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 182 matching student topics
Displaying 133–144 of 182 results
How Dark Energy Shapes What We Know About Galaxies
When astronomers measure the mass or star formation rate of a distant galaxy, the answer depends on the assumed cosmology. Distances in the universe are set by the cosmic expansion history, which in turn depends on the nature of dark energy. This project asks a simple but revealing question: if dark energy behaves differently from a cosmological constant, how do the measured properties of galaxies change?In this project, you will derive the relevant cosmological equations by hand, predict analytically how …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
Mathematical modelling of yeast growth and metabolic switching
Yeast is one of the most important model organisms in biology. Yeast cells are simple enough to study carefully in the laboratory, but complex enough to reveal fundamental principles about how living cells grow, respond to stress and adapt to changing environments. Yeast is also central to many applied settings, including food production, brewing, wine fermentation, biotechnology and industrial biomanufacturing.This project will use mathematical and computational modelling to study how yeast cells change their growth behaviour over time. Yeast cells …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Mathematical modelling with partial differential equations in biology
Mathematical models are widely used to understand how biological systems change over space and time. This project will focus on mechanobiology: the study of how mechanical forces and biological processes interact. Examples include cells pushing, pulling, moving, growing and responding to their physical environment.The project will introduce students to mathematical models that describe these processes, beginning with ordinary differential equation models and then exploring how these models can be connected to partial differential equation descriptions. A particular focus will be …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Leveraging GenAI to Design and Test a Framework for Evaluating Patient Medical Histories
Interdisciplinary research: working across the School of Education and School of Medicine, this project focuses on developing an AI-informed framework to support medical students' professional development and the evaluation of their patient history-taking practice. It addresses a key problem in clinical care: the lack of timely, objective, and constructive feedback, proposing that an applied GenAI tool can deliver instantaneous insights without bias or judgment. The intended contribution is to enhance the quality of history-taking by supporting continuous improvement, ultimately helping …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Education
PHSW02 - Where you live matters: improving geographic estimates of cancer risk across Australia
Cancer registries and other health datasets in Australia are often recorded using postcode as the geographic unit. However, postcodes are not well-suited to spatial analysis because they vary greatly in size and can group together people from very different communities. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has designed a hierarchy of Statistical Areas, of which Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) is a common small area unit for health research in Australia. SA3 and SA4 represent progressively coarser levels of the …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Public Health and Social Work
- Research centre
- Centre for Data Science
Health Justice Research – Race, Law and Counter-Storytelling
This project examines how racism is framed, erased or rendered legally uncertain in recent Australian coronial findings involving Indigenous health-related deaths. Building directly on Dr Kajlich's PhD research the VRES placement will undertake close comparative analysis of a selection of publicly available coronial findings handed down since 2024, examining how legal reasoning constructs (or erases) racism as a cause of preventable Indigenous death.This work feeds directly into an ARC DECRA application investigating why legal processes so often fail to recognise …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Law
PHSW01 - What is in our food? Investigating the public health implications of environmental contaminants in Australian food.
Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate pesticide, was widely applied across agriculture (cotton, fruits and vegetables) and buildings (indoor and outside) to kill pests such as insects, termites and worms. In 2019 it was banned in Australia for domestic use due its neurological effects in children. Despite these bans, there are currently no exposure trends or source data to assess the effectiveness of this regulation in the general population. One source of exposure is via the food chain. This VRES project seeks to …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Public Health and Social Work
Corruption and integrity failure in local government: A case study of Parramatta City Council
Corruption and integrity continues to be a significant and ongoing problem in local government in Australia. Since 2014, a total of 19 councils across Australia were sacked or dismissed in response to significant financial, corruption and integrity issues by elected representatives and employees. This research project is a case study of potential corrupt conduct by employees at the Parramatta City Council in Western Sydney. The NSW ICAC conducted public hearings into the activities of a group of senior employees, and …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Accountancy
Metal Free Batteries
Chemical batteries are listed in the top 5 key energy technologies; ahead of others such as natural gas, wind turbines, hydrogen and electric motors. Our group is currently investigating the use of free radical containing polymers as avenues to produce environmentally friendly, lightweight and durable materials for the fabrication of printed carbon batteries.
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre
- Centre for Materials Science
Metallo-supramolecular systems for Chiral Recognition
This project focuses on the design and study of new supramolecular assemblies - complex molecular systems formed through non-covalent interactions- that can recognise and distinguish chiral molecules. The ability to differentiate between these chiral enantiomers is critically important in areas such as pharmaceuticals, where different isomers can have very different biological effects.As part of this project, students will contribute to the development and investigation of novel supramolecular systems for chiral sensing. Using advanced analytical techniques, particularly ion mobility mass spectrometry, …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre
- Centre for Materials Science
Improving Healthcare in Prisons: lessons from coronial cases
The project requires an analysis of coronial recommendations regarding prevention of deaths in prison related to acute illness. Australia has a prison population of approx. 42,000. Prisoners are unable to freely access health services when they are acutely ill and rely completely on the prison authority. Serious concerns have been raised in royal commissions and coronial findings about the quality of healthcare provided to prisoners. Prisoner deaths are reportable to coroners, who frequently make recommendations to prevent future deaths. To …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Law
- Research centre
- Australian Centre for Health Law Research
Responsibility Without Accountability: The Paradox of Responsible AI in the BPM
The discourse of "Responsible AI" has proliferated rapidly across industry, regulation, and academia, with principles such as fairness, transparency, accountability, and human oversight now embedded in frameworks like the EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, and Australia's AI Safety Institute guidelines. However, a growing body of critical research identifies a significant gap between these stated principles and actual organisational practice, as well as what has been termed "ethics washing" or "AI governance theatre". In the BPM domain specifically, this paradox …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Information Systems
- Research centre
- Centre for Data Science
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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.