Brisbane’s bright minds receive Lord Mayor grants

Seven talented Brisbane researchers will share in AUD$30,000 (US$21,377) funding from the city’s Lord Mayor to help lure significant international conferences from abroad for the first time. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said his Convention Trailblazer Grant funds early career researchers and professionals to attend an international conference in their field. In return, they work with economic development board Brisbane Marketing and partners to attract the conference to Brisbane. “The 2019 recipients are considered trailblazers because they are undertaking work in fields that have an important social impact and raise awareness of Brisbane as a home of world-class research,” Cr Quirk said. Among the recipients, Mathilde Desselle (pictured) is project manager at the Herston Biofabrication Institute, applying 3D scanning, modelling, printing and virtual reality for personalised medical applications. Arutha Kulasinghe is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Queensland University of Technology. His research into the early detection of metastatic cancers has led to significant knowledge advances in head and neck cancers, and lung cancers. While University of Queensland Research Fellow Bronwyn Clark’s research looks at the health risks of sedentary behaviour and the best ways of measuring this for effective public health interventions. Now in its second year, the grant programme is an outcome of the Brisbane 2022 New World City Action Plan, which details the city’s commitment to winning more business events, and to earning a top 50 global International Congress and Convention Association ranking. Brisbane Marketing’s General Manager of Business Events, Juliet Alabaster, said the grant programme had already resulted in a confirmed win for Brisbane. “Two 2018 recipients, Dr Christina Schroeder and Dr Johan Rosengren of the University of Queensland, helped secure the International Peptide Symposium, to be held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre in 2021,” Alabaster said. She expects the conference to deliver an economic impact of AUD$2m and attract over 800 experts from the UK, Europe, America, Asia and Australia to Brisbane for the first time.