Enthusiastic and passionate about nutrition, Serena has a Bachelor of Health Sciences and provides her nutrition expertise and research to support our digital content development, and our programs with the latest evidence based insights for nutrition education to support our School, Early Learning Centre and Family clients.

Jess is passionate about Public Health Promotion and early intervention to support community health and wellbeing, and education.

Jess has completed her Bachelor of Health Sciences at the University of Queensland and is now completing her Master of Public Health.

Jess supports our team with research, digital content creation, and writing health promotion articles on our blog for Teachers, Educators and Families.

With a complete love for creating engaging pedagogies for educators and children – Rahul our eLearning developer provides our team with expertise in all things web, and supports our online program's gamified-learning.

Rahul is always excited and eager to support better learning outcomes, and has a natural ability and understanding of how to inspire and engage children via online learning!

Professor Bush is a Social and Behavioural Scientist in relation to medicine with an extensive career in both the university and public sectors in Australia and other countries.

Prior to retirement Professor Bush was previously Director of the Healthy Communities Research Centre at the University of Queensland and was also a member of the Qld Health Promotion Council from 2006 to 2011. 

Among his research interests is building the capacity of communities to grow and maintain their health and was a speaker at the 2009 Healthy Cities Conference.

Professor Bush has been awarded 49 competitive grants (ARC, NHMRC and other bodies) and has more than 135 published journal papers, refereed monographs, and reports for government in Australia and internationally. 

He has published on social health issues in mental health, community health, adolescence health, alcohol and drugs, general practice and primary care and in community capacity building and engagement.

He has worked with a wide variety of groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on program development and evaluation.

Prior to her move to the University of Queensland as a professor of nutrition Professor Capra was the Head of School, School of Health Sciences and Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Newcastle, NSW.

Professor Capra received her BSc(Hons) and Diploma in Nutrition and Dietetics from Sydney University, her MSocSc from the University of Birmingham and her PhD from the University of Queensland.

After more than 15 years in professional practice in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand Prof Capra entered academia full time.

Professor Capra has a strong commitment to allied health professions and has served three terms as President of the Dietitians Association of Australia, has been a member of the Council of Pro Vice Chancellors and Deans of Health Sciences and served on many national policy making committees including the Nutrient Reference Values Steering Committee and the Dietary Guidelines Working Party of the National Health and Medical Research Council.

She is currently serving her second four year term as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the International Confederation of Dietetic Associations.

Professor Capra is an expert on allied health in general and nutrition and dietetics curricula and competencies in particular and reviews programs both in Australia and overseas.

She is regularly invited to speak on the topic of educational standards, quality and competence. Professor Capra has been recognised for her service to nutrition and dietetics education and research by being appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003, a Fellow of the Dietitians Association of Australia and elected to life membership of the DAA.

Professor Merrilyn Goos is Head of the School of Education at The University of Queensland.

She is an internationally recognized mathematics educator whose research is well known for its strong focus on classroom practice.

She has led projects that investigated students’ mathematical thinking, the impact of digital technologies on mathematics learning and teaching, the professional learning of mathematics teachers, and numeracy across the curriculum.

Merrilyn has worked in mathematics education for 25 years as a teacher, researcher, and teacher educator. She won a national award for excellence in university teaching for her work as a mathematics teacher educator.

She is a Professor in the School of Education, and from 2008-2012 was Director of the Teaching and Educational Development Institute at The University of Queensland.

Previously she taught pre-service and postgraduate courses in mathematics education.

Her research has been guided by sociocultural theories of learning in investigating metacognition and mathematical thinking, analysing pedagogical issues in introducing educational technologies into mathematics teaching and learning, and studying how communities of practice are established and maintained in secondary mathematics classrooms and teacher education contexts.

Merrilyn’s research in mathematics education focuses on mathematical thinking, technology and mathematics learning, and mathematics teacher education.

With more than thirty years’ experience in the food and beverage industry in various senior commercial and research positions, Russel has an inherent ability to connect companies, research organisations, financial institutions and Government and understands how to manage the innovation process and the steps required to commercialise innovative ideas.

Currently Russel is Director and Founder of Food Innovation Partners Pty Ltd, a company that makes the connections between commercial companies, research organisations, Governments, Finance providers, marketing and Industry Bodies. Food Innovation Partners provides business, innovation and commercialisation services to the food industry, along with business development services for companies and research organisations.

Through his ability to translate research outcomes into a commercial competitive advantage and back translate commercial opportunities into a research strategy, he is able to match food companies with research providers; develop pre-competitive, syndicate projects with multiple commercial partners to; assist companies to access Government support programs; assist companies to assess equity and make acquisitions; and helping food businesses innovate and commercialise new ideas.

Russel is entrepreneurial in his thinking, having recently established with his partners a number of new businesses to take new innovative food and beverage products to market.

Prior to starting Food Innovation Partners, Russel was General Manager – Innovation with the National Food Industry Strategy: a Federal Government initiative established to provide leadership to Australia’s food industry. He has also worked for CSIRO for more than 25 years in the area of food research before venturing into the commercial arena.

Russel is currently Chair of the Australian Research Council’s Robotics Vision Centre of Excellent End-user Advisory Board; Chair of Queensland Department of Agriculture & Queensland University of Technology’s Agricultural Robotics program Advisory Board; Member of SA Government’s Advisory and Assessment Board for their Advanced Food Manufacturing program; Director of The Food Market Company (TFMC); Member of the Advisory Board to KFSU Pty Ltd, a company making dietary fibre from sugar cane.

Previously Russel has been a Board member of the Clean Technology Food & Foundries Investment Program, an initiative of AusIndustry in the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education. He has also been an Advisory Board Member for Oski Drinks Pty Ltd.

Joe specialises in bringing social science innovations to market.

Joe is the Head of Strategy and Growth at Triple P International. Triple P is the world’s leading evidence-based system of parenting programs.

Developed at The University of Queensland, Triple P is available in 25 countries and has helped over four million parents. He has spent over 15 years working at the intersection of social sciences research and markets.

Joe has been a director of start-up companies including Leximancer Pty Ltd, a text analytics software company based on technology developed at The University of Queensland.

He has been involved in a number of successful social science-based commercial ventures generated from The University of Queensland and is a member of the advisory board for the Australian Research Council’s Science of Learning Research Centre.

Sandy is a social innovator, thought leader and change maker. She has 15 years international development experience in Southern Africa, 10 years corporate experience in professional services and financial services in Australia, serves on a number of boards, is an author, script writer and public speaker.

She has taken an active role in growing the impact investing market in Australia and has established several large social innovation projects.

Sandy was the Head of Social Innovation for Westpac, working to establish the bank as an active player in the emerging impact investing market and led the establishment of an industry forum on social finance.

She was part of the team that built and issued Australia’s first social impact bonds and has been acting as an advisor to government, corporates, philanthropists, social enterprises and not-for-profits on the opportunities of social innovation and impact investing.

Sandy also established the Organisational Mentoring Program at Westpac to build the capacity of social enterprises and remains involved in strategic grant making through the Westpac Foundation.

Sandy serves on the Australian Advisory Board of the International Taskforce on Impact Investing sponsored by the G8, sits on the Advisory Board for the Australian Centre for Not-for-Profit and Philanthropic Studies at QUT, the Business Advisory Council of the Benevolent Society and is a Director of the Community Services Industry Alliance.