular language is used since Australia's Federation.
Dr Sam Hames Research Fellow, UQ
Dr. Sam Hames is a research fellow in computational humanities with UQ's School of Languages and Cultures and works on the Language Data Commons of Australia research infrastructure project. He is co-lead on the Reusable and Accessible Public Interest Documents Project, part of the ARDC Community Data Lab (RAPID-CDL). Sam's PhD was on machine learning for medical imaging analysis, and he has an extensive background as a data-focused software developer supporting social media and web researchers. His primary research focus is to understand how computation can enable qualitative and interpretive inquiry across the humanities and social sciences.
This hands-on workshop introduces participants to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) database and some of its tools, with a focus on genomes, exploring annotations, and using genome browsers and comparative tools. Participants will learn how to efficiently locate genomic resources and interpret genome structure and annotation directly within NCBI.
Dr Roy Barkan Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Varroa Neurotransmitter Receptor Biology,School of Health, UniSC
Dr Roy Barkan is a Research Fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast specialising in genomics and bioinformatics. His research applies multi-omics approaches to address complex biological questions, with a focus on genome assembly, comparative genomics, and transcriptomics. Roy is passionate about molecular biology, genetics and bioinformatics.
This workshop introduces software designed for long-form academic writing, highlighting its capacity to help researchers organise their thoughts, structure chapters, and support conceptual thinking. Software like Scrivener and its freeware alternatives are project-based systems, with entire manuscripts residing in a single hierarchised file. Unlike Word's document-centric approach, these programs integrate structure and content management, enabling researchers to store multiple drafts, compile references and notes, and to experiment with restructuring sections and chapters with ease. This focus prioritises developmental thinking over the pressure to produce polished writing immediately. Participants will learn how these programs enable 'writing for thinking' rather than 'writing up' and reduce the chaos of multiple open documents during thesis or manuscript development.
Dr Madeline Taylor Senior Lecturer, QUT
Dr Madeline Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion, based in the School of Design. Her qualitative thematic research examines fashion consumption behaviour change and costume practice. She has recently published her first book with Routledge, Costumers at Work: Collaborative Creativity, Emotional Labour and Technical Skill in Costume Making, which was based on her PhD from University of Melbourne. She is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Chair of ScenoLab Australia, and Books Editor for Studies in Costume and Performance.
This interactive session introduces researchers to practical uses of large language models (LLMs) across the research lifecycle. It combines conceptual understanding with hands-on demonstrations of real workflows.
Participants will:
The session is designed to be accessible across disciplines, with examples from scientific and data-driven research.
Dr Moji Ghadimi Head of Applied AI and Quantum Algorithms, QCIF
Dr Moji Ghadimi is Head of Applied AI and Quantum Algorithms at QCIF. He has worked across academia, government, and industry on large-scale data science, AI, and computational research projects. His current work focuses on applied AI systems, scientific workflows, and accelerating research through intelligent automation.
Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) is revolutionizing how we study biodiversity, allowing us to listen to ecosystems at scales previously impossible. However, the sheer volume of audio data can be overwhelming. This hands-on workshop introduces Open Ecoacoustics, Australia's national infrastructure for managing and analysing environmental sound.
We will navigate the transition from deploying a sensor in the field to generating actionable conservation insights. Participants will receive a guided tour of Ecosounds and the A20 desktop tool, learning how to securely upload massive datasets and leverage cutting-edge AI. We’ll explore how tools like Google's Perch & BirdNet AI foundation models allow researchers to build species recognizers that scan thousands of hours of audio in minutes. Finally, we’ll discuss how to translate these acoustic detections into robust reports and downstream spatial models to inform policy and habitat management.
Anthony Truskinger Technical Lead, RS Engineer, Open EcoAcoustics
Anthony Truskinger is a research software engineer and Technical Lead at Open EcoAcoustics, an ARDC Planet Research Data Commons project. He leads the development of open infrastructure and standards for ecoacoustic data and research software, enabling reproducible and scalable research. His work focuses on building software systems and data pipelines for analysing large environmental audio datasets for biodiversity monitoring.
He completed his PhD at QUT in 2015, focusing on ecoacoustics. His work sits at the intersection of software engineering, data-intensive science, and ecology, with contributions to platforms and open-source tools used to process and interpret large acoustic datasets. His publications cover bioacoustic event detection, annotation systems, and large-scale environmental monitoring workflows.
Successful industry‑engaged research depends on more than technical expertise — it requires strong relational capability. This interactive workshop explores the relationship competencies researchers need to build, sustain and leverage effective industry partnerships.
Participants will examine practical strategies for trust‑building, boundary spanning, stakeholder intelligence, negotiation and co‑creation. Through applied exercises and real‑world scenarios, attendees will learn how to navigate differing institutional cultures, align expectations, manage risk and design mutually beneficial collaborations.
The session is relevant to HDR candidates, early career researchers and established academics seeking to strengthen the impact and translational potential of their research through industry collaboration.
Shauna Fjaagesund Adjunct Appointee, UniSC
Shauna Fjaagesund is an industry-based researcher associated with the University of the Sunshine Coast and the University of Queensland. She concentrates on creating sustainable community and corporate health and well being models, with a focus on governance and stakeholder partnerships.
Dr Florin Oprescu Associate Professor in Health Promotion (School of Health, Public Health), UniSC
Health promotion and education scholar specialized in mixed methods research - qualitative and quantitative. Passionate about educational development, teaching and learning, health education, health communication and capacity building. Advocate for translation of scientific evidence into practice and of good practice into evidence.
Associate Professor Florin Oprescu was awarded a PhD in Public Health (Community and Behavioural Health) from the University of Iowa in 2009. This is in addition to other formal degrees including Master of Business Administration, Master of Public Health and Medical Doctor.
Understand what an emergent conceptual framework is, identify research contexts and methodological approaches, develop an emergent conceptual framework based on research data, and learn how to write the methodology and discussion chapter.
Dimanthinie De Silva PhD Candidate, QUT
Dimanthinie is a responsible academic in higher education for Information Technology. She serves as a mentor, supervisor, and student advocate, assisting and directing students from the beginning of their undergraduate studies until graduation. She is now pursuing a PhD in Higher Education at Queensland University of Technology, with a research focus on developing an IT graduate who can adapt to the dynamic needs of an IT industry in terms of professional skills and competencies.
What's the difference between important and interesting? How can I prove the impact of my project afterward? What's the direct value of this research?
Whether you're trying to raise a new project or focus an existing one, the humble spreadsheet can be a persuasive guide. And surprisingly easy to impress people with, since it's a convenient wrapping of some high-school algebra.
Post-PhD, I've been working to help get research out of the lab, and into the ocean. I'll discuss how technically-simple spreadsheets have directed research investment, demonstrated impacts at different scales, and reminded us of what matters once research leaves our hands. I'll also discuss the limits of the approach.
We'll also build a what-if model, to demonstrate the process in action, and show how the results can highlight the scope for new work ... and what will be difficult to justify.
Nicholas Dendle Research Engineer, QUT
Nicholas is an operations research specialist, currently working with the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program's Pilot Deployments Program, to help the Great Barrier Reef survive marine heatwaves. This followed a PhD on discrete-event simulation techniques for reducing waste in open-pit mining. The contrast continues to surprise others who aren't yet familiar with Nicholas' pursuit of answering the useful questions rather than the easy ones.
This workshop introduces researchers to the principles of graphical storytelling and the design of clear, publication-ready figures. It focuses on how to plan figures with purpose, so that each image supports the narrative of a paper, thesis, or presentation rather than simply filling space. Topics include a practical checklist for figure design, choosing suitable plotting and design software, improving figure aesthetics, and using simple tools and resources to create cleaner and more effective visuals. Through examples and case studies, participants will learn how to move from raw content to figures that communicate methods, workflows, and results more clearly.
Dr Alireza Y. Bavil Research Fellow, Griffith University
Dr. Alireza Bavil’s areas of expertise include orthopaedic biomechanics, computational modelling, and surgical planning for bone implant systems. Since commencing his PhD at Griffith University, he has developed a highly translational research program focused on patient specific digital twins, neuromusculoskeletal modelling, and finite element analysis for orthopaedic applications. His work bridges clinical insight with advanced biomechanical simulation, with the aim of improving personalised surgical planning for complex procedures such as proximal femoral osteotomies and bone anchored prostheses.
His multidisciplinary approach spans the development of EMG informed neuromusculoskeletal models, high fidelity finite element models using Abaqus, and automated pipelines for digital twin generation. This body of work has led to several high impact publications and has been recognised with multiple awards, including the Excellence in Research Thesis award for his PhD.
In addition to his academic research, Dr. Bavil is strongly committed to translating biomechanical modelling into clinically relevant tools. In his current role as a Research Fellow at Griffith University, he contributes to NHMRC and US DoD funded projects that integrate mechano-acoustic measurements, kinetic analysis, and computational modelling into next generation socket design, bone anchored implant assessment, and orthopaedic surgical workflows.
The famous statistician John Tukey once said: 'The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.' As researchers, identifying this 'unseen' in your data is becoming crucial to publishing your next journal paper. While publishing papers is essential, it’s just a part of research communication; to maximise the impact of your work, it’s vital that you make your research findings accessible and engaging to a wide audience. In this workshop, we will discuss the best methods to communicate the story that your data tells.
Kaitlin Moat Postdoctoral Researcher, UQ
Kaitlin is a postdoctoral researcher working at UQ. During her time in research, she has had to communicate the same data to a wide variety of audiences, from industry partners at Boeing to senior academics at international conferences. Learning how to present the story of your data well is a skill Kaitlin has developed, and hopes to share with you in this workshop.
Explore methods and tools to create publication quality visualisations of structured, tabular data. Tools covered include MS Excel and open-source tool Raw Graphs.
On completion of this hands-on workshop, participants will be familiar with:
Sharron Stapleton Library Research Specialist, Griffith University
Sharron Stapleton is a Research Library Specialist at Griffith Library with over 30 years of experience in information management. She trains and advises researchers on data sourcing, preparation, visualization and publishing, and is a certified Data Carpentry instructor. A strong advocate for open research, Sharron regularly contributes as a trainer at ResBaz.
An update to the original Demystifying AI for Research presented in 2023. This presentation covers the topic of how AI is involved in Research and is an introductory level class for AI beginners. The presentation talks about what AI is and what AI isn't. Covers the common ways researchers can interact with AI and ends by talking about what is going to happen in the future and just how fast AI is developing. It acts as an introduction to the ideas of AI for Research and the more practical follow-up Beginner level workshop.
Robert Fleet Senior Data Scientist, QUT Digital Observatory
Robert Fleet is a Senior Data Scientist and Developer at the QUT Digital Observatory, where he designs innovative platforms and tools to analyse complex human data. With a diverse technical background, Robert has previously served as an eResearch Analyst and as the Technical Lead for a drone surveillance project. His current research focuses on the intersection of behavioural data and digital environments, specifically utilising Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game data. By examining these virtual ecosystems, Robert investigates the organisational structures of criminal groups, leveraging gaming metrics to uncover patterns of illicit collaboration. He combines advanced data science with software development to transform raw digital traces into actionable insights.
This workshop will look at the problems which might be encountered turning messy text data into the very structured data needed for many kinds of computational analysis. As an example, we will start with data collected in an online survey about Australian slang and end with maps showing the comparative distribution of some slang terms across the country. We will look at parts of the workflow where computational approaches are useful (e.g. normalising typography and parsing complex responses), but will also emphasise the decisions which remain the responsibility of the researcher (e.g. categorising responses).
Dr Simon Musgrave , LDaCA / Monash University
Simon Musgrave is Research Support and Training lead for the Language Data Commons of Australia project at The University of Queensland and an Adjunct Research Fellow in the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University. Amongst other research interests, he has been interested throughout his career in the use of technology for linguistic research.
Dr Sam Hames Research Fellow, UQ
Dr. Sam Hames is a research fellow in computational humanities with UQ's School of Languages and Cultures and works on the Language Data Commons of Australia research infrastructure project. He is co-lead on the Reusable and Accessible Public Interest Documents Project, part of the ARDC Community Data Lab (RAPID-CDL). Sam's PhD was on machine learning for medical imaging analysis, and he has an extensive background as a data-focused software developer supporting social media and web researchers. His primary research focus is to understand how computation can enable qualitative and interpretive inquiry across the humanities and social sciences.
This interactive 1.5‑hour workshop helps researchers build confidence in navigating copyright across the research lifecycle. After a short overview of key copyright principles and why they matter, we work through real‑world scenarios - reusing figures, sharing datasets, including images in theses and other publications, and republishing your own work. Researchers will learn how to assess rights, identify risks, and make informed decisions. The session concludes with a live Q&A where participants can explore their own copyright questions.
Rani McLennan Copyright Information Officer, QUT
Rani McLennan is the Copyright Information Officer at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She has over a decade of experience in public, school, and academic libraries. Her interests include the communication of complex information through text and visuals and openly licensed image collections.
Qualitative research projects sometimes get away from us and we find that we have more material than we know what to do with. This workshop aims to give you a pathway for navigating 'too much' with a little bit of computational assistance and *without* giving up on the core qualitative foundation of of your work.
We'll work through a case study and some demonstration tools to help you:
Dr Sam Hames Research Fellow, UQ
Dr. Sam Hames is a research fellow in computational humanities with UQ's School of Languages and Cultures and works on the Language Data Commons of Australia research infrastructure project. He is co-lead on the Reusable and Accessible Public Interest Documents Project, part of the ARDC Community Data Lab (RAPID-CDL). Sam's PhD was on machine learning for medical imaging analysis, and he has an extensive background as a data-focused software developer supporting social media and web researchers. His primary research focus is to understand how computation can enable qualitative and interpretive inquiry across the humanities and social sciences.
AI tools can accelerate coding, but blind trust creates fragile and insecure workflows. This workshop introduces a human in the loop approach to AI assisted programming, focusing on how to work directly with AI outputs while keeping full control of the code. It covers key principles, limitations, and guardrails for responsible use, followed by practical, example driven use of AI for code generation, refactoring, explanation, and testing in real workflows. Designed for researchers who want AI assistance rather than an autopilot.
Rafael Couto Senior eResearch Analyst, Griffith University
Rafael Couto is a Senior eResearch Analyst at Griffith University. With a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, and several years of post-doctoral experience, Rafael brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. They have extensive expertise in teaching, software development, data analysis, high-performance computing (HPC), and programming in Python, C, and Bash. Currently, Rafael focuses on supporting researchers with IT, data management, and training needs.
A novel restoration framework for removing combined and unspecified combinations of degradations present in an image
Anjusree Karnavar PhD Candidate, Griffith University
Anjusree is a Doctoral Researcher at Griffith University, focusing on Computer Vision, Image Restoration, and Deep Learning. Her research develops advanced deep learning and generative AI methods, including diffusion models and Vision Transformers, to restore and enhance degraded visual data for more reliable vision-based systems.Alongside her PhD, she holds a Master of Technology (by Research) in Computer Science and Engineering from Kerala University, India, where she published research in computer vision at national and international conferences. She brings over six years of professional experience across academia and industry. She has worked as an IT Support Officer at Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services (MARSS), Canberra, where she supported IT systems, user training, and technical operations. Prior to that, she spent six years as an Assistant Professor in Computer Science, contributing to teaching, mentoring, and research supervision. She is passionate about applying computer vision and AI to real-world problems, particularly in image understanding, restoration, and generative modeling. She is currently open to opportunities in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and AI roles in industry and research.
Don't let limited computing power slow down your research. The ARDC Nectar Research Cloud provides fast and scalable computing resources tailored specifically for research.
Whether you need to run intensive data analyses and complex simulations, train AI and ML models, manage big data or collaborate seamlessly across institutions, Nectar gives you the computational power to scale up your work.
Join us for an interactive introduction to Nectar, where we'll cover:
No cloud computing or coding experience is required to attend.
Dr Robert Clemens Skills Development Lead at Planet Research Data Commons, ARDC
An ecologist with experience in ornithology and spatial modelling, Rob identifies skills gaps, formulates skills strategies and co-designs skills-related resources, so that the data and analytics delivered through the ARDC Planet Research Data Commons can be used to their full potential by earth and environmental science researchers.
Data scientists rely on Python's numpy, scipy, pandas and matplotlib libraries for most of their analysis. Why is this? Do you know the Python code these packages use?
In this workshop we'll dive into the Python code behind common data science tools, focusing on features often missed during data-oriented tutorials, to bridge the gap between Python for programmers and Python for data scientists.
We'll look at questions like:
Cameron West PhD Candidate, UQ
Cameron is a technology trainer for UQ library and PhD student in atomic physics. He regularly runs Python training and consultations for researchers at the university, and uses the language in the computational aspects of his research (along with C++), which involves performing atomic structure calculations for exotic systems and interactions.
This hands-on workshop introduces dyadic data analysis using R, focusing on data collected from interdependent pairs (e.g., partners, students–teachers, supervisors–employees). Participants will learn the logic of dyadic data, key assumptions, and how to apply appropriate statistical models in R through practical examples.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to identify dyadic data structures and conduct a basic dyadic data analysis using R.Salinda Weerasinghe PhD Candidate, QUT
I am a PhD student at QUT and a researcher committed to enhancing societal well-being by fostering collaboration between organisations and consumers to address their challenges. My research has been recognised at both national and international levels, earning me prestigious awards such as the Presidential Research Award, Emerald Literati Award, University Excellence Research Award, Vice Chancellor Research Award, and Faculty Excellence Research Award within a relatively short period of my academic career. My findings have been published in esteemed journals, including the Journal of Knowledge Management, Knowledge and Innovation, International Journal of Education Management, Industry and Higher Education, and Quality Assurance in Education.
Do you have more text than you know what to do with? Did you collect data including text for your project and now feel overwhelmed when you try to analyse? Is there too much? Are you doing the same thing over and over again and feeling like you're not using your time efficiently? Are you worried about missing the forest for the trees (or the trees for the forest)? If any of these apply to you (or you're just interested in learning more) this workshop is for you.
This workshop will introduce the fundamentals of computational text analysis using LADAL. We'll start with the key questions of why and where computational methods might be appropriate for your work before demonstrating a few key computational methods that are relevant for many researchers.
Dr Martin Schweinberger Senior Lecturer, Director of Research, UQ, LADAL
Martin Schweinberger uses big data and computational methods to explore the messy, fascinating reality of how people actually talk—including all the swear words, filler words, and informal expressions that traditional language education overlooks. As a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the University of Queensland, he bridges the gap between computer science and linguistics to understand how language evolves in our digital age.
Dr Sam Hames Research Fellow, UQ
Dr. Sam Hames is a research fellow in computational humanities with UQ's School of Languages and Cultures and works on the Language Data Commons of Australia research infrastructure project. He is co-lead on the Reusable and Accessible Public Interest Documents Project, part of the ARDC Community Data Lab (RAPID-CDL). Sam's PhD was on machine learning for medical imaging analysis, and he has an extensive background as a data-focused software developer supporting social media and web researchers. His primary research focus is to understand how computation can enable qualitative and interpretive inquiry across the humanities and social sciences.
This interactive workshop offers a beginner level explanation of agentic workflows for research. This workshop covers the change in approaches to using AI for research from simple prompt-based linear chats to more flexible and capable agentic workflows. Rather than providing a complex multi-step prompt researchers can build focused AI-powered tools to accomplish specific tasks in a process while still maintaining control over the entire process. The workshop also demonstrates how these tools can be orchestrated by a supervising AI to allow for even more flexibility and power. The workshop contains a demonstration and audience-based exercises designed to get researchers to think about how these agents can be used in their research. Finally we talk about the future of what agentic workflows tools might be and discuss the current limitations of agents found in the foundation models.
Robert Fleet Senior Data Scientist, QUT Digital Observatory
Robert Fleet is a Senior Data Scientist and Developer at the QUT Digital Observatory, where he designs innovative platforms and tools to analyse complex human data. With a diverse technical background, Robert has previously served as an eResearch Analyst and as the Technical Lead for a drone surveillance project. His current research focuses on the intersection of behavioural data and digital environments, specifically utilising Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game data. By examining these virtual ecosystems, Robert investigates the organisational structures of criminal groups, leveraging gaming metrics to uncover patterns of illicit collaboration. He combines advanced data science with software development to transform raw digital traces into actionable insights.
This workshop introduces the WildObs Image Platform and demonstrates how it can streamline camera trap data processing. Participants will learn the step-by-step workflow for uploading camera trap images, running automated species classification using AI models, and verifying results through the platform’s human-in-the-loop review system. We will also show how processed datasets can be downloaded and used for further ecological analysis and reporting.
Dr Zachary Amir Principal Data Scientist, TERN / UQ
Zachary Amir is a Principal Data Scientist working for TERN to develop the Wildlife Observatory of Australia (WildObs). Zachary's particular focus is on developing the WildObs database, a large standardized collection of camera trapping observations, deployments, and media that is accessible to researchers and biodiversity data aggregators. Zachary completed his PhD at UQ in 2024, having worked across the lifecycle of camera-trapping data, from fieldwork to research publications.
In an era of rapidly increasing data volume and accessibility, the ability to design effective data visualisations is a critical research skill. In this workshop we will explore what makes a “good” plot good through a focus on the philosophy, physiology, and narrative storytelling role of visualisation, rather than on specific tools or software. Drawing on principles of human perception, cognition, and scientific storytelling, the session discusses how design choices shape what readers actually see and understand. This workshop aims to provide participants with a transferable understanding of design principles for creating visualisations that distil complex information into clear, meaningful, and persuasive research narratives.
Dr Jesse Sharp Postdoctoral Fellow, QUT
Dr Jesse Sharp is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Mathematical Sciences at QUT, and co-leads the Environment, Agriculture & Natural Systems theme at the QUT Centre for Data Science. His research sits at the intersection of mathematical modelling, data science and statistics, applied to industry based projects in ecology and agriculture. In shaping this session, Jesse draws on a breadth of experience spanning his research activities, his lecturing in data visualisation at QUT, and his earlier work as an economist at Deloitte.
This practical session will walk you through the essentials of curating your ORCID profile to streamline future ARC and NHMRC grant applications and otherwise captialise on your ORCID.
Thematic analysis has become a popular method in the humanities and other disciplines. However, the process of extracting codes and developing themes can be confusing, tedious and time consuming. The markup and notation tool Obsidian makes thematic coding much faster and more useful. This workshop shows how to set up your Obsidian workspace for thematic analysis, including creating the relevant bases and templates. It then goes through the process of coding a short piece of text to illustrate a suggested way to record text codes and themes.
Want to build an AI assistant that guides learning rather than just handing out answers? This 1-hour demo walks through deploying a secure, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot using Dify on the ARDC Nectar Research Cloud.
Using an Information Data Spaces (IDSA) learning mentor as our practical use-case, we will demystify the end-to-end pipeline:
Finally, we will explore registering any future RAG training chatbot you develop on DReSA (dresa.org.au), Australia’s national registry for training events and materials, to ensure your tool reaches a nationwide audience.
Dr Robert Clemens Skills Development Lead at Planet Research Data Commons, ARDC
An ecologist with experience in ornithology and spatial modelling, Rob identifies skills gaps, formulates skills strategies and co-designs skills-related resources, so that the data and analytics delivered through the ARDC Planet Research Data Commons can be used to their full potential by earth and environmental science researchers.
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping research practice, yet many researchers remain unsure where to begin, how to use AI responsibly, or how to meaningfully integrate it into their existing workflows.
This presentation introduces practical, research-focused uses of generative AI tools that can support HDR students, early career researchers, and supervisors across disciplines. Participants will explore how GenAI can assist with literature review, research planning, writing support, coding, data analysis, and research communication with a strong emphasis on ethical and transparent use.
The session will also showcase the eGrad School platform, which offers open-access digital modules designed to strengthen researchers’ AI literacy, digital capability, and professional skills. Together, these tools and resources aim to empower researchers to work smarter, more efficiently, and with integrity in an evolving digital research landscape.
Aleksandra Olechnowicz , QUT
Aleksandra Olechnowicz is the eGrad School Online Module Coordinator within the Graduate Research Education Development team at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). She leads the design and delivery of digital and professional capability modules for HDR students and researchers across Australia and internationally.
Her work focuses on digital research skills, ethical AI use, research communication, and accessible online research training. She coordinates the annual eGrad School Global Conference and collaborates with national and international partners to enhance researcher development.
Aleksandra is passionate about practical, accessible AI literacy that empowers researchers to work smarter — without compromising research integrity.
Murray Lane , QUT
Murray Lane is a Senior lecturer and Learning Designer within Graduate Research Education Development team at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is a research development and digital innovation specialist with extensive experience supporting researchers and research students across disciplines. His work focuses on strengthening digital capability, improving research practices, and enhancing engagement through technology-enabled learning environments.
Murray has contributed to the design and delivery of research training initiatives that empower HDR students and early career researchers to improve their research skills and digital research practices. His interests include applications of AI in research contexts, research communication, and practical strategies that improve productivity while maintaining research integrity.
He is passionate about making digital tools accessible, practical, and meaningful for researchers at all stages of their careers.
This session explores how cinematic thinking and real-time visualisation practices are applied in contemporary creative industries to communicate ideas, narratives, and complex information. Drawing from professional experience in virtual production and real-time cinematic workflows, the session provides insight into how visual storytelling is designed, constructed, and communicated in practice.
The session presents industry case studies and visual breakdowns of real-world projects to demonstrate how cinematic language is translated into real-time environments. Key areas of focus include framing, lighting, camera movement, composition, and narrative design within immersive and screen-based contexts.
Participants will also engage in guided discussion activities that explore how these approaches can inform research communication and interdisciplinary creative practice. The session is designed to be accessible to a broad audience and does not require prior technical experience.
Dimitri Josephine PhD Candidate, QUT
Dimitri Josephine is a Creative Technologist and Virtual Production pioneer in Southeast Asia, specialising in real-time visual storytelling using Unreal Engine. She is the first Unreal Engine Authorized Instructor in Indonesia and among the first in Southeast Asia focused on virtual production.
She is also recognised as the first Virtual Art Director in the region, bridging cinematic direction, spatial design, and real-time technology to redefine immersive storytelling workflows.
With over 80 industry projects across commercials, music videos, film, television, and immersive experiences, Dimitri has played a key role in shaping virtual production practices in Southeast Asia. She is a Women in Games Ambassador, Women in Tech Ambassador, and currently leads the Unreal Engine Indonesian chapter. She was also recognised as part of the 100 Women Creators in Asia for her work in UEFN development.
She is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Arts at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), focusing on real-time technologies and creative practice research.
Python can be surprisingly difficult to set up well, partly because there are so many options. We'll cover some of the differences, pros and cons, and have some time to troubleshoot issues that you might be encountering.
We'll cover questions like,
Cameron West PhD Candidate, UQ
Cameron is a technology trainer for UQ library and PhD student in atomic physics. He regularly runs Python training and consultations for researchers at the university, and uses the language in the computational aspects of his research (along with C++), which involves performing atomic structure calculations for exotic systems and interactions.
In this session, the participants will learn about a new ethical framework to collect data from social media platforms (Instagram, YouTube, ChatGPT) using data download packages (DDPs) for social science research. I will introduce:
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to:
Dr Bogdan Mamaev Research Training Manager, Australian Internet Observatory
Bogdan Mamaev is the Research Training Manager at the Australian Internet Observatory. Specialising in digital methods for data collection, he researches how citizens participate in politics across different contexts, and explores how we can utilise the latest, cutting-edge technologies to understand our societies better.
Participants will be introduced to the effective use of gen AI tools for conducting literature reviews, as well as navigating ethical considerations in their application.
Amanda Pearson Discipline Librarian, Griffith University Library
Amanda Pearson is a Discipline Librarian with Researcher Services at Griffith University Library, specialising in advanced literature searching and systematic‑style review methodologies. She supports researchers in navigating AI‑enabled discovery tools, optimising researcher profiles, interpreting research metrics responsibly, and engaging with contemporary scholarly publishing practices.
Before joining Griffith University, Amanda held roles at the University of Queensland, James Cook University, and the Herston Medical Library, building deep expertise across clinical and research‑intensive environments. She is a committed advocate for Open Research and Responsible Research Assessment, and is passionate about empowering researchers to strengthen their information literacy and research impact.
Sharron Stapleton Library Research Specialist, Griffith University
Sharron Stapleton is a Research Library Specialist at Griffith Library with over 30 years of experience in information management. She trains and advises researchers on data sourcing, preparation, visualization and publishing, and is a certified Data Carpentry instructor. A strong advocate for open research, Sharron regularly contributes as a trainer at ResBaz.
This workshop will demonstrate best practices in using Microsoft Excel for research, as well as advanced functions and capabilities.
The content covered by this workshop will include:
Exploring Gen AI use for editing and proofreading, issues, concerns, and ensuring you maintain your authorial voice.
Dr Sara Hutchinson Student Success Adviser, UniSC
Dr Sara Hutchinson works at UniSC as a Student Success and Learning adviser and has a background in written communication. She taught into Creative writing and English at the university before taking up the professional role where she specialises in HDR support including running Academic Writing Month and one-on-one writing sessions.
In this session, participants will learn about neurodivergence and research. Topics will include disability standards in education, reasonable adjustments, and the relational approach to supervision – including how to work well with their supervisors. This will be supported through scenario-based content and practical activities. Participants will leave the session with a completed checklist and reflection detailing how they work best, which they can then apply in conversations with their research supervisors.
Dr Abbe Winter Writing Coach & Researcher, QUT
Dr Abbe Winter (SFHEA) is a results-driven writing wellbeing specialist, collaborative mentor, and independent researcher, skilled in the analysis of words and data for user needs. Abbe is a researcher trainer, leader, and mentor, with over 20 years’ experience in quality assurance, and change and project management. While her PhD focused on what helps workers in higher education cope with large-scale organisational change, and she was part of the small team that created and developed the concept of academagogy (the scholarly leadership of learning), her more recent research has focussed upon professional identity, developing writing skills, and reflective practice.
Jillian Blacker HDR Client Services Manager (Client Support), QUT
Jill Blacker is an innovative administrative manager with over 15 years’ experience in the higher education sector working across many different areas including action research projects focused on the widening participation agenda. She has extensive experience providing support to researchers, supervisors, and academic leaders on all aspects of higher degree research; and has a proven track record of resolving complex cases to ensure mutually agreeable outcomes. She is a confident mentor and coach and has been drawn to learning about mental health practices and strategies to provide support to researchers and supervisors. Building relationships and working collaboratively and creatively is a key component of her professional practice. She is a Fellow of Advance HE.
Amy Webster Senior Disability Adviser, QUT
Amy Webster is a Senior Disability Adviser committed to fostering inclusive pedagogy. She brings experience from roles in disability education and sport in the UK, including coordinating training and development at the National Autistic Society. In Australia, Amy has worked at the Queensland Human Rights Commission, developing and delivering training to ensure anti-discrimination and human rights legislation is understood and applied in practice. She champions neuroaffirming practices that are embedded, not added.
Ever wanted to run bioinformatics tools from the command line but didn't know where to start? This hands-on workshop is designed for researchers with no programming background who want to harness the power of AI to make genomics analysis faster and less intimidating.
We will work through a complete beginner workflow in four practical steps. First, participants will be introduced to the Linux command line through Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) — no prior Linux experience required. Second, we will install NCBI BLAST+ locally, covering the essential steps of setting up a real bioinformatics tool in a Linux environment. Third, and most importantly, participants will learn how to use a freely available large language model (such as ChatGPT) to generate, explain, and troubleshoot Bash scripts for running BLAST searches — turning natural language questions into working code without writing a single line yourself. Finally, time permitting, we will demonstrate how an AI agent can go one step further: autonomously executing BLAST queries, parsing outputs, and returning results on your behalf.
By the end of this session, participants will be comfortable navigating a Linux terminal, will have a working BLAST installation, and will leave with a practical mental model for using AI as a coding assistant in their own research — applicable well beyond BLAST to any command-line bioinformatics tool.
All you need is a laptop with WSL2 installed. A setup guide will be circulated to registered participants before the session.
Dr Min Zhao Senior Research Fellow, UniSC
Dr Min Zhao is a Senior Lecturer at UniSC, School of Science, Technology and Engineering, specialising in bioinformatics and genomics. He graduated from Peking University in 2009 with a PhD and subsequently undertook a Postdoctoral Research Fellow position at Vanderbilt University, USA, where he focused on the analysis and integration of high-throughput genomic, transcriptome, and literature data in complex diseases.
Dr Zhao joined UniSC as a Research Fellow in 2014, leading an emerging group in the GeneCology Research Centre to integrate multi-dimensional data, including genome, transcriptome, and proteomics datasets. In 2018, he was promoted to Senior Research Fellow. He has supervised four PhD students and co-supervised two additional PhD students, fostering a collaborative research environment that has attracted approximately A$500,000 in scholarships and training grants.
His research focuses on the investigation of genetic regulation using large-scale genomics data, with an increasing emphasis on integrating artificial intelligence techniques, particularly large language models and intelligent agents, to enhance the analysis, interpretation, and translational impact of multi-omics datasets. He has published 115 research papers in international peer-reviewed journals, including 82 as lead or corresponding author, with over 5,400 citations and an H-index of 35 (Google Scholar). Approximately 50 percent of his publications are among the top 10 percent most cited articles worldwide, and 10 manuscripts appear in top-ranked journals (Top 5 percent including Nature, Nature Communications, Cell Research, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine).
Dr Zhao has developed widely used computational frameworks and databases, including TSGene (Tumor Suppressor Gene), which has received 750+ citations, been cited in 12 patents, and supported single-cell-based CRISPR/Cas9 design. Since 2017, he has conducted or co-led research projects totalling A$469,616, including an ARC Discovery Project as Chief Investigator.
His scientific contributions are recognised through editorial service on boards including PLoS One, PeerJ, and PeerJ Computer Science, and as a regular reviewer for leading journals such as Nucleic Acids Research and Bioinformatics. He has served as a program committee member for six international bioinformatics conferences, keynote speaker and session chair for six international conferences, and is actively involved in scientific leadership roles, including Vice President of the Australia New Zealand Marine Biotechnology Society, committee member of Research Bazaar Queensland (2023–2025), National Research Bazaar Network, and The International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine.
Dr Zhao is regularly invited to review grants for national and international funding bodies, including NHMRC (2023–2025), ARC (2021–2025), and the National Science Centre Poland (2019–2024), reflecting his standing in the genomics and bioinformatics research community.
We are going deep into analysis of GPS data for athlete performance modelling. We will work with Trail Running data, but analysis methods are transfereable to a wide array of disciplines.
Background: The use of automation tools to assist in systematic review production is becoming more common. Most tools assist with, 1) identifying and removing duplicate records and 2) screening and selection of relevant studies. The Evidence Review Accelerator (TERA) supports all tasks in review production. TERA assists with designing the review question, searching for and deduplicating studies, selecting studies, data extraction, conducting multiple types of meta-analysis and writing the methods and results.
TERA is purpose built by the two-week systematic review team (2weekSR) to enable full reviews to be completed in vastly reduced timeframes. We published an analysis of 10 of our reviews showing median time to completion was 11 workdays.
Objectives: This workshop will show participants how to use TERA and how it fits into review workflows to improve the speed and quality of conducting systematic reviews.
Description: The workshop will comprise live demonstrations of TERA, conducted by the TERA developers and expert users of the tools. The live demonstration will be interspersed with hands on tutorials in using the tools. Interactive feedback with the presenters will be encouraged, and sufficient time for this is incorporated in the design of the workshop. The expert skills of the presenters in both conducting reviews and using the tools is a key component of the workshop. All the tools in the workshop are free and available to be used via the Evidence Review Accelerator website: https://tera-tools.com/
Activities/Interaction Plans: The workshop will comprise of the following plan: 1) a brief introduction; 2) an interactive component with the presenters and participants designing and writing a review using the Methods Wizard; 3) a demonstration of creating focused searches using the Word Frequency Analyser, SearchRefiner, Polyglot Search Translator and the Deduplicator; 4) a demonstration of Generative AI powered screening using MechaScreener; 5) a demonstration of citation searching with SpiderCite; 6) interactive discussion and demonstration of the meta-analysis tools, MetaInsight, MetaDTA, MetaWise; 7) Using TERA Farmer to test whether all relevant studies have been found.
Justin Clark Research Fellow in Evidence Review Acceleration, Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University
Justin Clark is a Research Fellow in Evidence Review Acceleration at the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare (IEBH). He is also the Cochrane Information Specialist for the Acute Respiratory Infections Group, was a member of the Cochrane Information Specialists Executive and the Co-Lead of the search group of the Living Evidence Network. He is one of the inventors of the Two-Week Systematic Review (2weekSR) method, a founding member of the International Collaboration for the Automation of Systematic Reviews (ICASR) and leads the development of the Systematic Review Accelerator (SRA), a suite of automation tools that accelerate the production of evidence synthesis. His research focuses on improving evidence synthesis methods to reduce the resources needed to conduct reviews of the evidence.
AI tools are increasingly used by researchers to translate documents, draft communications, and process data across languages. But translation is only part of the challenge — and often the easier part. This session draws on real examples from ethnographic fieldwork in rural Yunnan, China, to explore where AI tools genuinely help, where they fall short, and what the researcher must bring that AI cannot. We will look at three concrete cases. Participants will leave with practical strategies for integrating AI into multilingual research workflows while maintaining cultural rigour and research ethics.
Jenny Tang , UQ
Jenny Tang is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, researching specialty coffee production in Yunnan, China. A multilingual researcher fluent in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, she has conducted four months of ethnographic fieldwork with ethnic minority farming communities in Menglian County, where navigating research across two languages and two very different audiences — academic and rural — required her to develop practical AI-assisted workflows for translation, participant communication, and cultural adaptation.
Most scientific presentations fail not because the research is weak—but because the story is buried.
This workshop teaches researchers how to transform results and complex science into compelling, logically structured presentations without sacrificing rigor. Participants will learn how to apply narrative principles to scientific talks—clarifying their core message, structuring results for maximum impact, and designing slides that support thinking rather than distract from it.
Through real examples and practical frameworks, attendees will leave with concrete tools to:
This is not a workshop on aesthetics. It is a workshop on thinking clearly—and making that thinking visible.
Dr Georgia Kafer Senior Lecturer, School of Health, UniSC
Dr. Georgia Kafer is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast and a core researcher within the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research. She earned her Ph.D. in Physiology from The University of Queensland, where she investigated epigenetic patterning during preimplantation development. Following her doctoral training, she completed a prestigious Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship at Kyoto University before returning to Australia to join the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) as a research fellow and then in 2021, Dr. Kafer established the Fetal and Maternal Health Research Group at UniSC, including the development of the university’s first stem cell culture facilities. Her research program, supported by NHMRC funding, spans basic science, clinical research, and public health, with a focus on fetal and reproductive health.
Dr. Kafer has extensive experience communicating complex scientific concepts to diverse audiences. Her postdoctoral work in Japan strengthened her ability to present effectively to non–native English-speaking researchers, while her work with Pacific communities through the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research has further developed her cross-cultural communication skills. In addition, her role as a research fellow and ambassador for the Jeans for Genes charity at CMRI refined her capacity to translate rigorous science for broad public audiences. She is deeply committed to mentoring early-career researchers and supporting students to become clear, confident, and thoughtful scientific communicators.
EcoCommons Australia offers a comprehensive suite of resources for ecological modelling, including an intuitive, user-friendly platform featuring thousands of trusted datasets and a range of expert-developed workflows for species distribution and community modelling.
This workshop will begin with a brief introduction into species distribution model (SDM) theory, followed by a guided tour of the EcoCommons platform and coding notebook workflows. There will also be a focus on selecting appropriate occurrence and environmental data for research aims and questions.
We will cover:
By the end of the workshop, attendees will understand how to:
Dr Ryan Newis Software Developer (R Specialist), QCIF
Dr Ryan Newis is an ecological data scientist and modeller with extensive experience in environmental science, data integration and analysis, species distribution modelling, and reproducible research workflows. As lead investigator on state and national projects, he develops scalable ecological modelling tools that inform biodiversity management and conservation planning. At QCIF, he contributes to the advancement of digital research infrastructure such as the EcoCommons platform, reproducible coding notebooks, and delivering stakeholder-driven environmental solutions. With a PhD from Griffith University in landscape and insect ecology, he combines strong analytical expertise, technical leadership, and applied research to bridge science and policy outcomes.
This interactive workshop introduces a structured and data-driven approach to conducting literature reviews using Excel-based matrix outlining and Power BI dashboards. Participants will learn how to design and build a relational literature review database that supports systematic organization, citation extraction, and writing alignment for academic research (e.g., theses, journal articles, and systematic reviews).
The session will cover:
By the end of the workshop, participants will have a reusable workflow to manage, analyse, and operationalise literature for research writing.
Luis Alberto Porras PhD Candidate, QUT
Luis Alberto Porras is a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), specialising in learning analytics, blended learning, and educational design research. His research focuses on how teachers use learning analytics dashboards to solve problems of practice and support data-informed decision-making.He has developed systematic and data-driven workflows for literature reviews, integrating Excel-based matrix outlining with Power BI dashboards to support academic writing, synthesis, and research design. His work is grounded in pragmatism and focuses on practical, transferable research methods for higher education contexts.
An introduction to Python that places an emphasis on working with and visualising tabular data.
Note that this workshop runs over 1.5 days, from 9:30 am on Tuesday 23rd, to 12:30 pm on Wednesday 24th. Please only book this workshop if you plan to attend it in its entirety.
Joanna Salerno Data Scientist and Developer, QCIF
As a Data Scientist and Developer at QCIF, I partner with researchers to understand their project needs and deliver tailored data science support, from configuring REDCap projects and developing custom software tools, to data analysis and statistical consulting. I also facilitate workshops to help researchers build skills in programming, statistical analysis, data management, and research communication.
Dr Vicki Thomson Support Specialist, QUT Research Infrastructure
Vicki Thomson is a support specialist at QUT’s Research Infrastructure, where she provides comprehensive support to researchers running their analyses on the supercomputer. Vicki provides advice about how to optimise supercomputer resource use and delivers workshops designed to help researchers upskill on the supercomputer. Vicki has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology, and has previously worked as a Research Fellow in the field.
Rafael Couto Senior eResearch Analyst, Griffith University
Rafael Couto is a Senior eResearch Analyst at Griffith University. With a PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, and several years of post-doctoral experience, Rafael brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. They have extensive expertise in teaching, software development, data analysis, high-performance computing (HPC), and programming in Python, C, and Bash. Currently, Rafael focuses on supporting researchers with IT, data management, and training needs.
Kasia Koziara Senior Data Analyst, UQ
Kasia is an experienced data professional with a background spanning academia, non-profit, and government sectors. She is passionate about higher education, STEM outreach, and public engagement.
Kasia works as a Senior Data Analyst at The University of Queensland. In addition to her analytical expertise, she is a certified The Carpentries instructor and has delivered training workshops through Curtin University and QCIF, supporting researchers and students in developing practical computational and data skills.
Dr Ade Adeyinka , QCIF
Ade is a trainer with QCIF and has about 20 years of experience as a statistician. Previously, he was the digital research analyst at Southern Cross University (SCU) and the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). He specializes in the application of quantitative and qualitative techniques in proffering solutions to financial, social and management problems. His PhD thesis was on the application of weather index-insurance in managing drought risks among Australian farmers.
An introduction to R that places an emphasis on making data analysis reproducible, using examples of data processing and visualisation.
Note that this workshop runs over 1.5 days, from 9:30 am on Tuesday 23rd, to 12:30 pm on Wednesday 24th. Please only book this workshop if you plan to attend it in its entirety.
Dr Riad Akhundov Senior eResearch Analyst, Griffith
Riad Akhundov is a Senior eResearch Analyst in the eResearch and Specialised Advisory department at Griffith University. His PhD focused on Computational Biomechanics (i.e., computer/data science applied to human motion). As a eResearch Analyst, Riad is involved in various projects and collaborations, including instructing/assisting with workshops, helping researchers and students with their coding/IT/statistical needs, and building an eResearch knowledge base.
Stéphane Guillou Technology Trainer, Library, UQ
Stéphane is a Technology Trainer at The University of Queensland Library. Having studied plant science and ecology, he worked as a research assistant at the School of Agriculture, before moving to the Library to teach about research software, data visualisation and programming. He is passionate about Open Research principles, skill-sharing about Open Source tools, and environmental conservation. He is a certified Carpentries Insutructor Trainer.
Joanna Salerno Data Scientist and Developer, QCIF
As a Data Scientist and Developer at QCIF, I partner with researchers to understand their project needs and deliver tailored data science support, from configuring REDCap projects and developing custom software tools, to data analysis and statistical consulting. I also facilitate workshops to help researchers build skills in programming, statistical analysis, data management, and research communication.
Dr Vicki Thomson Support Specialist, QUT Research Infrastructure
Vicki Thomson is a support specialist at QUT’s Research Infrastructure, where she provides comprehensive support to researchers running their analyses on the supercomputer. Vicki provides advice about how to optimise supercomputer resource use and delivers workshops designed to help researchers upskill on the supercomputer. Vicki has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology, and has previously worked as a Research Fellow in the field.
Dr Danny Meloncelli Head, Skills & Training, QCIF
Danny leads QCIF’s digital research training program, overseeing the development and delivery of high-impact courses that equip researchers with critical skills in coding, statistics, data management and bioinformatics. Danny has a PhD in Analytical Chemistry and a Master of Data Science. Prior to joining QCIF at the start of this year, Danny was a STEM Learning Adviser at UniSC for over a decade. Danny has a passion for simplifying complexity, upskilling others, fostering a growth mindset, and harnessing the power of education to create lasting impact.