Studying science, engineering, technology and maths (STEM) at QUT opens a world of opportunities to achieve your full potential and forge a rewarding career.
Why study STEM at QUT?
Discovering how to improve lives by solving a range of real-world problems will be crucial in the
future. Many of the jobs of today were unheard of a decade ago: app developers, big data
analysts and sustainability engineers.
STEM careers provide the greatest opportunities to
succeed in the future.
No university is better placed to help you launch your STEM career
than Queensland’s only university of technology.
Why study STEM at QUT?
The fundamental underpinning of the skills you need for jobs of the future is STEM.
But did you know that there’s a secret formula to getting that great-paying, in-demand and stellar career that you’ll love? We call it STEM+X - where X is your passion, another field or a world-changing goal.
To help get you started on finding your perfect STEM+X combo, we’ve created a 60-page STEM+X guide in partnership with Careers with STEM.
Think about the future. What issues do we need to address, as a society, to ensure longevity? Climate change. Water scarcity. Food shortages. Species extinction. Affordable housing. With a predicted 75 per cent of future occupations needing STEM literacy, it means that a skilled STEM workforce is central to addressing these complex issues now and into the future.
Science and Advanced Science
Understand and tackle the greatest challenges facing our world and its future.
Lauren Blackwell, Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)/Bachelor of Science student
Double your career opportunities
A double degree can help you develop a portfolio of skills and capabilities so you will be flexible, prepared for change and able to maximise your career opportunities. Create your own specialist career niche by combining your STEM degree with a complementary study area that interests you.
The Careers with STEM Job Kits are free 8-page e-mags you can download, offering a complete introduction to individual STEM careers.
Discover what a job in STEM is all about, meet real people working in the field, and find out what you can do right now to set your career on the right path.
Tune in to hear from a great line-up of guest alumni from around the world, sharing their stories about the paths they’ve taken to get where they are in their STEM careers. Hosted by QUT STEM graduate, Mackenzi Oliver, these episodes will help you find your inspiration for a STEM career.
QUT alumnus Dr Abigail Allwood is at the cutting-edge of space exploration
Women in STEM
With only one in four STEM workers being women, we recognise the importance of supporting and celebrating women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and maths.
We're tackling this gender divide through a number of programs and initiatives, including #STEMtheTide.
Libby Hogarth is a passionate urban planner with a focus on inclusive and meaningful spaces. Libby uncovers the varied range of projects which use the expertise of urban planners to become the best possible developments for all users.
In celebration of International Women’s Day, QUT's Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Margaret Sheil sat down for an interview with Minister Karen Andrews, Australia’s Minister for Industry, Science and Technology.
Donald Piggott-McKellar is an Associate Director at Forge Advisory, and one of the minds behind the evolving infrastructure of Brisbane for over 10 years.
Dr Naomi Paxton explains what biofabrication is, the importance of being in a supportive and diverse team and how she made the leap from physics to biomanufacturing.
You’ve got ideas that can help shape the world? Our courses will give you the tools, equipment and technology to bring your concepts to life.
We're Queensland’s only university of technology - future-focused and always exploring emerging disciplines and equipment. We'll help you push the boundaries of scientific development using cutting-edge facilities housed in our specialist precincts, labs and workspaces.
Our researchers work in key STEM areas, aiming to solve some of the major challenges facing society and the planet, including:
sustainable development and climate change
energy and food security
an ageing population and chronic disease
information dissemination and security.
Many of these leading researchers will be your lecturers. Their experience, passion and knowledge will be shared with you as part of your studies. They will inspire you to reach your potential and exceed your goals.
Naomi Paxton
"Combining polymer science and engineering innovations in biofabrication research has the potential to revolutionise how we treat tissue loss and improve the quality of care for patients."
Mardi McNeil
QUT PhD student Mardi McNeil was part of a team carrying out the first ever assessment of how a particular type of green macroalgae, Halimeda, affects the marine ecosystem in the Great Barrier Reef.
Evangeline Corcoran
"A highlight of my PhD studies so far is publishing my first lead author paper and receiving international honours as a ‘Woman to Watch’ in the drone industry for my role in researching the use of drones, thermal imaging and machine learning to monitor threatened wildlife."
Scholarships
We recognise the achievements and potential of our students, and encourage you to apply for our scholarships, bursaries and development programs. Scholarships offer both financial support and a wealth of invaluable experience. They can help shape and support your time at university. All you need to do is apply.
Vanessa and Riva are both recipients of the prestigious Westpac Young Technologists Scholarship. Only five universities across Australia offer this $15,000 scholarship. The scholarship includes a personalised enrichment program, giving you access to paid internships, inspiring mentors and an international leadership development experience, and membership of the Westpac 100 Scholars Network.
Brody Foy, a QUT mathematics graduate and past Dean’s Scholar and Rhodes Scholar, is using his PhD to apply his maths skills to computational biology. Specifically, lung function testing. Brody has also co-founded a non-profit consultancy that uses data analytics and machine learning to solve problems in healthcare, energy and social services.
Saskia Mathers
Saskia Mathers, a current Deans Scholar and computer software systems engineering student, is a Women in Engineering scholarship recipient and past president of Women in Technology (WiT) at QUT. Saskia has used her experiences in the program to build networks with sponsors and combine her leadership experiences and passion for STEM.
Are you an international student?
Discover more about studying with us as an international student. Find out how to apply, information about scholarships and pathway programs, and what student life is like at QUT.
A common misconception about university is that you have to do it ‘on your own’. You’ll be relieved to know that QUT offers many opportunities to get involved, make new friends, and receive proactive and timely support services to help you succeed.
Join a range of student-led projects and clubs: QUT Aerospace, QUT Construct, Girls in Engineering Making Statements, QUT Maths Society, QUT Motorsport, QUT Planning Student Association, Women in Science, and QUT Women in Technology are just some.
Why wait until you graduate to create your business, social enterprise or side hustle? QUT Entrepreneurship is the perfect place to collaborate, network and share ideas with fellow budding entrepreneurs and like-minded students from across the university.
The Oodgeroo Unit is QUT's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student success unit, providing admission pathways, dedicated study spaces, tutors, cultural support and scholarships for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
News
19th April 2021
QUT researchers used bushfire response simulations as an unclassified surrogate for defence responses to develop a model that will help the Australian Defence Force (ADF) decide future weapons capability purchases under high levels of uncertainty.
Defence has a budget of $575b over the next decade which includes approximately $270b for capability investment.
QUT and Defence developed a model based on bushfire threat responses that quantified uncertainties in complex engagements, simplified analysis of capability requirements, and provided a methodology on how to communicate risks to decision-makers.
"This project focused mainly on technology system purchases-if weapons are needed for a defence response, analysts can follow this methodology to figure out what to buy," said project leader Professor Jason Ford, a researcher with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS), and the QUT Centre for Robotics.
"Bushfire and defence responses have a lot of similarities-threats, defendable assets, team hierarchies and complex interacting networks.
"Uncertainties like fuel and wind are factors that make fire behaviour difficult to predict and can impact fire-fighting strategies to protect homes and other defendable assets.
"When applied to defence scenarios uncertain factors may include the number of enemies, their location, their manoeuvrability, the type of weapons they have and the capabilities of these weapons."
To develop the bushfire response simulator, Ford worked with senior researcher in simulation design and analysis Dr Troy Bruggemann from the QUT School for Electrical Engineering and Robotics.
"We aimed to answer response team design questions such as what number and combination of truck types we should purchase, and what rules these should operate under," Dr Bruggemann said.
"To model bushfire scenarios, we pretended to be uncertain about bushfire responder capacities such as water-firing range, truck speed and fire behaviours, as a proxy for similar types of uncertainty in a military context.
"After quantifying uncertainties, we ran more than 3000 simulations to measure the impacts on response efforts and developed a model that simplified analysis and predicted the likelihood of mission success.
"Based on simulations, we could predict within 95 per cent confidence the success rate of a threat response-the likelihood of saving a home or other asset from a bushfire, for example, as well as the likelihood that a response unit would survive," Dr Bruggemann said.
The bushfire threat response scenario also helped QUT researchers and Defence analysts develop a methodology for communicating the risk of uncertainties to decision-makers.
Using the new methodology, initial dialogue aimed to define what information personnel needed and how they wanted information communicated to them before moving into data analysis.
"Defence analysts are responsible for generating information for purchase decisions-which collection of assets to buy for a military objective-and presenting meaningful information to people with a range of technical backgrounds and expertise without distorting the outcome," Professor Ford said.
“If someone asked you to spend billions of dollars in three years’ time on a weapons system that needed to survive for 15 years, for example, you would want to spend some time on that—get experts in and as much information as you can—in order to spend the money well.”
The ADF is undergoing a step-change in complexity with the introduction of capabilities like the F-35A aircraft, integrated air and missile defence and others, according to senior Defence scientist Wayne Power.
"These capabilities are characterised by high-dimensionality, complex dynamical interactions and will operate in scenarios with high-levels of uncertainty.
"Understanding uncertainty and complexity and the interdependence between different systems is an important problem for decision-makers.
"We will use the new methodology to help improve the ability of decision-makers to understand the impact of the decisions being made and to make choices that are more robust to highly uncertain futures; whether developing tactics or shaping future capability in 2030 and beyond."
Although not intended as a real bushfire response simulation model, with some modifications, Dr Bruggemann said the model could potentially inform decision-making and policy regarding bushfire response matters such as force design, command and control strategies, sensing, fire-fighting equipment, response unit type and equipage.
"The model represented only what we needed it to represent to simulate a surrogate for Defence projects-it's not supposed to be a very realistic bushfire model, but we could modify it to suit," Dr Bruggemann said.
The three-year collaboration between Defence and QUT also involved statistician and simulation expert Dr Gentry White from the QUT School of Mathematics and research student Justin Kennedy.
Findings were published in a series of papers including Bushfire Emergency Response Uncertainty Quantification and Bushfire Emergency Response Simulation.
New capability to predict bushfire spread and response success
In 2019–20, the Australian 'Black Summer' bushfire season saw hundreds of fires burn more than 18.6 million hectares. The fires killed 33 people and more than a billion animals and destroyed or damaged thousands of homes and other buildings.
Current software, according to Bruggemann, can inform risk assessments by simulating bushfire spread and quantifying the impact of uncertainties like wind and fuel, but no current system simulates responses.
"Our system simulates bushfire response outcomes, not just the bushfire spread, so this is a unique capability," Bruggemann said.
"Predicting the outcome of emergency response simulation is complicated by the need to perform many computationally intensive simulations that generate large amounts of data-more than 1 TB," Bruggemann said.
"It's further complicated by the lack of knowledge regarding uncertain inputs and outputs-like threat behaviour, the number of threats, natural environment and fire-fighting capability.
"All this information can be crucial for the design of a bushfire response task force, and also tactical operational decisions."
Researchers compared the response simulator with existing bushfire models, and it contained additional features that could potentially be useful in bushfire planning and response.
"We tested it using uncertainties that could be easily quantified using standard computer-based simulation, but further work would consider more sources of uncertainty. It's an avenue we're investigating but that would be the subject of future projects," Bruggemann said.
Bushfires and defence have a lot in common
The QUT-developed bushfire response simulation model produced unexpected insights that could have implications for fire-fighting force planning.
Researchers found adding more response units to a bushfire reduced the likelihood that all of them would survive.
"We considered the dynamic interactions between a firefighting team, support assets and a bushfire threat to simulate and analyse different operational, tactical and strategic management decisions," Bruggemann said.
"The likelihood of all response units surviving actually decreases at a certain point when there are too many involved, or if units are too close to the threat.
"On the flip side, units can also be too far away from the bushfire to maximise the impact of available water," Bruggemann said.
Researchers also modelled the likelihood of success depending on when and where responses started.
"By using cells to simulate distance we could determine if a bushfire response would successfully defend an asset based on the response unit's sensing, water range capability or strategy," Bruggemann said.
"Among other factors, success not only depends on where firefighting starts in relation to the asset but when the response started.
"This information would help in planning any response but may be especially useful when there are multiple threats in the same location."
Communicating complexity
Current Defence processes focus primarily on the information analysis, but a new methodology resulting from the simulation process also focuses on how people communicate uncertain information with each other, according to Ford.
"We investigated what sets of vehicles might do, the strategies used to fight the fire, as well as the impact on the outcome. And we measured things like the probability that the assets and vehicles would survive," Ford said.
"In doing that, we went through a mock process of how we would present information to a decision-maker, and that forced us to think in detail about all the aspects we would have to understand and how we might present information in a meaningful way.
"This project was about how to honestly communicate uncertainty to a decision-maker so that they know it exists and they don't assume the information is perfect. They might make a hedge decision if they know that information is uncertain.
"If there were two similar options-one with slightly better numbers but high uncertainty versus a certain option with slightly lower numbers-at least by giving that information to a decision-maker, they are able to take it into account."
Ford said this year's pandemic had seen decision-making like this rollout at a national level.
"Completely different decisions were made around the world, perhaps for a range of reasons and with different outcomes.
"It's an interesting example of how people have to make important decisions in the face of not having all the information, and how analysts might better present information to aid decision-making."