Student topics

Legume-supported value chains, from production to consumption, provide benefits to people and nature that include improved ecosystem functions and resource use efficiency, as well as farmed animal and human health provisions. Environmental co-benefits of legumes include reduced nitrate leaching, increased food sources for pollinators, a greater structural diversity of farmland, and improved soil fertility. Despite the potential of legumes to improve the sustainability of cropping systems and enhance human health, the production and consumption of legumes in Australia is low.Multiple …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Biology and Environmental Science

Research centre(s)

Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy

As the world transitions from fossil fuels to biomass based fuels there is a corresponding drive to create new technologies to enable this situation to come to fruition.Biofuels represent one option in terms of mitigating the impacts of global warming.The conversion of biomass to biofuels typically requires a catalyst. Many different materials have been investigated, with zeolites showing considerable promise.However, zeolite catalysts can be expensive and thus there is a challenge to create new catalysts which are low cost.This project …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

LiDAR geo-spatial data (3D coordinates) are freely available from government websites such as "QSpatial data portal". Alternatively, the use of drones have also become popular in aerial surveys and imagery.The geospatial data from these sources include 3D coordinates of various built structure. The data can be downloaded (in case of LiDAR) or processed from images (in case of drone survey) to create actual 3D picture of building structures. This work is commonly done using rendering software. The use of this …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for the Environment

Recovering, recycling, reuse and reducing waste in the health sector becomes more and more important as it will help hospitals to become more sustainable and to reduce their impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Life cycle assessments of materials, for examples plastic packaging, is an important tool to establish the best practice for recovery and recycling of these materials.

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for a Waste-Free World

Many industries generate copious amounts of waste products.Of particular interest are those wastes generated by the mining sector as typically a large fraction of the ore bodies are dumped or the agricultural sector.Potential solutions we are investigating include:converting aluminosilicate waste to zeolitestransforming inorganic waste to catalyst materialscreation of materials for water and wastewater treatmentmaking activated carbonrenewable fuels,

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Barriers to health care for regional/rural residents often relate to the limited availability of local health services and resources and the distance needed to seek suitable specialised services. Wounds experienced in rural and regional areas are often dependent upon the types of employment available, recreational pursuits and risk-taking behaviours.The prevalence of non-communicable lifestyle related risk factors (such as obesity and poor nutrition) and the propensity for an ageing population in rural and regional areas, positions this population group as one …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Venous leg ulcers (VLUs) make up 70% of all chronic leg ulcers. Unfortunately, around 30% of VLUs fail to heal in a 24-week period often despite evidence-based practice. Chronic VLUs impose a significant burden on people with these ulcers. Disease related distress has been explored in diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease but has not been explored in chronic wounds.Research has completed phase one of this study (secondary analysis of existing data), phase two (focus group to explore the findings), phase …

Study level

Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Approximately 30% of venous leg ulcers (VLUs) fail to respond to evidence-based treatments and remain unhealed; while after healing, 60–70% of ulcers recur. Currently most clinicians use only their experience to identify patients with VLUs at high risk of failure to heal or recurrence after healing.To address this problem objectively, this project team has developed and validated two risk assessment tools to identify patients at high risk of failure to heal or ulcer recurrence. A prospective, multi-site study has demonstrated …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Cities are changing across the globe. Climate change, rapid urbanisation, pandemics, as well as innovations in technologies such as blockchain, AI and IoT are all impacting urban space. One response to such changes has been to make cities ecologically sustainable and 'smart'. The 'eco smart city', for instance, uses networked sensing, cloud and mobile computing to optimise, control, and regulate urban processes and resources. From real-time bus information, autonomous electric vehicles, smart parking, and smart street lighting, such initiatives are …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples suffer disproportionally from diet-related conditions in Australia. Much current research is deficit based, however this body of work aims to be strengths based. Research projects could include, but are not limited to:a descriptive/explorative of food literacy among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people using an assets based framework exploring positive deviants.a food sovereignty project to describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander foodways. This could be applied to a particular nation group. It could be …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences

The training of a specialised community and public health nutrition (CPHN) workforce assumes they are optimally placed to address food and nutrition issues at a population and community level. However, concomitant with the rise of diet as the leading risk factor contributing to the burden of disease in Australia, has been a dramatic disinvestment in this workforcePermanent, full time nutritionist positions embedded in communities or population settings are few. If an organisation invests in a nutrition intervention it is increasingly …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences

Australia has a multicultural population, with approximately 30% of the population from diverse backgrounds. We will propose a program of research encompassing the development of assessment processes and also interventions, addressing the diverse needs of this population, Proposed research will build upon work already undertaken by the team in collaboration with Education Queensland including Milpera State School. Methodologies to date have been broadly based, including both quantitative and qualitative approaches. These have included the examination of psychometric properties of scales …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

School

School of Psychology and Counselling

Research centre(s)

Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies