Student topics

This area of research is seeking to understand how the meaning of images can be computed and used in the design of intelligent interfaces which can be used by and support people with cognitive disability (intellectual disability, dementia, brain injury), in their homes, their daily lives, or their work.The visual interactions of interest to this research may be embedded in a variety of technologies, including:assistive technologies (e.g. AAC)assistive robots (social robots and humanoid robots)conversational technologies (e.g. voice assistants)tangible technologies (e.g. …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Computer Science

Rotational tumbling of molecules in a liquid is an important phenomenon in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) because it determines the spin-relaxation rates of the resident nuclei which can determine MRI contrast.For a relatively simple molecular process, the theoretical description of rotational motion of molecules in liquids remains controversial. The most commonly used model, the Debye model, assumes that:the rotational diffusion propagator of a tumbling molecule is a solution of the diffusion equation on a spherical surfacethis solution is described by …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Lignocellulosic biomass, such as sugarcane bagasse and rice husk, is an abundant and low-cost bioresource for producing nanomaterials such as nanocellulose, lignin nanoparticles, and nanosilica. This PhD project aims to develop cost-effective biomass processing strategies to produce innovative nanomaterials with tunable properties from lignocellulosic biomass, enhancing the performance of (bio)polymer composites in different applications.

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy

This project studies how reinforcement learning (RL) can help make automated decisions fairer. Instead of fixing fairness after training, fairness is built into the learning process to create more equal outcomes for different groups. The focus is on important areas like hiring, healthcare, and finance, where biased AI can cause real harm.The aim is to reduce unfair bias while keeping the system accurate, helping create AI that is both effective and socially responsible. You will learn about advanced RL methods, …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Neglecting to incorporate physics information into world models for reinforcement learning leads to reduced adaptability to dynamic and complex environments and overall learning outcomes.In this project, we endeavour to develop and implement learnable models in reinforcement learning (RL) based on graph neural networks (GNNs). These models will integrate object and relation-centric representations to enable accurate predictions, strong generalization, and system identification in complex, dynamical systems. Additionally, we will focus on leveraging extensive world knowledge or physics information to refine representations …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Inequality is often seen as a factor that negatively affects economic and social components of our everyday life. There are many ways how the inequality can be addressed. However, one thing we seem to understand now is that it is nearly impossible to prevent inequality from occurring in the first place.This project, one of a few, seeks to understand if and how can we incentivise pro-social behaviours in groups of unequals. Instead of un-doing inequality, we seek to find ways …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Network flow is impeded by the arcs present in the network and their associated length/weighting. Arcs can be added or removed to debottleneck the network. But which ones? At what cost?

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic, relapsing inflammatory disorder driven by complex interactions between environmental, microbial and immune-mediated factors. An unfavourable shift in gut microbiome composition, known as dysbiosis, is now considered a key feature of IBD, however it is unclear how specific microorganisms and their interactions with host cells contribute to disease onset and progression. Previous IBD studies have been largely limited to older sequencing methods with low resolution. Furthermore, these studies have predominantly focused on bacterial populations, …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Microbiome Research

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

Projects may address entrepreneurial skills, behaviours and attributes as learnable human capabilities across a diverse range of educational contexts. Sub-topics may include entrepreneurial alertness, risk taking and productive failure, values formation and creation,  agency-passivity, emancipatory entrepreneurialism, antifragility, entrepreneurial leadership, global mindset, emotive experiences and interplay with learning for entrepreneurial capabilities, opportunity creation.

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Education

Parts of the transcriptome and proteome are invisible to current technologies. We refer to them as the dark transcriptome and proteome and they encompass uncharacterised mRNA and protein isoforms. Importantly, this hidden molecular phenotype is believed to play a critical role in animal health and behavior.Recent developments in mRNA analytical methods such as long-read sequencing (PacBio, ONT) have enabled better characterization of isoforms and are redefining the transcriptome landscape in many species. We and others have found that data generated …

Study level

Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Biology and Environmental Science

New approach methodologies (NAMs), including advanced 3D cultures and microphysiological systems (MPS), are creating new opportunities to develop more human-relevant approaches for preclinical cancer research. However, translating these technologies from established cell lines to patient-derived tumours remains challenging because of limited tissue availability, tumour heterogeneity and variability in model establishment and performance.Building on established QUT expertise in patient-derived bioengineered breast tumour models, this project will develop robust and reproducible patient-derived oncology NAMs for preclinical breast cancer research and therapeutic evaluation.Breast …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Biomedical Technologies