Vacation Research Scholarships

Project Summary:  Double Jeopardy, Duplication of Purchase, Negative Binomial Distribution and Brand User Profiles are fundamental laws of marketing and buyer behaviour. These laws have been observed across many countries and categories including fast moving consumer goods, services, retailers, B2B and more. However, there are still some markets and categories which have not been analysed using these laws. This project will extend our understanding of these fundamental laws by conducting research in new countries and categories.

In this project, students will be guided by world leading researchers in the area and will present results weekly to a small group of researchers at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute before a final presentation.

Students will analyse their own data while also working in groups of three. This project will run for 6 weeks from the middle of January to the end of February.

This program won the Teaching Collaboration and Peer Support Award at the 2021 Staff Excellence Awards

Contact Person: Kirsty Willis

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Project Summary:

Future WorkPlace Project

Objectives:
1. Establishing a clear measurement framework for workplace: the individual employee’s time, space, and place of work, as well as the degree of autonomy afforded workers on matters of time and place.
2. Investigating the influence of the workplace and ‘hybrid’ work on work- based social exchange, including with supervisors/leaders-members exchange (LMX) and group/team exchange, and
3. Investigating the influence of different types of exchange, and the demands and resources of the workplace on employees’ discretionary effort, performance and engagement with their work and their organisation.

As part of objective one, the team has identified that individual/job “autonomy” and institutional work “flexibility” display what reviewers refer to as the “jingle- jangle” fallacy – where the same construct has different definitions and/or operationalisations OR where two or more constructs have different names but the same definition. Both “jingle” and “jangle” limit the ability to advance research.
A systematic review process for the two concepts - flexibility and autonomy – has begun to scope the problem, and identify differing origins, and work towards construct clarity.
We seek two summer scholars to work with us for 8 weeks and learn how to review and categorise research articles. The students
would be part of the design and initial screening phases. We plan to keep them involved for an additional 40 hours in 2024 to be part of analysis and publication.

MODE OF STUDY: online participaltion available, but some in person contact is preferred

Contact person: Professor Marie Wilson

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Project Summary:

Climate change is considered an urgent emergency that presents severe social, environmental and economic implications for global communities. In response to this urgent concern, the United Nations endorsed the Paris Agreement in 2016, the first-ever universal legally binding international treaty on climate change. Australia is also a signatory to the agreement and has committed to reducing its carbon emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. Achieving such a target requires cooperation and coordinated efforts from all organisations, including local government agencies. The local government sector in Australia has recognised its role in addressing climate change risks. It can contribute to a range of solutions, such as energy-efficient LED streetlights, installing electric vehicle charging stations, and using recycled road construction materials (ALGA, 2019). However, little is known about the local government's climate mitigation and adaptation strategies and their outcomes with only eight years left to achieve the 2030 carbon emission reduction target. Therefore, this project aims to examine the climate change adoption strategies and reporting practices of Australian local councils. Using the public value perspectives, the study will also evaluate the social, environmental and economic values created by the climate change strategies.

The vacation scholar will be assisting the lead researcher for a period of 8-weeks in conducting a structured literature review and collecting and analysing data. Thus, the student will have an opportunity to be trained in conducting structured literature reviews and providing a critique, collecting data using databases, and analysing data with the aid of Excel.

Contact person: Dr Amanpreet Kaur 

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Project Summary: The performance of water utilities in Australia has been explored from many angles given their importance to society and the economy. However, in depth understanding of the governance and context on financial resilience of utilities has not yet been explored. This project will contribute a critically important focus on financial resilience which is significant given the importance of ensuring that irrigation utilities have sufficient financial resources to maintain their infrastructure, invest in efficiency inducing initiatives and meet their ongoing service delivery obligations.

The project requires analysis of annual report disclosures, utility website materials and relevant industry reports and datasets over a 10-year period (2012 – 2022) to allow sufficient time for governance trends to be observed and described. This analysis will be supported through the deployment of a composite financial resilience indicator which considers how resilience is a function of an irrigation utility’s: 1. Profitability, 2. Solvency and 3. Efficiency.

Supporting the research team with this important project requires a student who is interested in economics, accounting and/or finance and who would like to learn from a team on how to conduct end-user driven research that can help support development of new models and indicators for financial resilience with internationally relevant insights.

The analysis of the impact of contextual factors on irrigation utility financial resilience will provide important insights on the opportunities and threats that utilities are exposed to given the changing nature of their customer bases. Collectively and, in recognition their shared challenges, these lessons from the Australian irrigation industry will provide important insights for global utilities and land and water use agencies.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Bethany Cooper & Associate Professor Jo Tingey-Holyoak

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Project Summary:

The way to account for the provision of loan impairment has been criticised for its belated recognition of loan impairment. In response to the criticisms, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) introduced IFRS 9 to account for the impairment loss from the loan and proposed the expected loss model where banks are required to recognize the impairment loss before it happens.

An intended beneficial effect of the expected loss model 9 is more timely impairment loss recognition than under the recognition of loam impairment under the previous model.

However, facing with strong resistance from the practitioners, the IASB postponed the effective date several times and from 2018 the implementation of IFRS 9 is mandated.

Based on this background, there is a pressing need to investigate how the expected loss model under IFRS 9 has been implemented and how banks changed their accounting policy to account for the impairment loan in advance.

The vacation scholar will be assisting the lead researcher for a period of 8 weeks. From this opportunity, the vacation scholar will learn basic skills including:

1. Carrying out relevant literature review
2. Collecting and managing data
3. Learning qualitative data analysis skills such as NVivo and content analysis

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Jessica Yi

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Project Summary:

Purpose: The purpose of this study is for a vacation scholar to conduct a systematic search and review of the cultural tourism literature, resulting in the written report.

Background: The tourism industry is bigger than the agriculture, mining and construction industries. Tourism accounts for 10 percent of global GDP and 10 percent of jobs globally (Spinks & Kopf, 2018). Before COVID-19, 40 percent of international tourism was cultural tourism, the equivalent of 516 million international trips per year (Bywater, 1993; UNTWO, 2018). Yet we know little about it. Cultural tourism (sometimes called creative tourism, heritage tourism or even learning tourism) is under-researched and over-looked as an academic sub-discipline.

Cultural tourism is defined as tourism activity that enables visitors to learn, discover, experience and consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions, products and services in a destination (Richards, 2018).

Approach: This study will be taken in three phases.

Phase 1: In Phase 1, the vacation scholar will undertake three steps to search, screen and select the literature for inclusion in the study. They will use key word searches (e.g., cultural tourism, creative tourism, heritage tourism, learning tourism) to identify cultural tourism articles and book chapters from the provided by the academic supervisors. The articles and book chapters found will be placed into an Excel data base in alphabetical order by first author and by date, divided by decades. The format of the Excel data based will be provided by the academic supervisors.

Phase 2: The vacation scholar will search the reference lists of each article identified, to see if any articles have been missed in the key word search. From the articles identified, the vacation scholar will produce graphs and figures in Excel for further analysis of trends in cultural tourism publications.

Phase 3: Once it is agreed that all literature searched, screened and selected is complete, the literature will be analysed thematically to identify patterns in the data according to key characteristics (e.g., first, author country; study method; aspect of cultural tourism examined etc.). particular attention will be paid to the Discussion section of each article analysed to identify future research gaps and opportunities.

The literature will finally be written up into a report for the academic supervisors. The academic supervisors will provide an outline for the report format, structure and length.

MODE OF STUDY: A hybrid model (working partly on campus and partly at home in an agreed arrangement) is acceptable and appropriate for this study

Contact Person: Professor Ruth Rentschler

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Project Summary:

The term ‘consumerism’ takes on different definitions or meanings. A specific stream of research into consumerism concerns the crossroads between consumption and culture. That is, how consumption of goods may impact culture, or vice versa.

In this regard, Western consumerism has undoubtedly had a significant impact on Asian culture, particularly in countries traditionally steep in Confucianism such as China, Korea and Japan. These influences cut across many areas of daily living include fashion and even food. Western consumerism has also contributed to cultural homogenisation, where Western brands dominate local markets, leading to a loss of cultural identity. For example, this trend can be seen in the proliferation of fast food chains, global retail brands, all of which overshadow traditional local businesses and way of life. To better understand the extent of the impacts of Western consumerism on traditional Asian culture, this project is to conduct a review of literature to address these key questions:

1. How have the consumption of Western goods influence the local Asian culture, and to what extent?
2. Are there movements/laws/practices that exacerbated or mitigate the problem with the erosion of the local culture brought on by the consumption of Western goods?
3. Is the erosion of culture happening homogenously across the population, or are some segments of the population more prone to it, and why?

What are the short and long term impacts?

Contact Person: Professor Richard Lee

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Project Summary:

Everyone has a personal clothing wardrobe. But, being a largely hidden and undiscussed behaviour, little is known about how we build, use, and maintain it. Yet the decisions that are made around our wardrobe contribute greatly to textile reuse and waste.

This research is in response to long-standing concerns about the negative environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry, and the potential benefits of a circular fashion economy where clothing is kept in circulation for as long as possible. Reducing clothing consumption and increasing clothing longevity are the key tenets of pro-environmental consumer wardrobe practices. Clothing which is in inactive use is in limbo, occupying a state between inventory and disposal. This research’s aim is to contribute to understanding and encouraging sustainable consumer behaviors around clothing wardrobe behaviours.

This Research Vacation Scholarship will draw from marketing literature on possessions and their meaning, custodian behaviours and retention theory, as well as from other discipline areas such as culture theory, sustainable behaviour change and fashion.

The supervisors have conducted face-to-face, in-home interviews with individuals that have included wardrobe item audits. These audits provide an accurate account of consumer clothing consumption patterns. The Vacation Scholar will analyse this data and report back against existing literature. A special focus will be on the incidence of items that are kept, but not worn, and the reasons behind this ‘limbo’ behaviour.

The vacation scholar will be assisting the researchers over six weeks to enhance the relevant foundation literature review, as well as analysing and reporting the data toward a journal publication. The vacation scholar will be trained in conducting literature reviews and analyzing data thematically by the two experienced researchers.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Professor Anne Souvertjis & Dr Marcia Kreinhold 

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Project Summary:

The linking of physical data on water use and water storage to the financial data of a business is an emerging area of importance in the food sector. In particular, food producers are increasing their reliance on sensing systems and weather data and models that can help support production decisions and deliver on the need for increased productivity and profitability amidst a rapidly changing climate. These decisions can include daily questions of how long to irrigate for and at what time, but also longer-term decisions guiding asset investment, impairment, and stranding. However, often these decisions are made in the absence of links to business and financial information that can serve to contextualise daily or more long- term judgements and choices.

The project requires collection of archival biophysical data with a view to linking it to business data to develop a model of informed decision making in food production.

Supporting the research team with this project requires a student who is interested in accounting, economics, and food production/agriculture and who would like to learn from a team on how to conduct end-user driven research that can help support development of new models for guiding important decisions.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Associate Professor Jo Tingey-Holyoak  & Dr Bethany Cooper  

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Project Summary: We have found that platelet mitochondria in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) differ to those in healthy donors. This project aims to develop a monoclonal antibody-based capture method to obtain purified populations of myeloid cells. Captured myeloid cells will be assayed for mitochondrial membrane potential and respiratory function using modified commercially available kits. This would then allow comparison of myeloid cell mitochondrial function in MPN patients with healthy controls.

Contact Person: Dr Brian Dale

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Project Summary: This innovative project is derived from listening and responding to consumer needs at the Northern Adelaide Local Health Network (NALHN). Orthopedic wards have a high cohort of patients with a pre-existing cognitive Impairment or with increased risk factors for developing delirium in the postoperative setting. Delirium increases mortality in hospital, cognitive decline, loss of autonomy and risk of institutionalisation. In optimising healthcare outcomes for this cohort, surgical staff identified the gap in the ward-based management and risk management strategies to minimise delirium or cognitive decline.

Development of Surgical Patient Diversional Therapy Boxes (SDTB) is unique and is currently being trialed on the surgical ward. The aim of the SDTB is to increase meaningful engagement for patients who exhibit complex behaviors during their hospitalisation. Evaluation of this quality improvement project will be undertaken through consumer, care giver, significant other surveys, and tracking safety reporting pre and post interventions.

The vacation scholarship provides a student with the opportunity to work with the Division of Surgical Specialties and Anaesthesia in this quality improvement project. This initial evaluation of the project is necessary in piloting this intervention in the acute surgical services environment. The student will actively participate in the recruitment of participants, data entry, data analysis, formulation of results and report write up for dissemination across the Division of Surgical Specialties and Anaesthesia..

Contact Person: Dr Allison Roderick

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Project Summary: Ionising radiation poses a risk to all patients and staff in the perioperative environment. Though ionising radiation may be necessary for the patient, the perioperative team are exposed to the potentially harmful effects because of routine work. Work, health and safety legislation requires all staff to be trained in the management of ionising radiation, to provide a safe working environment. The level and extent of this training, education and safety may vary from workplace to workplace. Anecdotally, many staff and workplaces do not understand their rights or responsibilities when working with ionising radiation.

The vacation scholarship will provide a student with the opportunity to assist the research team to development a survey tool to explore radiation safety and awareness. The tool will be tested amongst a small group of perioperative nurses at a local health network. The student will actively participate in the development and testing of the tool with the consumer group. Following testing of the survey tool, the student will assist the research team to develop ethics proposal and grant writing to explore perioperative nurses’ radiation safety and awareness nationally.  The testing of the survey tool will form the first stage in researching perioperative workforce safety.

MODE OF STUDY: This project requires in-person and online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Allison Roderick

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Project Summary: Sleep is essential for health and wellbeing. Nurses who undertake shift work are prone to poor sleep and this may influence their health, patient care and job performance. 

This project aims to understand and examine sleep nurses. This summer vacation scholarship will involve a range of activities to build research skills and experiences. Involvement will include assisting in data analysis and a literature review. The project is ideal for a student who would like to gain research skills, is interested in pursuing a Master’s by research or PhD and is interested in understanding the importance of sleep and/or the student experience. This exciting opportunity will be available two students.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Lisa Matricciani &Dr Micah DJ Peters 

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Project Summary:

Burnout amongst Australian midwives has been documented since 2014 and along with the rest of the clinical workforce, midwives have faced unprecedented workforce challenges since the pandemic.  In 2020, the RBRC conducted the largest workforce wellbeing survey of nurses and midwives in Australia.  In addition to questions concerning COVID-19, domains of the workplace and occupational wellbeing were assessed with validated instruments along with the opportunity for qualitative input on the work environment.  Job satisfaction was assessed with the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS), Depression and anxiety with the DASS-21 and Burnout with the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory.

Overall, symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress were in the normal range for midwives and nurses, however this has not been explored in detail. Over 800 midwives responded to the survey, but data for midwives have not been explored as a discrete professional group. There is an opportunity to explore and report on these data and compare findings of this study with other existing (but limited) workforce studies of midwives practicing in Australia since the pandemic. The health and wellbeing of the midwifery workforce is critical as Australia faces a shortfall of midwives going forward.

For information on data available for analyses please see the full report (COVID-19 and your Wellbeing Survey) on the RBRC website https://www.unisa.edu.au/research/rbrc/research-impact/#publications

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Professor Jennifer Fereday & Ms Pam Adelson 

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Project Summary: Osteoporosis is a disease resulting in reduced bone strength that significantly increases the risk of broken bones. Osteoporosis can be caused by a number of factors and is particularly prominent in older people, with 70% of those over the age of 80 being affected. Currently, osteoporosis is treated with bisphosphonates that have to be taken orally each day over long periods (3+ year) to be effective. Some of the major drawbacks with bisphosphonates taken orally is their very low bioavailability (~0.6%), which means that large doses need to be consumed, and they can cause esophageal ulceration and cancer. Furthermore, patient compliance can be an issue, as with any oral medications that requires frequent doses. To avoid these problems, this project aims to develop a drug-eluting implants, that can provide sustained release of bisphosphonates at the target location over a period of 6+ months. For more details please contact Dr. Blencowe.  

Contact Person: Associate Professor Anton Blencowe

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Project Summary: Cancer remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Australia and globally. Annually in Australia, ~ 160,000 people are diagnosed with cancer and there are ~ 50,000 cancer related deaths. Chemotherapy, alongside surgery and radiotherapy, remains one of the leading treatments for cancer. However, chemotherapy is associated with severe side effects and in some cases can be poorly effective due to the inability to deliver high doses of anticancer drugs directly to the target. To improve the efficacy of chemotherapeutics and reduce adverse effects, anticancer drugs can be loaded into nanoparticle carriers such as polymeric micelles. This project aims to develop targeted and pH-responsive polymeric micelles for the selective uptake into cancerous tissues and the intracellular delivery of large doses of anticancer drugs. The project will involve the preparation of drug-loaded micelles and the investigation of their pH-responsivity and ability to release drugs under physiologically relevant conditions. 

Contact Person: Associate Professor Anton Blencowe

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Project Summary:While adoptive cell therapies, such as engineered immune cells are highly effective for the treatment of bloodborne cancers, their efficacy for the treatment of solid tumours has been limited in part due to difficulties in achieving high doses of the immune cells at the target site. A promising solution is the application of a delivery system that anchors the immune cells at the target site and provides a sustained release profile. Therefore, in this study the aim is to develop injectable hydrogel systems that gel in situ and provides a sustained release of T-cells through gradual degradation of the hydrogel matrix. For more details please contact Dr. Blencowe.  

Contact Person: Associate Professor Anton Blencowe

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Project Summary: Invasive species, such as feral cats and foxes, pose a tremendous threat to native Australian species and livestock. The ACTB group are developing a series of novel technologies for the protection of native animals and livestock from these predators. These include implant technologies that render native animals poisonous to introduced predators, and non-lethal baits that train introduced predators to avoid preying on native animals and livestock. For more details please contact Dr. Blencowe.  

Contact Person: Associate Professor Anton Blencowe

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Project Summary:Conjugates consist of a combination of two components covalently coupled together and are used extensively in the pharmaceutical, diagnostic and life-science industries. For example, antibody-drug conjugates consist of a targeting antibody that can recognize a specific target (e.g., cancer cell) and a drug which is delivered to the target. This combination allows for selective drug delivery and reduced off-target effects. Conjugates are prepared using highly efficient coupling chemistries, however, there is significant scope for the development of new coupling chemistries that proceed rapidly at low temperatures, don’t require complex precursors or catalysts, and are selective to particular functionalities. The project will involve the development of a new type of conjugation chemistry based on Diels-Alder cycloaddition. The aim will be to optimise the system to proceed rapidly in water, without the addition of catalysts. For more details please contact Dr. Blencowe.  

Contact Person: Associate Professor Anton Blencowe

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Project Summary: 3D printing has emerged as an advanced manufacturing technique that has revolutionized numerous industrial sectors. In the medical and pharmaceuticals sectors, 3D printing offers the potential to develop new prosthetics, implants, and many other technologies that will pave the way for advances in regenerative medicine, drug delivery and personalized treatments, tackling current health care challenges. A unique feature of 3D printing is that it allows the manufacture of complex structures not obtainable through other manufacturing techniques, as well as the potential for personalized drug delivery systems. This project aims to develop novel drug eluting implants and stents that provide temporal and spatial control over drug delivery for the treatment of medical conditions such as cancer, providing more efficacious and safer delivery of therapeutics with reduced systemic side-effects. For more details please contact Dr. Blencowe.  

Contact Person: Associate Professor Anton Blencowe

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Project Summary: A flow cytometer can measure fluorescence data from thousands of individual cells per second. The sample is loaded on the cytometer and the cells travel in a fluidic stream through a flow cell, where lasers excite any fluorophores in the cell. Scientists can make a cell fluoresce by staining cellular proteins or structures with fluorescent dyes. Flow cytometric data contains the fluorescence profile from each cell. We can use this data to enumerate and classify the cell populations within a given sample (immunophenotyping; healthy vs. cancer cell vs. modified cell).

Within the placement, students can perform flow analysis of their own immune cells! There are also several themes available:

Cell metabolism

Of late, cell metabolism within cancer is under the spotlight. We would like to establish assays to measure cell metabolism by flow: mitochondria activity, cell kinetics, reactive-oxygen species production. This will help us to easily compare the effects of gene-knockout, therapeutic treatments, cell-type effects in the context of cancer.

Mitochondria analysis

In addition to measuring mitochondria membrane potential, we would also like to optimise flow analysis of mitochondria themselves (amount/health), as well as being able to sort mitochondria from a cell population.

Extracellular vesicle characterisation

Extracellular vesicles transport cargo (protein, metabolites, nucleic acids) between cells and cell-niches. Vesicles are small and at the edge of flow-cytometric measurement. We want to establish a robust protocol to measure and sort vesicles, so we can study their contents and biogenesis.

Plant ploidy

Most flow analysis is performed on human or laboratory samples. Environmental flow analysis is an area that is under-explored. Delving into plant flow analysis (DNA content) is a cool project in terms of learning flow – as it requires a more technical understanding of the process. As well as gathering data and technical development in this space.

Contact Person: Dr Bradley Chereda

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Project Summary: Developing an automatic image alignment algorithm, which aligns a target image to a reference image, is an important step for biomarker development and histopathological analysis of samples. Tissue sections prepared for histopathology are manually performed, leading to misalignment between sections on slides. To address this issue, we can perform alignments to correct for errors in rotation, translation, and skew using post-processed digital algorithms. This advancement leads to new applications of digital multiplexing samples and enables more accurate analyses.

This project will primarily focus on the development of an automatic image alignment algorithm, aligning a target image to a reference image, with the potential to extend its scope and develop a digital multiplexing algorithm in combination. There is also an opportunity for collaboration with Defence if this project is expanded upon.

Contact Person: Dr Ben Ung

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Project Summary:

Project 1. Controlling the spread of cancer cells by targeting the tumour vasculature:

The growth and spread of a tumour rely on the cancer cells accessing the blood supply. To do this, cancer cells not only promote blood vessel sprouting (angiogenesis) but they also form vessel-like structures themselves (vasculogenic mimicry (VM)). The Bonder lab has identified new VM targets in breast cancer, melanoma and pancreatic cancer (Martini et al BMC Cancer 2021; Martini et al Sci Rep, 2020; Tan et al, Oncotarget, 2016; Tan et al Clin Trans Immunol, 2017).

This summer project is an opportunity to learn how blood vessels promote the progression of cancer (e.g. melanoma, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer) by focussing on the function of specific proteins (e.g. desmoglein-2, ICAM-1, CD44). Outcomes here will contribute to new hope and opportunities to treat these deadly cancers.

Project 2. Targeting  better outcomes for patients with myeloma.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematological malignancy and is an incurable disease of neoplastic plasma cells (PC). With only 17% of MM patients surviving 10-years post diagnosis, faster detection and earlier intervention would unequivocally improve outcomes. The Bonder lab recently discovered that the cell surface protein desmoglein-2 (DSG2) is overexpressed in ~20% of bone marrow biopsies from newly-diagnosed MM patients and that it is strongly predictive of poor clinical outcome.

This summer project uses molecular biology techniques to investigate DSG2 as cell surface biomarker that supports the survival of myeloma and promotes disease progression.

Techniques: Cutting edge imaging technology will be used alongside cell culture, surface antigen expression by flow cytometry, protein detection by Western blot, in vitro blood vessel forming assays, gene expression by real time PCR and immunohistochemistry of human biopsies.

See https://www.centreforcancerbiology.org.au/research/vascular-biology-and-cell-trafficking-laboratory/  for recent publications and additional details of the Research Group and projects.

Contact Person: Professor Claudine Bonder

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Project Summary: Human studies show that babies whom are born small as a result of intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy, in adult life. However, we do not yet understand the molecular basis of this association and therefore we are limited in our capacity to implement effective intervention strategies. One factor that may cause IUGR and the programmed risk of cardiovascular disease is maternal undernutrition. Here, the developing fetus does not receive enough nutrients from the mother. This project will use both a well-established sheep model as well as a one of a kind non-human primate model of maternal undernutrition to determine the molecular links between poor growth in utero and the predisposition toward poor heart health in later life.  To address this, this project will use techniques as qRT-PCR to measure the gene expression and Western Blot to measure the protein abundance of signaling molecules involved in cardiac growth and development.

Contact Person:  Prof. Janna Morrison & Dr Jack Darby

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Project Summary: Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), where a baby weighs below the 10th percentile for their gestational age, occurs in 6.5 % of live births. These IUGR babies have an increased risk of preterm birth with impaired maturation of the lung. This increases their risk of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). One way of preventing IUGR and thus the risk of preterm birth and RDS, would be to increase fetal substrate (oxygen and nutrients) supply. Resveratrol, a polyphenol found in the skins of red grapes, increases uterine artery blood flow. We hypothesize, that increased uterine artery blood flow will accelerate lung maturation via increased oxygen delivery to the fetal lung. This study will determine the impact of maternal resveratrol supplementation on the expression surfactant proteins (qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry) in the fetal lung and align this expression with pulmonary oxygen delivery (fetal MRI data) in the late gestation fetus.

Contact Person: Prof. Janna Morrison, Associate Professor Michael Wiese, Dr Mitchell Lock & Dr. Jack Darby

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Project Summary:To obtain the best outcomes for both mum and fetus during pregnancy, drugs are often required to treat illness. However, there is limited information available on the short and long term adverse fetal effects of a large proportion of drugs used during pregnancy. Animal studies can provide preliminary data regarding the safety of a drug during pregnancy. There is a large amount of human and animal evidence showing hormonal and metabolic changes that occur in both the mother and the fetus because of reduced or accelerated fetal growth. These changes could affect maternal, placental and fetal expression of drug metabolising enzymes and drug transporters and hence alter fetal drug exposure. This project will isolate microsomes from maternal and fetal livers in animal models of high and low substrate supply. Using in vitro protocols, we will assess the activity of cryptochrome P450 enzymes to determine if pregnancy complications impair drug metabolism.

Contact Person: Prof. Janna Morrison, Associate Professor Michael Wiese and Dr Ashley Meakin

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Project Summary: Multi-drug resistant bacteria induced infectious disease are one of the main causes of death in our world today. Unfortunately, in recent decades only a limited number of new antibiotics have entered the market, there is an immediate need for new antibiotics to combat this life-threatening pathogen. To complicate matters further, most of these antibiotics are focused on killing individual planktonic cells, but bacteria prefer to live in biofilms. Biofilms are thought to account for nearly 80% of all human infections and bacteria growing in biofilms are more resistant to antibiotics. There is an urgent need to develop novel antibacterial agents with novel structures to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria living in biofilms. A novel area of research is in the creation of cationic amphiphilic small molecules, where amphiphile means contains both hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts. The cationic charge attracts them to bacterial membranes (which have overall negative surface charges) over zwitterionic mammalian membranes ensuring selectivity. And the hydrophobic component then inserts into the phospholipid membrane leading to leakage of intracellular contents and bacterial cell death. In our research project we have recently shown we can get enhanced antibacterial activity and biofilm inhibition with reduced cytotoxicity and low haemolytic activity through careful combinations of key moieties. This project would build upon this by exploring how alternate combinations of different moieties alter antibacterial activity. This would be a synthetic chemistry project where the applicant would learn to set up and monitor reactions, then how to purify and characterise the product. They would learn a range of analytical techniques including NMR and mass spectrometry.

Contact Person: As. Prof. Sally Plush

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Project Summary: Impaired fetal substrate supply as a result of either placental insufficiency, preeclampsia or maternal undernutrition causes intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). These IUGR babies are not only at an increased risk of longer stays in the NICU and increased perinatal morbidity but may also be at an increased risk of epigenetic programming and the development of chronic disease in adult life.  In an effort to reduce the risk of these poor outcomes, the development of interventions to improve fetal substrate delivery is at the forefront of perinatal research. The pregnant sheep model is often used to study fetal development in the setting of in utero substrate restriction and has led to medical advances such as the use of antenatal steroids in pregnancies at risk of preterm birth. Using this animal model, we have shown resveratrol to increase uterine artery blood flow and fetal oxygenation. However, unlike the human placenta; the sheep placenta does not appear to allow resveratrol to cross from the maternal to the fetal circulation. This project will use techniques such as qRT-PCR to measure placental gene expression and immunohistochemistry to determine protein abundance and distribution of signaling molecules known to be both involved in placental development and responsive to resveratrol and MRI data. We hypothesize that resveratrol will activate signaling molecules on the maternal but not the fetal side of the sheep placenta.

Contact Person: Prof. Janna Morrison, Associate Professor Michael Wiese, Dr Ashley Meakin & Dr. Jack Darby

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Project Summary: Preterm birth affects more than 20,000 births in Australia. Glucocorticoids are routinely used to reduce the risk of respiratory distress syndrome in preterm births by promoting lung maturation. However, the use of glucocorticoids during pregnancy has been associated with adverse fetal outcomes including low birth weight. In addition, glucocorticoids also regulate the expression of Cytochrome P450 enzymes, a class of enzymes involved in drug metabolism, and drug transporters such as P-glycoprotein. Therefore, using a sheep model, we propose that infusion of the endogenous glucocorticoid, cortisol, in late gestation will alter the expression of drug metabolising enzyme and drug transporters in the placenta, fetal liver and brain.

Contact Person: Professor Janna Morrison, Associate Professor Michael Wiese & Dr Ashley Meakin

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Project Summary: As a normal human response to loss, grief can be experienced differently by people who are dying or bereaved, with impacts on psychological health and social wellbeing. Given the prevalence of persistent, complex bereavement disorder (DSM-5), there is an increasing need to explore interventions, such as legacy-making, and understand potential benefits to health and wellbeing in people living with life-limiting illness or experiencing grief and bereavement.

In the contexts of public health palliative care and social wellbeing, this project aims to explore and understand the impacts of legacy-making for the dying and bereaved. This vacation research scholarship will involve a range of activities to build research skills and experience. Involvement will include development of a scoping review protocol, execution of search strategies, and review of the relevant literature retrieved.

Remote/online participation is available for this project, and it is ideal for a student with a demonstrated interest in palliative care and/or grief and bereavement support.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Associate Professor Jason Mills 

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Project Summary: Facilitated by Professor Nicholas Procter (UniSA Chair: Mental Health Nursing) this project evaluates a unique professional development opportunity designed to educate mental health nurses in the fundamentals of Clinical Supervision (CS) supported by local, national, and international speakers. CS involves a formalised, purposely constructed regular meeting that allows for critical reflective thinking and discussion on the work issues brought to that space by the supervisee.

Project Aims

The primary aim of this mixed-methods project is to investigate whether participating in the CS and Mentorship Program impacts mental health nurse participants’ self-reported competence and self-efficacy in providing CS to supervisees in South Australia.

The secondary aim of the project is to evaluate participants’ experience of attending the training program to determine its impacts and highlight any barriers to its delivery.

The Vacation Scholar will be based at our City East office and work closely with the three researchers on this evaluation, using a mixed-methods quasi-experimental (time series) survey methodology and subsequent data analysis.

Contact Person: Dr Joshua McDonough & Dr Kate Rhodes

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Project Summary: The need for new graduate nurses to possess the confidence and skills to function effectively and safely in diverse, complex, and rapidly evolving health care settings has spurred dialogue around the need or utility of a four-year nursing degree. The Independent Review of Nursing Education in Australia suggested further work to scope whether this is necessary, however nursing workforce shortages add a new element to field. It is unknown what current students think about this issue and what their perspectives are.

In this project, the student will learn to develop a human research ethics application, design a survey, and undertake and report a small cross sectional study of South Australian undergraduate nursing students using best practice methodology in collaboration with experienced academic mentors.

At least two published manuscripts will be developed over the course of this project; a research protocol and a discussion paper providing the student with the opportunity to begin building their track record in research excellence and publication. The skills the student will learn through this project have strong application potential across many subjects and will place the student strongly for further postgraduate study. The student will have the opportunity to work with the team on the final research report following the scholarship period.

Contact Person: Dr Micah DJ Peters 

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Project Summary: MedWalk is a 12-month Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) and walking randomised controlled trial in 160 older Victorians and South Australians. The aim of MedWalk is to reduce risk of dementia and improve cardiovascular health. SA has completed data collection and preliminary results show a difference between the MedDiet group and control group for diet and activity and some cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. We are now following-up our participants to determine if they have maintained their adherence to the MedDiet principles and physical activity, one-year after finishing the trial; and whether the improvement in resultant CVD risk factors and other outcomes seen during the trial were sustained.

We are collecting the following data from all participants: MedDiet adherence, physical activity levles, cognitive performance, anthropometry, blood pressure and vessel stiffness, quality of life, depression, loneliness, wellbeing, frailty, blood measures of cholesterol, glycemic control, carotenoids, oxidative stress, inflammation, vitamins and dietary quality.

The student will have the opportunity to engage with the MedWalk research team comprised of HDRs, post docs, dietitians, and research assistants to experience a clinical and research environment. The student will participate in the following activities:

-team meetings (face-to-face and zoom with collaborators)
-preparing paperwork and tools for clinic visits
-data collection, data checking and entry (see below)
-liaising with the general public
-observing laboratory analyses
-writing a reflective summary of clinic visit activities

The student will work with the team to conduct clinic visits and perform assessments for the MedWalk follow-up including blood pressure, anthropometry, cognitive assessments, and frailty tests as well as check questionnaires for completeness.
This will not only allow the student to participate with a hands-on experience in clinical trials, but allow us to gauge their interest and aptitude for undertaking further higher degree research with our team.

Contact Person: Associate Professor Karen Murphy 

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Project Summary: L-menthol has potential for reducing the sensation of breathlessness. This project explores the concentration of L-menthol in over the counter (OTC) products (available for ordinary retail purchase without requiring a prescription or license) as a starting point for future studies involving people living with breathlessness. Interestingly, menthol has also been indicated as an ergogenic aid for athletes.

Who would this project suit? Pharmaceutical Science/Pharmacy/Double Degree/Bachelor of Science student.

Research design: An experimental design with L-menthol concentrations analysed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). Preparation for analysis will be using methods previously reported in the literature for different products such as mints, chewing gums etc.

Procedures: Products to be analysed will be sourced from common chain supermarkets and pharmacies (non-prescription products only). In an approximate order of priority, products will be selected for evaluation if concentrations of L-menthol, menthol, peppermint oil or other products containing ‘mint’ are listed.

The extraction of L-menthol from the test products and production of sample solutions will be guided by previously reported methods (lozenges, topical ointments and chewing gum). The preliminary procedures will be trialled for validity as per system suitability guidelines. Assay preparations (AP) of OTC products will be compared to sample preparations (SP) containing analytical standard menthol. An anethole based internal standard (ISTD) will be used to correct for variability between analysis. The concentrations of the ISTD and SP are relative to the menthol concentration in the AP. In products not containing a labelled concentration of L-menthol, an estimate will be made from a calibration curve produced from analytical standard menthol.

Note: This is a joint project with Assoc Prof Matt Sykes (UniSA CHS), Prof Marie Williams (UniSA ALH), Dr Hayley Lewthwaite (University of Newcastle), and Assoc Prof Magnus Ekstrom (Lund University, Sweden).

Contact Person: Associate Professor Matt Sykes

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Project Summary:Glycoproteomics is a subfield of proteomics which identifies, characterises and quantitates proteins and peptides that have complex sugars (glycans) attached. These proteins, known as glycoproteins, play an important role in cellular immunity, cell adhesion, regulation of protein translation and protein degradation. Alterations in the expression of glycan structures and compositions have been reported, resulting in disease progression of multiple cancers and cellular infection of viruses, such as HIV and COVID-19. The aim of this project is to develop an optimised sample preparation method that produces comprehensive coverage and confidence of a glycoprotein standard using mass spectrometry. It is then envisioned that formalin-fixed paraffin embedded gynaecological cancer tissues (cervical, endometrial, ovarian and vulvar) will be applied to this optimised protocol to better understand the biological differences between each cancer. With this workflow optimised, a potential biomarker or therapeutic target for gynaecological cancers may be discovered leading to future clinical applications. The student will participate in collection and interpretation of results, including possible journal publications.

Contact Person: Dr Matthew Briggs, Dr Parul Mittal, Dr Clifford Young, Professor Peter Hoffmann

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Project Summary: Metastatic cancers of the GI tract constitute the fourth leading cause of cancer related death in developed countries with the five-year survival averaging 7 years. A notable characteristic of GI cancers is a prominent desmoplastic/stromal reaction. Moreover, the strong contribution of the tumour stroma to poor clinical outcomes in these cancers is well supported by extensive experimental and clinical evidence.

Recent studies by us and others demonstrated the important role of Rho kinases (ROCK) in mediating crosstalk between tumour cells and the tumour stroma. Specifically, activation of ROCK signalling was found to promote stromal remodelling that facilitates tumour cell proliferation and invasive tumour growth in preclinical models. Increased ROCK activity was also associated with reduced chemotherapy efficacy. Importantly, activation of ROCK pathway in clinical samples was linked to cancer progression and reduced patient survival.

Using pre-clinical models, we have identified a suite of secreted proteins (Table 1) that are enriched in the secretomes of ROCK-activated tumours relative to tumours in which ROCK is not activated. We hypothesise that a subset of these secreted proteins modulates the tumour stroma in a way that promotes tumour progression, metastasis, chemoresistance and metabolic adaptation. If true, this set contains targetable factors that may provide a new line of attack against treatment resistant GI cancers by selectively targeting tumour-promoting stromal components, but more pressingly, these secreted molecules may constitute useful biomarkers that predict cancer metastasis. In this project, the student will work to identify which of these proteins are likely to be useful as biomarkers, using approaches including immunohistochemistry on primary tumour samples and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay analysis of matched plasma taken from the same patients.

Contact Person: Professor Michael Samuel 

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Project Summary: The Translational Oncology Laboratory at the Centre for Cancer Biology aims to develop new approaches to modulate the body's immune system to more effectively target cancer. It is now being recognised that low doses of certain chemotherapy drugs can activate immune cells to promote anti-tumor immune response. This project will analyse the effect of low dose cytotoxic drugs on the activation of macrophages and investigate how this might influence their anti-tumour activity. 

Contact Person: Dr Nicole Wittwer

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Project Summary: Neurological diseases and disorders present significant public health risks, emphasizing the importance of research aimed at early detection and the development of more effective treatment approaches. Although various techniques and imaging modalities are commonly employed in studying these conditions, current methods often require the use of labels, which can be expensive and time-consuming. However, there is an emerging and innovative label-free technique called matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry imaging (MSI). This technique generates 2D ion intensity maps that illustrate the distribution of analytes across tissue sections in relation to tissue histopathology. What sets MALDI MSI apart from other imaging modalities is its ability to determine the spatial distribution of hundreds of analytes in a single imaging run, eliminating the need for labeling or prior knowledge.

In this study, we will utilize the state-of-the-art Bruker timsTOF flex MALDI instrument to specifically examine the spatial distribution of lipids, peptides, glycans, and/or proteins. By leveraging this advanced technology, we aim to obtain novel insights that may contribute to predicting or treating the disease more effectively.

The student will be involved with the sample preparation, data acquisition, and data analysis 

Contact Person: Dr Parul Mittal, Dr Matthew Briggs,  Professor Peter Hoffmann

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Project Summary:

The growing demand from consumers for healthy and ethically sourced food has led to an increase in food fraud. The widespread practices of adulteration and mislabeling have become prevalent in the global food industry, especially in animal-based products that are intentionally labeled as plant-based alternatives. This mislabeling poses a significant risk to food safety, as substituted ingredients can cause food allergies or toxicity in vulnerable individuals. The task of defining and identifying various forms of food fraud is challenging due to the complex composition of food matrices and the often-unknown processes involved. Furthermore, food fraud schemes are becoming more sophisticated, underscoring the urgent need for the development of reliable, rapid, and cost-effective analytical methods for food control.

In recent years, a promising technology known as MALDI-TOF MS (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry) has emerged to address this need. This study aims to create a quick and dependable method by simplifying the sample preparation process, eliminating the need for prior tryptic digestion, which is a commonly used MALDI method. Our goal is to develop a straightforward approach that requires minimal time and cost (only a few minutes for sample preparation and mass spectrum acquisition). Simultaneously, we aim to ensure high accuracy and sensitivity without the need for prior knowledge of the species being analyzed, such as cheese or fish.

The student will be involved with the sample preparation, data acquisition, and data analysis.

Contact Person: Dr Parul Mittal, Dr Manuela Klingler-Hoffmann,  Professor Peter Hoffmann

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Project Summary: Increasing evidence links disruptions to the gut microbiome with mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Despite this, current therapies designed to treat mental health are associated with detrimental effects to the gut microbiome, which ultimately limit treatment efficacy and trigger cascading metabolic and mental health disturbances

This project aims to overcome the current limitations of mental health therapies by designing new treatments that target the gut microbiome for better regulation of the gut-brain axis. Students will gain valuable experience in a range of experimental techniques that are frequently employed by the pharmaceutical industry for the design and development of new drug therapies. Furthermore, exposure to key industry partners associated with the Centre for Pharmaceutical Innovation will provide the student with a new understanding of pharmaceutical development and will help build their network and future career prospects.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Paul Joyce

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Project Summary:

Current cancer chemotherapies are limited by severe toxicities that lead to detrimental and often life-threatening side effects for the patient. Clearly, there is a need for safer and more effective cancer therapies that target strictly the tumour site without exerting toxicity towards healthy tissues and organs.

This project aims to use nanomedicine approaches to better improve the treatment efficacy and safety profiles of chemotherapy drugs. This will be achieved by designing novel nanoparticle systems that effectively encapsulate and deliver the drug to the tumour site. The student will gain valuable experience designing and investigating new nanocarrier systems using experimental cancer models and will gain an improved understanding of the latest techniques used to improve cancer treatment.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Paul Joyce

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Project Summary: South Australian grown faba (also known as fava) bean is a valuable export commodity, sold to premium markets in Egypt. As such, there are strict grain quality requirements for this market and a pale green coloured bean is top of that list. Faba beans darken (brown) on storage, particularly at high temperatures, but the mechanism behind this darkening process is not known. In this project, you will use advanced proteomics and other analytical platforms to compare seed coat from freshly harvested mature faba beans with that from aged beans. Findings from the investigation may help to support an industry-driven research project undertaken by collaborators at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI).

Contact Person:  Professor Peter Hoffmann

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Project Summary:Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to develop a QnD^TM (Quick’n’Dirty) method for quantifying total lipids in oat flour samples. The method should be rapid, inexpensive, easy to deploy, able to be used on lots of samples, and suitable for small sample sizes of less than one gram. A colorimetric assay (spectrophotometer/plate reader format) would be ideal and the range of lipid values is from 4 to 10%. You will be ably assisted by the UniSA proteomics team as well as researchers at SARDI (South Australian Research and Development Institute, Waite Campus), who specialise in food science and plant pre-breeding research. This is an applied project and, if successful, will benefit the Australian oat industry, which has an interest in modifying the lipid content of oats for different food and ingredient applications. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

Contact Person:  Professor Peter Hoffmann

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Project Summary: Most Australian residential aged care facilities currently have limited access to clinical pharmacy services; existing services are limited to government-funded residential medication management review and quality use of medicine services that are conducted infrequently. This model will soon change, as the Australian government has committed $350 million to improve medicine safety in residential aged care through pharmacists. The service model is not yet finalised, but the goal is to improve medicine use and safety in aged care.

The current project aims to use digital technologies and an evidence-based digital platform to assist pharmacists with monitoring medicine harms. The project involves collaboration with the University of New South Wales, Flinders University, Tanunda Lutheran Home, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Healthy Care Services.

In this research project, you will assist with data collection at the Tanunda Lutheran Home, including administering validated tools such as symptom scores and cognitive assessment tools to aged care residents. You will participate in data cleaning and analysis, interpretation of results and writing of papers. You will receive training and support to perform literature review and to use statistical software. You will be involved in writing a scientific paper for submission to a peer-reviewed journal and be included as a co-author.

You will be supported by experienced and early career researchers within the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre (QUMPRC). QUMPRC is a consumer-driven, data-informed research centre, known for conducting research studies and interventions that are effective in improving the use of medicines and improving patient lives. Our large research centre is home to a team of multidisciplinary researchers with expertise in pharmacy, medicine, psychology, implementation science and behaviour change research, biostatistics and pharmacoepidemiology. We have a large cohort of higher degree by research students in the centre, providing a supportive environment for new research students.

Contact Person: Dr Renly Lim & Dr Monique Boord

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Project Summary: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are a recognised potentially preventable medication-related harm by the World Health Organisation (WHO). However, only about 5% of all ADRs experienced by patients are reported to regulatory authorities, which means only about one in twenty ADRs experienced were reported. Modern technology has the potential to address gaps in ADR detection and reporting.

In this research project, you will conduct literature review and environmental scan of websites to identify digital tools used to report ADRs, summarizing their various characteristics and validity. You will learn how to conduct a literature search and an environmental scan, how to critically appraise the literature and results from the environmental scan, how to extract relevant information needed to answer the research question, and how to evaluate the validity and reliability of the digital tools.

You will also have the opportunity to participate in organizing stakeholder focus groups and workshops with consumers and healthcare professionals to understand their needs, motivations and expectations of a new digital platform for ADR reporting.

You will receive training and support to perform literature review and to use statistical software (if applicable). You will be involved in writing scientific papers for submission to peer-reviewed journals and included as a co-author.

You will be supported by experienced and early career researchers within the Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre (QUMPRC). QUMPRC is a consumer-driven, data-informed research centre, known for conducting research studies and interventions that are effective in improving the use of medicines and improving patient lives. Our large research centre is home to a team of multidisciplinary researchers with expertise in pharmacy, medicine, psychology, implementation science and behaviour change research, biostatistics and pharmacoepidemiology. We have a large cohort of higher degree by research students in the centre, providing a supportive environment for new research students.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Renly Lim & Dr Eyob Grebreyohannes 

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Project Summary: The unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic had presented numerous challenges for global healthcare systems. To maintain patient safety, the Australian government mandated a raft of changes such as infectious disease control measures, changes to access to medications and restructuring of resources within the healthcare system. Community pharmacies worldwide played a pivotal role in primary healthcare. Despite challenges such as increased workload, risk of disease transmission, and constant guideline changes, community pharmacists maintained the safety of their community. Even though specific safety measures undertaken by community pharmacists during the pandemic had been studied in several countries, many of these studies focused on the initial wave of the pandemic with several limitations, such as limited sample size.

This qualitative study will explore how Australian community pharmacists responded to the pandemic and the barriers they faced in maintaining patient safety. This study will contribute a comparative Australian perspective to an ongoing UK study. The results of our study will aid in the critical evaluation of the performance of the healthcare sector with regards to community pharmacy and the guidelines put in place during the pandemic. By achieving a greater understanding of what occurred during the pandemic, guidelines can be revised, and the Australian primary healthcare sector can be better prepared for future threats, both pandemics as well as natural disasters, by enhancing healthcare resilience. The findings of the study may also help aid Australian community pharmacy sector in optimizing resource allocation and understanding what can be done to reduce the burden on community pharmacists and staff in events of future pandemics and natural disasters.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Vijay Suppiah

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Project Summary: As a leading future-focused museum within UniSA, MOD. serves to connect research and the public.

MOD. has spent 2023 asking people about the ways they make ethical decisions. We now have a large dataset that can help us understand the way that the public approach ethics.

This project will see a student researcher studying this data to answer one of the following questions:

• How does the public understand ethics?
• What are the primary ethical issues on their minds?
• How could we better support people to explore themes of interest?

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact Person: Dr Hilary Bowman Smart & Dr Kristin Alford 

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Project Summary: My research is broadly in the areas of equity, inclusion and culturally responsive pedagogies. Specifically, I research how public schools support learners who identify with a religion. I also research how faith-based schools - Australian Islamic schools in particular - offer more than religious education but rather faith-informed educational philosophies. Over the coming months, I plan explore some innovative ways to make research I've published accessible to educators, policy makers, and parents. In the spirit of research translation, I invite those who have an aptitude and/or interest in social media, policy briefs, or just making complex ideas accessible to reach out.

Contact person: Dr Nadeem Memon

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Project Summary:This project aims to map the existing body of research on digital education platforms in Australia. Over the last several decades education has undergone a continuous and increasingly rapid process of digital transformation, which more recently has been associated with the rising prevalence of digital platforms. This ‘platformization’ is reshaping education in many ways, including those of substantive concern, such as the widening of educational inequalities and matters of social justice. Digital platforms now pervade all levels of education from the pre-school setting all the way up to higher education. Their purpose, function, and application vary widely and traverse most, if not all, domains of education, including teaching and learning, management and governance, communication, and more. Research on digital education platforms has equally increased in recent years and understanding what is known within an Australian context about their use, what types of research have been done, and what gaps in knowledge remain is important to advancing our knowledge of digital education platforms.
The purposes of this systematic scoping review are:
• To map the existing body of research on digital education platforms in Australia
• Identify the types of research conducted
• Identify how digital education platforms are defined
• Identify key concepts associated with digital education platforms
• Collate what is known from research about the use of digital education platforms in Australia
• Identify key gaps in the research
• Identify potential future research directions
The vacation research scholar will work closely with Dr Jamie Manolev to conduct this systematic scoping review of literature. They will be supported to develop skills in identifying different types of research literature, formulating literature search strategies, conducting literature screening techniques, and extracting key data from literature. The aim of this project is for it to culminate in the production of an academic publication.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Dr Jamie Manolev

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Project Summary: Mathematics education in Australia, much like in other countries, is in the grip of a perceived conflict between two main models of mathematics instruction: explicit teaching and inquiry-based learning. The two labels are used to represent a range of pedagogies that imply either teacher-led or student-centred teaching approaches. The debate between the two approaches has permeated politics, policymaking, and media commentary leading to pedagogical paralysis for many teachers and deep divisions between experts. However, the various types of pedagogies that fall into these two camps are often poorly understood due to the use of inconsistent or conflicting definitions. Also missing from the debate is an appreciation that, in reality, teachers draw on a range of pedagogical approaches by making decisions (in-the-moment and in advance) about the right approach for their students at any given time.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Professor Amie Albrecht

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Project Summary:This project will investigate how teachers/educators and leaders enact and further progress culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogies in early childhood education. Nesting professional learning and action research with qualitative methods, this project will explore participants’ pedagogical leadership and sustained pedagogical change within their sites and across organisations. Scholarship holder will have an opportunity to engage with the research team in theoretical discussions, analysis of interview and artefact analysis, review of the relevant literature and contribute to a publication.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Dr Jamie Sisson 

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Project Summary: This research aims to investigate how university students use Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to support their learning and their perceptions of AI tools for helping with their university study. As AI tools have become prolific and are readily becoming more available, it is timely to explore university students’ perceptions of them as tools to support their university learning. The findings will help inform how AI tools can be better integrated into the curriculum and the support provisions necessary for students to use the tools effectively to support their learning. This Vacation Scholar will be involved in literature reviews on this topic and/or survey analysis.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact people: Dr Negin Mirriahi

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Project Summary:Small schools have a long history in Australia and are places with strong social capital, often situated in relationship-rich communities. In terms of the regions, small schools are more prolific compared to metropolitan areas. A total of 271 primary, in South Australia or 30% of all SA schools are deemed to be small schools. National and international numeracy assessment indicates students in regional areas underperform compared to their urban peers. Additionally, students living regionally and remotely are more likely than their metropolitan peers to be developmentally vulnerable (Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), 2022).
This project seeks to develop strong community connections to pursue quality mathematical teaching and learning experiences for educators and students in small regional schools. It seeks to locate authentic mathematics learning in school and community spaces so that young people are equipped with numeracy, mathematics and therefore digital skills to strengthen their regional and global futures. It will do so in partnership with young students, their siblings, families, community members and council representatives.
A key feature of small schools, limited by the sizes of their student populations, is the presence of students completing multiple year levels within the one class. This mix of ages and the diverse range of development experienced by young children adds a complexity not seen in classes at schools with larger student populations.
The vacation scholarship can be involved in various components of the research, including using MySchool and ABS data to collate, organise, display Australian school population data overtime and produce a summary of findings; creating community profiles, conducting a literature review and/or contributing to a future publication and possible conference presentations.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Dr Kate Quane & Dr Bec Neill 

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Project Summary: This project focuses on enabling culturally sustaining engagement in multilingual family literacy programs for newly and recently arrived migrant families and their children learning English as an additional language (EAL). The scholarship holder will collaborate with experienced researchers to conduct a systematic research literature review, focusing on research-informed strategies and resources in multilingual family literacy programs that support and foster EAL families' and children's literacies in English and their home and community languages. This project complements and will further inform the team's current research, funded by the Scanlon Foundation, which has revealed an acute need to understand the best ways to support diverse EAL families in multilingual family literacy approaches in the context of families' and children's educators' complex and quite mobile lives. This review will be developed into a manuscript, with the scholarship holder named as a co-author along with the project’s researchers, for submission as a journal article to the international, Q1 Journal of early Childhood Literacy.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Professor Pauline Harris

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Project summary: In a world where workforce demands are evolving rapidly, higher education institutions face the challenge of equipping their students with the necessary skills for success. Unlocking the power of data, this project aims to revolutionise curriculum design in higher education using artificial intelligence (AI). Say goodbye to traditional, static curricula and welcome AI-enabled curriculum analytics (CA) that will shape the future of education. Imagine a world where universities can harness the potential of AI to analyse and align assessment practices, objectives, and study programs effortlessly. Through the use of cutting-edge large language models (LLMs), such as GPT, we will tap into the vast amounts of available data to identify and bridge the gap between what employers expect and what our students need. By leveraging AI, we will supercharge the quality of higher education curricula, helping our graduates acquire the skills essential for thriving in the workforce. This project seeks to explore the effectiveness of using LLMs to analyse program information, course content, and assessment objectives. By comparing the results with desired graduate qualities, we aim to evaluate the power of AI curriculum design and development. Prepare to witness the synergy between AI and education as we unlock the potential to shape the future of learning.

To realise these dreams, there is a need for a motivated candidate with an interest in building cross-disciplinary skills in education and STEM. The candidate will help us build an awesome LLM that will process large amounts of curricula-based text data, including descriptions in programs, courses, assessments, assignments and graduate quality-based descriptions to support research and practical applications. The candidate will work with an amazing research group and mentor that will support their learning and help guide them throughout the process while gaining sought-after skills in AI and data science!

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact people: Dr Andrew Zamecnik

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Project Summary:

Education students enrolled at UniSA’s Whyalla Campus are geographically diverse; some just a few minutes’ drive from the campus and others are hundreds of kilometres away. This project seeks to explore how a ‘caring’ HyFlex model, encompassing face-to-face, online synchronous, and asynchronous platforms for teaching and learning, might re-position interpersonal relationships in the pedagogical driver’s seat.

Equity of participation and parity of access to initial teacher education courses is always at the forefront of our thinking. As educators living and working regionally, we are uniquely positioned to foster interpersonal relationships, enhance collegial collaboration, and build strong school-university partnerships (Green et al. 2020). Developing a signature regional pedagogy that positions interpersonal and collegial relationships as central to the teaching and learning process, and addresses the tyranny of distance, has led to an unlikely pairing of interpersonal relationships and technology. Enacting a pedagogy of care (Motta & Bennett 2018) that recognises and values dialogic relationality and promotes affective and embodied praxis of the regional education experience (Seary & Willans 2020) and embracing a HyFlex delivery model (EDUCASE, 2020; Pressley, 2022) offers students agency and choice. Delivering initial teacher education classes face-to-face in our purpose-built learning space, with an option to attend via synchronous zoom, or asynchronously through a resourced recording, promotes engagement and supports equity of access.

Enacting a ‘caring’ HyFlex delivery model offers students regional connectivity with their peers, university tutors, and educators in schools. In turn, this enhances and supports the transfer and application of skills, knowledge and understanding gained through initial education courses to students’ pre-service school placements and strengthens school-university partnerships.

MODE OF STUDY: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Sharron Jones 

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Project Summary: It has long been recognised that bystanders can stop bullying in 50% of cases. This project significantly contributes to what is known about cyberbullying by exploring the online behaviours of young people. This project aimed to:

• Identify who are the bystanders within the context of cyber bullying
• Identify the roles that bystanders play in bullying situations in cyber space
• Highlight the significance of these participant roles
• Determine the decision making processes used by those involved

Data has been collected for this project therefore the vacation scholarship holder will contribute as part of a team who will analyse data and disseminate findings.

The scholarship holder will have the opportunity to engage with experienced researchers in the Centre for Research in Education and Social Inclusion and will receive training and mentoring from the research team.

Contact person: Dr Deborah Green 

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Project summary: This project seeks to understand more about how the ‘care for the community’ under Goal 1 “our people” aspect of the Mt Gambier Strategic Plan is being experienced by the people who live and work in the Mount Gambier region. This project focuses specifically on social work and human service workers and the organisations they work with and for.

There are multiple aspects to this exploratory project. We will undertake a review of the existing literature on regional service delivery models in Australia.

Time permitting, we will incorporate into that a mapping of the available social services on offer in Mount Gambier, with a specific lens on if the organization has a physical presence in the region, or if workers are attached to a hub of services located outside of the Mount Gambier region.

Rationale: While social work and human services graduates are attracted financially to work in regional areas, much of their social and emotional needs required to be a healthy and resilient worker remain unmet. Often this is because social services who support the Mount Gambier community have a minimal physical presence as their bricks and mortar premises are based in the Adelaide Metropolitan area.

Local member Troy Bell’s Future Mount Gambier Plan indicates that Health Care & Social Assistance is the 4^th most common occupation in Mount Gambier. Across the following pages, the plan mentions the need for more domestic violence workers and drug and alcohol counsellors, however, as previous research has shown, throwing incentives at people to work in regional areas will attract employees, but retaining them is the challenge. This requires workplaces which have a culture of peer-to-peer support, which increases resilience and reduces staff burnout, and turnover.

The overarching aim of this project is to strengthen ties with regional campuses and communities.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Dr Michele Jarldorn

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Project summary: There are a number of projects that students can be involved in. They are detailed below, but please do get in touch for further details. Students can work on one or multiple projects, all of which are underway. Activities generally include participant testing, learning how to collect cognitive measurements, study logistics, data entry, literature reviews, pilot testing, along with quantitative and qualitative data analysis.  Students will be immersed in a research environment, participating in laboratory meetings (CAIN Lab and BBB Research Centre), training events, and attending seminars. Projects include:

1. The neuropsychological profile of delirium.
2. Consumer feedback and co-design workshops (in the area of cognitive ageing).
3. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses relating to dementia diagnostics.
4. Developing a data literacy scale.

I am happy talk to students about their own project ideas too.

Contact person: A/Prof Hannah Keage

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Project Summary:The successful applicant would work within a friendly and supportive project team. The applicant would be involved in quantitative and qualitative analysis of survey data and the provision of reports to industry. The applicant may also have the opportunity to be involved data collection, this might include telephone interviews and real time monitoring and reporting of respondent rates.

Contact person: Professor Maureen Dollard & Cherie Crispin

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Project summary:This project will explore what empirical research in the field of environmental psychology has been conducted in Australia. Environmental psychology is broadly defined as the relationship between people and their environment (including the built, virtual, and natural environments). Through this project, you will learn how to navigate searching through databases and how to approach and plan for a literature review. This includes suitability of different review styles, familiarity with best-practice guidelines, and planning a strategy for analysing the results. This project can be completed remote/online as it does not require specialist equipment technology, however there will be an expectation of a commitment to meeting (which can be negotiated/conducted via Zoom if on-campus is not preferred). There is potential for the student to continue this research further.

Contact person: Dr Isabella Bower 

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Project Summary: The Family Law Amendment Bill marks the most significant changes to Australian family law since 2006. The most remarkable changes relate to how courts will approach decision-making for children after family separation, and what factors must be taken into account.

In this project, the student will investigate in detail the various amendments to the Family Law Act proposed by the new bill, and particularly the reforms relating to children, and compare how the new law differs from the existing law. This will involve statutory interpretation and a level of analysis as to how the amendments may change processes and outcomes for children and families. The student will also engage with the emerging literature on the topic, including academic commentary and parliamentary submissions.

In addition, the student will research significant cases over recent years which have changed or clarified the law with respect to allegations of child sexual abuse, de facto relationships and other issues. The student will provide analysis of these issues and case summaries to explain these recent developments.

Contact person: Dr Michelle Fernando

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Project summary: Scholarly survey of private practice guidelines relevant to Australia, NZ, Canada, USA, and the UK. Examination of books and journal publications and guidelines published by professional associations for themes and foci related to psychological private practice.

Mode of Study: This project has the option for remote/online participation.

Contact person: Dr Nadine Pelling

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