Research Projects

Parasitic Disease Wastewater Surveillance to Inform Public Health Action in Remote Northern Queensland

01 Jan 2025

External advisor on community engagement and culturally safe protocols for a TAAHC funded research project. Intestinal parasites are chronic preventable infectious disease of poverty which disproportionately affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in northern Australia. Surveillance for these diseases is time consuming costly, difficult and intrusive, requiring faecal and blood testing of community members. This project is a proof-of-concept study to validate and pilot the use of wastewater testing for the surveillance of important intestinal parasites, including strongyloidiasis, whipworm, giardiasis, and amoebic dysentery infecting people in northern Queensland. The use of wastewater sampling will augment the capacity for public health surveillance by facilitating timely and cost-efficient parasitic disease surveillance simultaneously in multiple communities.

Understanding culturally safe and responsive healthcare practices.

Jessica Muller

25 Jan 2021 - 01 Jun 2025

PhD project conducted in partnership with Indigenous Allied Health Australia (IAHA) to develop standards for culturally responsive healthcare practices.

Professionally Psyched: A Podcast to Build Professional Identity

Jessica Muller

01 Jul 2024 - 31 Dec 2025

This project is funded by a Scholarship of Learning and Teaching grant and aims to build and strengthen student identification with psychology as a profession, increase retention and belongingness with JCU Psychology, and develop more confident graduates.

The Indigo Project

Jessica Muller

01 Jul 2022

Funded research project partnered with The Indigo Project, an online therapy practice for mental health.

Microscopy: revealing the hidden detail of our world

Amanda Meyer

01 Apr 2022 - 08 Aug 2022

Parasitic Disease Wastewater Surveillance to Inform Public Health Action in Remote Northern Queensland

Emily Grahn

Intestinal parasites are chronic, preventable infectious diseases of poverty that disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in northern Australia. Public Health Surveillance for these diseases is time-consuming, costly, difficult and intrusive, requiring faecal and blood testing of community members. This project will validate and pilot the use of wastewater testing for the surveillance of important intestinal parasites, including strongyloidiasis, whipworm, giardiasis, and amoebic dysentery infecting people in north Queensland. The use of wastewater sampling will augment the capacity for public health surveillance by facilitating time and cost-efficient parasitic disease surveillance simultaneously in multiple communities.

Temasek Foundation Youth Connect Restful Minds Initiative: Tier 3 (moderate intensity services)

Nigel Marsh

01 Oct 2024 - 30 Sep 2026

This project involves the training and evaluation of a sleep intervention for youth in Singapore. Following the Singapore Ministry of Health's Tiered Care Model for Mental Health Care Delivery, the intervention will be a Tier 3 (moderate intensity services) intervention. Clinical psychologists will be trained to implement the Transdiagnostic Intervention for Sleep and Circadian Dysfunction (TranS-C) for Youth. Programme evaluation will be undertaken for both (a) the training of the clinical psychologists and (b) the clinical outcomes of their clients.

Temasek Foundation Youth Connect Programme

Nigel Marsh

01 Oct 2022 - 30 Sep 2026

The Temasek Foundation Youth Connect Programme aims to provide early recognition and early intervention for distressed adolescents. This 4-year pilot programme is an initiative by KKH and the Temasek Foundation. One of the objectives of the programme is to build the capacity of school counsellors and community mental health practitioners to deliver evidence-based, psychological brief interventions from a process-based approach to augment the existing basic emotional support services. JCUS staff will develop the interventions and train the school counsellors and mental health workers (Dr Riard), evaluate the training (Dr Ng) and evaluate the clinical outcomes for the adolescents (Prof. Marsh).

Improving land condition across Southern Gulf rangelands to build resilience to variable and extreme climate

Jack Koci

01 Jul 2024 - 30 Jun 2028

Grant: https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/environment/natural-resource-funding/apply#key-dates Project description: Recent extreme climatic events (e.g., the 2019 flood and preceding drought, and the 2023 flood) have had a devasting impact on the Southern Gulf’s grazing industry and local communities, as well as the health and functioning of the region’s sensitive natural assets, including soils, pastures, water, and biodiversity. The occurrence and severity of such extreme climatic events are predicted to increase into the future. The overarching aim of the project is to build resilience in Southern Gulf rangeland production systems to better manage climate variability and extreme climatic events, through improving land condition. Land that is maintained in good condition is less susceptible to severe impacts associated with extreme climatic events and recovers more quickly after events occur. To achieve improved land condition across the region, the project will work directly with X land managers to implement on-ground land management practice changes and/or remediation treatments, spanning an estimated area of X. The effectiveness of these interventions will be rigorously monitoring and evaluated, and the data made publicly available. Key learnings and outcomes will be passed on to the other landholders, NRM groups, Government extension staff and researchers through demonstration sites, field days, communications materials, scientific publications, and capacity building events. Overall, the project will provide much needed new knowledge, information, data, tools, and capacity to better manage and respond to climate variability and extreme climatic events across the Southern Gulf region, and other parts of northern Australia.

Electron scattering and transport for plasma-liquid interactions (Old ID 23301)

Ron White

08 Mar 2018 - 31 Jul 2022

The project addresses the emerging technologies associated with the interaction of plasmas with liquids and biological matter, including plasma medicine. The project expects to generate new knowledge on the role of electron-induced processes through the development of complete and accurate sets of microscopic cross- sections for electrons with biomolecules within tissue. This microscopic data will inform new microscopic models for non equilibrium electron transport in liquids and biological matter, and its coupling to plasmas. The expected outcomes of this project include progress towards the optimization of safety/efficacy of future generation plasma medicine devices through detailed understanding of plasma-biological tissue interactions.