Student topics

Faces are a rich source of social information communicating social categories like sex, age or ethnicity of a person, but also a person’s emotional state via facial expressions of emotion. The current research investigates how cues available on a face (social category cues, attractiveness, trustworthiness) or what we know about a person affect the manner in which we process emotional expressions.

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Psychology and Counselling

There is currently broad agreement that likes and dislikes, including strong emotional responses such as fear and anxiety, are learned. However, little is known about the manner in which different forms of emotional learning interact or about how emotional learning once acquired can be modified, reduced or eliminated. In particular in the context of fear learning this is problematic as fear memories once acquired seem difficult to change and likely to return even after successful extinction – a phenomenon known …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Psychology and Counselling

Almost 1 million Australians have lost their jobs and countless micro and small businesses have folded as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time the pandemic has propelled innovation and new venture creation and given rise the ‘side hustle’, taking on an extra job for money. Side-hustles, supplemental income-generating work performed alongside full-time jobs, are increasingly common (Sessions, Nahrgang, Vaulont, Williams & Bartels, 2021).Technology has in part empowered and enabled people to market their skills and products …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations

Social media has become an integral part of our lives – we click, like and share posts with our personal and professional networks each day. The concept of sharing is activated by psychological stimulation, be it emotional or physical (Tellis et al., 2019). But why are certain types of online content more viral than others?Achieving ‘virality’ is not random and isn’t just about creating engaging content. Instead there are mechanics that are planned to achieve this type of ‘social currency’. …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations

Research centre(s)

Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research

Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer accounting for 18.4% of all cancer-related deaths. Platinum-based chemotherapy remains a key treatment option for most people living with this disease, either as adjuvant therapy or in combination with immunotherapy. However, resistance to therapy is a significant issue in the treatment of lung cancer. Novel therapeutic strategies combined with predictive biomarkers chemotherapy response are needed to transform the clinical management of NSCLC.Our published work has identified novel biomarkers and druggable proteins from deregulated protein …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health

The concept of creating molecular electronic devices has resulted in the development and rapid advance of the field of supramolecular chemistry.In this project we are particularly interested in how we can use simple building blocks to self-assemble into complex, functional structures both in solution and at the solution:surface interface.These types of structures have shown great promise in applications such as catalysis, sensing, drug delivery and even in the development of molecular machines.AimsThis project aims to:design, synthesise and characterise complex metallo-supramolecular …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Chemistry and Physics

Research centre(s)

Centre for Materials Science

Epithelial Cells (ECs) constitute the border between the host immune system and an environment teeming with inhaled antigens. Work from us and others has highlighted that ECs have the ability to express the antigen processing and presentation machinery, Major Histocompatibility Complex class II (MHC II) that is important in initiating immune responses. MHC II expression and function on mucosal epithelial cells, is not well understood.Whilst MHC II is expressed by ECs, and is altered with inflammation, there is a paucity …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

Pollen allergy is a common seasonal respiratory disease triggered by hypersensitivity to pollen affecting 10-30% of adults and 40% of children, and is a predisposing factor for asthma. Pollens interact with airway epithelium to both stimulate innate immunity and elicit an adaptive immune response.Proteolytic activity is one route that stimulates release of alarmins and pro-inflammatory cytokines from mucosal epithelia. Previous studies have found the expression of Serine/Cysteine (Ser/Cys) proteases in some types of grass pollen grains, but it is not …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

BackgroundThis PhD, concerned with the creation of interactive art works and funded through an ARC/QUT scholarship, is part of a larger ongoing project: ARC Discovery DP210100589 "Amplifying the Impact of the Royal Commission into Aged Care" (CI's Miller, Holland-Blatt, Thompson Seevinck, Gott.)About the Discovery project (the PhD study context)"The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is a singular opportunity to reform Australian aged care and redress the marginalisation of aged care residents—a vulnerable demographic whose voices too often …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

With the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0, there is a trend for applying these services and applications to a large-scale industrial area. The IoT paradigm has changed the way of interactions with the things that surround us. In essence, the IoT promises ubiquitous connection to the Internet, turning common objects into connected devices. It is predicted that there will be 50 billion connected devices at the end of the year 2022.Over the last few years, …

Study level

Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Computer Science

Diffusion in homogenous environments is relatively well understood, but the problem becomes more complicated in complex environments - such as wood tissue, cells, filters and catalysts. At QUT there is extensive expertise in using advanced numerical methods to model diffusions and first passage times in complex environments.The ability to combine this expertise with realistic models of random media based on level-sets of Gaussian random field.

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Several PhD positions are available for motivated individuals to investigate phase separation and glassy state formation inside airborne droplet nuclei and its impact on water uptake and loss during atmospheric transport.Marine and continental atmospheric aerosols play an important role in the global climate hydrological cycle while respiratory aerosols released during breathing speech and coughing are responsible for the airborne transmission of human respiratory viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2. These processes can limit the availability of cloud seeding nuclei with implications …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences