Student topics

2D materials are crystalline materials with only a single layer thickness. The best known 2D materials is graphene, but it also encompasses a large family of materials , such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs).2D materials are set for breakthroughs in fundamental research and transformative technologies. They have few surface dangling bonds and unique atomic-level uniformity which make them very appealing for developing optical, electronic and energy applications.These materials also bring a new degree of freedom to combine highly distinct materials, …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Mathematical models describing diffusive transport of mass and energy are essential to our understanding of many problems in engineering, physics, biology and chemistry.Classical analysis of mathematical models that describe diffusive transport focus on diffusion in simple geometries, such as lines, discs and spheres composed of homogeneous materials. In contrast, specific applications of diffusive transport theory in more complicated geometries are often explored computationally. This can include geometries with heterogeneous materials.While computational approaches are necessary in certain circumstances, analytical insight is …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science

Our research is seeking to answer the question: 'How can we support human interaction with big data?'We want to integrate the outstanding capabilities of humans in terms of visual information exploration with the enormous processing power of computers. These elements have the capacity to form a powerful knowledge discovery environment. This research will use datasets from the Queensland Government and the QUT Ecoacoustic research group over multiple years. Other big datasets, such as Amazon’s product review dataset, could also be …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Computer Science

Invasion of biological cells or ecological populations involves moving fronts that invade into previously unoccupied regions of space. Such moving fronts are driven by a combination of motility, such as random diffusion, and proliferation, such as logistic growth. Understanding how best to model such invasive fronts is important as moving fronts of cells are associated with wound healing and cancer progression and moving fronts in ecology are associated with the spreading of weeds and invasive species.Previously both continuum and discrete …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Various spatial patterns naturally emerge in ecology.  These include stripes, spots, hexagons, and donuts, to name just a few. However, it can be puzzling to figure out how these patterns form.Systems of partial differential equation models can be used to simulate these patterns, and thereby provide ecologists with testable hypotheses for how these patterns formed.

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment

OverviewProstate cancer (PCa) is the second-most common cancer in men. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) encoded by the KLK3 gene is the only FDA-approved PCa biomarker for PCa. As a serine protease, PSA can also regulate multiple functions involved in PCa progression and metastasis and is summarised in our recent publications. Immunotherapies, including PSA-targeting therapies, have shown modest improvement in survival, for only a subset of metastatic PCa patients. Not much is known on the immunoregulatory role of PSA or its variants, …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health

Dementia exhibits the presence of Lewy bodies in the cerebral cortex, which are composed of α-synuclein (αSYN) or Amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques, as well as hyperphosphorylated tau (P-tau) tangles in various forms of dementia. The exact pathological mechanisms underlying this disease are not well understood; however, there is evidence suggesting the involvement of inflammatory activity. Microglia, macrophage cells residing in the brain responsible for clearing external pathogens and dead cells, are of particular interest.Our study aims to investigate whether Lewy bodies …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Microbiome Research

The teaching profession is a rewarding yet intensive occupation, with teachers being at increased risk of mental health disorders. Poor mental health does not only affect the wellbeing of teachers but can also have ramifications on the health and wellbeing of students with whom teachers interact (Harding et al., 2019). Although there is a large body of research that focuses on student mental health and wellbeing, less attention has been given to understanding mental health interventions targeting teachers. Furthermore, despite …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Public Health and Social Work

Neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease continue to impact the quality of life of a significant number of Australians, yet they remain untreatable. If we focus on how human neural stem cells behave normally and compare them to similar cells from Alzheimer’s patients, we will likely gain a better understanding of what has gone wrong and potentially how to stop it or fix it.

Study level

PhD, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health

The archaeal lineage Methanoperedenaceae are anaerobic methanotrophs with a key role in mitigating the atmospheric release of the potent greenhouse gas methane. The metabolic diversity of these microorganisms directly links methane with several key biochemical cycles and suggests a remarkable ability of these microorganisms to adapt to diverse environmental conditions.These microorganisms have never been grown in a laboratory and have only been studied in enrichment cultures with several other partner microorganisms. How these microorganisms grow and interact with these bacterial …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Microbiome Research

The tourism industry is rapidly expanding in Antarctica, increasing by an order of magnitude over the past two decades. The resilience of this industry depends on the resilience of the Antarctic ecosystem but which element of Antarctica is the most important? Is it better a penguin or an iceberg?The proposed study will make use of social media channels to collect data on Antarctica tourism. By assessing photos’ captions and Twitter hashtags, the study aims to determine how frequently terms such …

Study level

Honours

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

The demand for 3D scene understanding through point clouds is rapidly growing in diverse applications, including augmented and virtual reality, autonomous driving, robotics, and environment monitoring. However, the field faces challenges due to limited data availability and predefined categories. Training deep 3D networks effectively for sparse LiDAR point clouds requires significant amounts of annotated data, which is both time-consuming and expensive. Building on the advancements in 2D models that leverage the power of image and language knowledge, our project aims …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics