Student topics

Sonographers, highly skilled healthcare professionals responsible for essential diagnostic ultrasound services, are currently facing a severe nationwide shortage. The Australasian Sonographers Association reported a deficit of at least 3,000 sonographers in 2019. Training new sonographers involves comprehensive work-integrated learning (WIL), which blends academic knowledge with structured real-world experiences to develop vital clinical skills. However, due to escalating workforce demands, concerns have arisen about potential exploitation of students within workplaces. This exploitation could involve assigning tasks exceeding their capabilities or subjecting …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

School

School of Clinical Sciences

Broadly, this research theme looks into the effects of leader transgressions (e.g., misconduct, misbehaviour, deviance) on workers within organisations.More specifically, adopting a social identity approach, projects within this theme may examine the following questions:How does the organisational level of the leader influence the effects of their transgression on workers?How do workers'  identity configurations affect whether they respond to leader transgressions?How does the type and target of the leader transgression influence the way workers respond to the transgression?

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

School

School of Management

Research and practice often focus on how leadership is successfully developed or built. Little attention is given to the factors that may undermine leadership. Understanding these factors may help shed light on how effective leadership is sustained through challenges and setbacks.Taking a social identity approach to leadership, this research may investigate:the potential destabilisers of leadership within teams and organisationsthe lifecycle of leadership within groupsthe factors that turn followers away from their leader.

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

School

School of Management

Neuropathic pain effects '1 in every 10 adults over the age of 30'. The treatments available for neuropathic pain can at best be described as having 'moderate efficacy'. Due to the nature of neuropathic pain, the ability to scientifically study and understand its fundamental causes has been limited to animal models and trials. There are over 27 animal models for neuropathic pain where pain has been induced by macroscopic and microscopic nerve lesions, chemotherapy, viral infections and diabetes mellitus.Looking at …

Study level

PhD

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Programming robots to carry out desired tasks is difficult and time-consuming. This PhD project focuses on collaborative and instructional dialogue agents to help human operators program robot tasks.In this collaborative scenario, a human operator converses with an AI agent to explain the steps that are to be performed, using high-level references and abstractions that make sense to the human, as opposed to simple verbal instructions corresponding to rudimentary robot movements. The AI agent must interpret the high-level instructions and translate …

Study level

PhD

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

The market for fashion, clothing and textiles has failed, causing an externality characterised by overconsumption, oversupply and resulting largely in textile waste. Legislative change at a geopolitical level seeks to address these issues, however, there are numerous actors involved with diverse interests.

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

In-vitro profiling of tumour-immune cell interactions in proximity can provide valuable insight into patient response to new combinatorial immunotherapies that are in the pipeline and currently being tested in clinical trials. These in-vitro models allow for a more controlled and isolated environment and provide a methodical approach for generating quantifiable data characterizing the interactions between target and effector cells. Traditionally executed in well-plates, tumour-immune models have been slowly moving towards a microfluidic chip-based approach for several reasons: better control over …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Biomedical Technologies

The sudden rupture of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques and subsequent thrombosis formations are responsible for most acute vascular syndromes, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. Many victims who are apparently healthy die suddenly with no prior symptoms. Such deaths could be prevented through surgery or alternative medical therapy, if vulnerable plaques were identified earlier in their natural progression.To address this pressing need, we're developing simple-to-use, high-throughput and highly-informative microfluidic biochips to understand the sequences of molecular events underlying biomechanical thrombosis (mechanobiology). …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering

Research centre(s)

Centre for Biomedical Technologies

This research project involves investigating the genetic basis of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The project will focus on the genetically unique population of Norfolk Island. The Norfolk Island Health Study has been running for 20 yrs. Over this time the cardiovascular health of the Islanders has been tracked via the collection of relevant clinical data. In addition whole genome sequence data from the study group has been collected, which will facilitate the discovery of genetic variants that influence CVD phenotypes - …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health

Understanding how disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder develop following trauma is a contemporary challenge for researchers in psychology. The best explanations involve a combination of psychological and biological factors that interact during and following trauma to create a range of troubling symptoms. This project will use cutting edge technology at QUT to provide insights into how a mix of biology and behaviour can result in exacerbated stress responses and threat memories in experimental and real-world settings.

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Psychology and Counselling

With growing significance of data there is a need to harness the potential of that data for improved business operations. Historical data is often to provide a descriptive overview of how business processes have performed in the past. However, there is a need to be proactive and take appropriate actions to ensure that business processes perform in an optimal manner. Prescriptive analytics is a process that analyzes data and provides instant recommendations on how to optimize business practices. Prescriptive analytics …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Information Systems

Each year more than 200,000 patients (adults and children) are admitted to intensive care units (ICU) in Australia and New Zealand for treatment of serious and life-threatening injury or illness, or recovery from major surgery. The vast majority (~90%) of ICU patients will require an arterial catheter during their admission to optimise vital treatment and monitoring. Arterial catheters are small hollow plastic tubes inserted into peripheral arteries to facilitate continuous haemodynamic monitoring (e.g. blood-pressure) and frequent blood sampling. Hence, effective …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Nursing

Research centre(s)

Centre for Healthcare Transformation