The Vacation Research Experience Scheme (VRES) provides eligible students with the opportunity to participate in a research project. If you're interested in research and thinking of pursuing a research degree the scheme is an opportunity to see if research is right for you. Further information about the scheme is available on HiQ.
QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for VRES. Search to find a topic that interests you.
Found 208 matching student topics
Displaying 109–120 of 208 results
A hybrid surgical robot: Integrating secondary sensors to improve robot accuracy during bone cutting
The Biofabrication and Tissue Morphology (BTM) group is a world class multi-disciplinary research team focused on embedding biofabrication into routine clinical use. Based at our state-of-the-art labs at QUT Kelvin Grove Campus, aligned with the Centre for Biomedical Technologies. An area of focus of the group is medical technology and medical robotics. One of the current challenges in using robots in complex orthopaedic surgeries is accurately tracking the position of the tool with respect to the patient. In circumstances where …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Using automated sampling techniques for determining N2O emissions from grain crop residues
Nitrous oxide emitted from agricultural soils is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas with 265-times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, making reducing emissions a high priority for minimising environmental impacts of agriculture.Crop residues may directly contribute to nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions as they break down, but it is difficult to partition N2O emissions from crop residues versus the background soil. Grain crop residues, including stems, leaves and roots remaining …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Using acoustic monitoring to measure ecological condition
Livestock grazing is a dominant land use in Australia, with producers stewarding extensive areas across intact native and modified ecosystems. As these landscapes face mounting pressures from climate change, land use change, and biodiversity decline, evidence-based monitoring and adaptive management strategies become critical. This project will evaluate ecological outcomes across diverse land management regimes by integrating field-based BioCondition assessments with remote sensing and acoustic monitoring technologies. Findings will quantify how alternative management practices influence biodiversity and ecosystem function, providing practical …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
Testing mechanisms of soil carbon persistence in Northern Australia
Soil carbon sequestration is central to global efforts to mitigate climate change, enhance agricultural sustainability, and achieve carbon neutrality. Yet critical distinctions exist between different forms of soil carbon and their climate mitigation potential. For effective long-term carbon sequestration, research must prioritise understanding stable, persistent carbon forms. Current knowledge draws heavily from Northern Hemisphere temperate zones, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of unique ecosystems like Northern Australia. With its ancient nutrient-depleted soils, extreme climate variability, and distinct fire regimes, …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
Quantifying root to shoot ratios under drought
Droughts affect most aspects of soil and ecosystem functioning, including soil organic carbon (SOC) turnover and storage. Because more carbon is stored in SOC than in the atmosphere and land plants combined, increasingly severe or frequent droughts may lead to positive feedback between climate change and soil carbon emissions. Process-based models are used to understand SOC dynamics at scale, and, in particular, predict the impacts of climate change on SOC storage. Insufficient knowledge about allocation of plant photosynthetic production into aboveground versus …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Co-benefits of trees on farms: soil carbon
Soils are now in the ‘front line’ of global environmental change. Soils are the largest global pool of actively cycling organic C and N. Maintaining and increasing soil organic matter (SOM) is a prominent strategy for mitigating excess atmospheric CO2 and adapting agriculture to climate change. At the same time the global biodiversity crisis has led to increased scrutiny on supply chains, drawing attention to the ecological footprint of farms and agriculture. Planting or retaining trees in the landscape has the …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Development of a Bench-Top Model to Study Nasal High Flow Therapy
Nasal High-Flow (NHF) therapy delivers warmed, humidified air/oxygen to patients and is rapidly becoming standard care in emergency and intensive-care settings. This project sits at the intersection of mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering and clinical respiratory care, and will contribute to project funded by a 2024 QUT ECR Seed Grant. The student will design and build a bench-top model that allows researchers and visualise and measure flow patterns, pressures and oscillatory behaviour inside respiratory casts.
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Computer Vision for 3D Skelton Extraction and Musculoskeletal Analysis
Human skeleton information is essential for healthcare and athletic performance. Imaging modalities such as dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) allow us to obtain full skeletal information, though requires dedicated hardware and imaging in a controlled setting and can expose participants to unnecessary radiation. Tools have been developed to estimate skeletal information using only RGB cameras, though accuracy of these techniques is unclear due to Indvidual variation amongst participants. This research will investigate how skeletal structure can be estimated using consumer imaging …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Animal attraction: Understanding, preventing and addressing bestiality in Australia
This project is concerned with understanding bestiality (defined as sexual activity performed by a human on an animal) in Australia. Very little has been documented about this taboo topic. As such, this project sets out to document the prevalence and characteristics of bestiality across Australia's states and territories. It addresses the following research questions:how common is bestiality in Australia?what are the demographic characteristics (e.g. age, sex) of bestiality perpetrators in Australia?how commonly are bestiality perpetrators diagnosed with paraphilias?what are the …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Justice
Characterisation of a Soft Robotic Actuator for Simulating Coronary Artery Bending
Project Overview:The coronary artery supplies blood to the heart muscle and plays a critical role in maintaining cardiac function. Because it lies on the surface of the heart, it undergoes continuous cyclic bending as the heart beats. These mechanical forces may influence blood flow patterns and the behaviour of the cells lining the artery, which in turn could impact the risk of developing thrombosis (blood clots).Soft robotics is an emerging area in engineering that uses flexible materials to build devices …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Sign Language AI
Auslan Assist is a multidisciplinary project in the field of sign language technologies. It aims to develop an automated public announcement system that generates real-time messages in Auslan via a digital avatar. The end goal is a two-way translation system that would also allow Auslan users to sign to information screens and receive an automatic response in Auslan.A core part of two-way translation is sign language recognition. This VRES project will allow students to explore one or more aspects of …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
Supported decision-making in mental health law
One of the most important movements in disability law is the move towards ‘supported decision-making’. With supported decision-making, people with disabilities are given support to make their own decisions, rather than decisions being made on their behalf. However, there is considerable uncertainty about whether and how supported decision-making can work in relation to decisions about mental illness, especially compulsory treatment for mental illness. How should the ‘supporter’ be chosen? To what extent can someone be ‘supported’ to make a decision …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Law
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If you have questions about the Vacation Research Experience Scheme (VRES), the application process, finding a topic or anything else, get in touch with us today.