QAEHS hosted the 2025 Annual Research Forum at the UQ Brisbane City campus on Wednesday 19 November. The forum brings together researchers and students from across the centre, collaborative partners from within UQ as well as industry partners from Queensland Health, Public and Environmental Health Reference Labs (PEHRL), Seqwater, Urban Utilities, ACIC and the Minderoo Foundation. The hybrid event was well attended with over 90 attendees across online and face to face.
As part of this year’s program, 15 PhD students presented research posters for the forum attendees. Due to the high quality of the student presentations, four awards were given, Simran Kaur took first place for her presentation on Where do tyre particles go? Identifying and quantifying tyre wear particles in balcony road dust while Marina Suzuki (The role of environmental chemical exposures in neurodegenerative diseases), Lily Pan (Assess the effects of functionalised nanoplastics on human cell models), and Marta Lopez (Beyond the blood-brain barrier: Tracing the potential journey of organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs)) tied for second place.
The other student presentations included:
- Yohani Dalugoda - Associations between maternal exposure to ambient temperature and adverse birth outcomes, and potential modifying effects of socioeconomic factors in Queensland
- Hieu Ngo - Trends in fentanyl and oxycodone use in Australia (2028-2022): Evidence from two nationwide datasets
- Laura Puente - Assessment of micro and nanoplastics in infant formula
- Haitao Lin - Characterising environmental nanoplastics using AF4 couple to pyrolysis-gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry
- Jianglu Zhao - Estimating nicotine product consumption in Queensland prisons using wastewater-based epidemiology
- Naixiang Zhai - Using metagenomic sequencing to investigate the impact of flooding on local microbial communities and AMR dynamics
- Chantal Keane - The importance of wastewater source tracking
- Reena Que - Plastic chemical exposure trends in the Australian population
- Max Tyler - Temporal dynamics of grass pollen exposure and severe allergic rhinitis among asthmatics: A DLNM study levering smartphone data
- Dhaya Nadarajan - Investigating the presence of mitragynine (Kratom) in Australia
- Chinonso Odebeatu - Green prescriptions: The role of private gardens and public park access in Type-2 diabetes incidence
