Student topics

Digital and social media platforms provide new opportunities for public communication, and the formation of distinct publics and communities around shared interests and identities. Such publics may engage in political debate, popular media fandom, science communication, vernacular creativity, and other activities; but they may also be affected by, or actively engage in promoting, mis- and disinformation and other problematic content. Their activities are also shaped by the features and affordances of the platforms they use, from Facebook and Twitter to …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Communication

Research centre(s)

Digital Media Research Centre

To conserve species in disturbed natural environments, we need to use mathematical models to predict the consequences of different interventions. Unfortunately, these models are based on partial information of complex systems, and the systems themselves are subject to substantial observational and process noise.We often use ordinary differential equations to describe ecosystems, like the classic logistic growth model:dn/dt = r n (1 - n / k)However, these models are deterministic, and they assume we know the values of the key parameters …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science
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

Inspired by nature's way of using light to trigger chemical processes known as photosynthesis by green plants, the idea of using light as an energy source to make and break chemical bonds has been widely applied for the development of more complex structures in the soft matter materials design and biological sciences. However, to date, the energy required to activate chemical bond formation was mostly extracted from UV light which is a drawback to develop and apply these reaction systems …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Up for a challenge? In this project you can explore if you can beat nature in making catalytic systems! Over billions of years, nature has perfected the design and synthesis of high molecular weight precision macromolecules, which are able to execute a specific function in a complex biological environment such as proteins.

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

The reduction and management of plastic waste is perhaps the most critical challenge facing modern economies and plastic pollution cannot be resolved by generic approaches to research or to problem-solving. The Soft Matter Materials Team aims to resolve the anonymity and ubiquity of plastics by pioneering a simple optical readout system that can identify the uniquely coded information in macromolecules that have been embedded in plastics.In this project, optically readable macromolecular barcodes based on a system of excimer fluorescence switch-on …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Some estimates state that 30% of all manufactured goods will be 3D printed in 2030. A particular type of 3D printing is 3D laser lithography with which micro- and nano-sized structures can be prepared. Such structures find wide ranging applications in meta-materials functioning as invisibility cloaks or scaffolds for single (stem) cell interrogation. Today’s inks for 3D printing, however, only allow one material property to be written with one laser wavelength.Working in close collaboration with team members of the Soft …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Have you experienced a negative feeling when a media platform constantly pushing advertisements to your screen or when a salesman chasing you around to introduce a product? That negative feeling will typically lead to reactance and push you away from these persuasive messages. This research is embedded in the theories of persuasion knowledge and psychological reactance. We will also look into consumer personalities and cognitions. We aim at exploring and testing solutions to reduce consumer reactance.Skills and experience:Research background in …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations

The emergence of resistance of bacteria to antibiotics presents a global healthcare challenge that intensifies the search for strategies to increase the effcacy of therapy. Several mechanisms are involved in resistance of bacteria against antibiotics such as mutations in genes, horizontal gene transfer, and biofilm formation. Bacteria can communicate with each other through production and response to local concentration of small molecules called autoinducers.This mechanism is called quorum sensing (QS).It has been suggested that QS can influence the resistance of …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science

Parkinson's disease is typically diagnosed after the onset of motor symptoms, when significant neurodegeneration has already occurred. Growing evidence suggests that immune dysregulation, particularly within the innate immune system, may arise in the prodromal and early stages of disease and contribute to disease initiation.This project will investigate whether individuals in the prodromal and early stages of Parkinson's disease exhibit distinct peripheral immune signatures, focusing on monocyte and macrophage polarisation and plasma cytokine profiles, with the aim of identifying early immune …

Study level

Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Queensland is a global leader in residential solar photovoltaic adoption, yet battery energy storage uptake is comparatively low, constraining the full potential of decentralised battery energy storage systems (BESS). Similarly, in Germany, battery storage adoption remains limited and regionally concentrated, despite strong national policy support and technological advances in battery manufacturing.This project investigates the behavioural and systemic barriers to BESS adoption and explores how digital solutions can influence energy decisions. It forms part of a broader international collaboration between QUT, …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Information Systems

Research centre(s)

Energy Transition Centre

Cancer is the single biggest clinical problem facing the world and will account for half of all global deaths by 2030. Even though there have been significant advances in immunotherapy, we are still unable to cure most cancers. New therapeutic targets, individualised to patient needs, must be identified and validated in order to improve cancer outcomes.Brain cancer causes more deaths in people under the age of 40 than any other cancer and more deaths in children than any other disease. …

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