Thoracic Research Centre

We have a number of exciting PhD opportunities available for prospective PhD students.

Our research spans diseases and platforms including:

• lung cancer, new ways of diagnosis, staging and treatment
• mesothelioma and asbestos disease
• COPD
• Microbiome and breath metabolome
• Chronic lung disease
• Promoting health lungs
• Insight into lung ageing
• Established and emerging threats to health such as air pollution and carcinogens such as asbestos
• Genetics and genomics, susceptibility, acquired mutations, SNP, eQTL
• Epigenetics and epigenomics
• TMAs and immunochemistry
• Digital PCR and ultrasensitive molecular detection
• CT Screening and early detection including breath testing for disease, liquid biopsies, risk prediction
• Tumour banking for accelerating scientific discoveries
• Collaborative international projects such as the IASLC TNM databases, TCGA
• Clinical guidelines and best practice
• Multidisciplinary care
• Advanced bronchoscopy and imaging
• Disease risk factors, prevention and risk prediction
• Translating research to the clinic for healthy lungs

Director of the UQTRC 

Professor Kwun Fong

Team Lead: Lung cancer 
Phone: +61 7 3139 4000 
Email: Kwun.Fong@health.qld.gov.au 

Senior Researchers 

Professor Ian Yang

Team Lead: Airways diseases - COPD, Asthma, Air pollution, Ageing 
Phone: +61 7 3139 4000 
Email: Ian.Yang@health.qld.gov.au 

Associate Professor Rayleen Bowman 

Team Lead: Mesothelioma 
Phone: +61 7 3139 4000 
Email: Rayleen.Bowman@health.qld.gov.au 

Associate Professor Henry Marshall 

Team Lead: Smoking Cessation, Lung Cancer
Phone: +61 7 3139 4000 
Email: Henry.Marshall@health.qld.gov.au 

Dr Gerry Olive

Team Lead: Bronchoscopy, Lung Cancer Screening and Nodal Management
Email: gerard.olive@health.qld.gov.au

Dr Steven Leong
Team Lead: Interventional Bronchoscopy
Email: steven.leong@health.qld.gov.au

Clinical Research Team  

Phone: +61 7 3139 4000 

Jaccalyne (Jacci) Brady, Clinical Research Nurse 
Project: Pulmonary Malignancy Conference 
Email: PMC@health.qld.gov.au

Anita Goldsworthy, Clinical Research Nurse 
Project: The Prince Charles Hospital Lung Bank 
Email: lung_research@health.qld.gov.au

Rachel Bailey, Clinical Research Nurse 
Project: Australian Lung Screen Trial 
Email: alst@health.qld.gov.au 

Sangmi (Sammy) Moloney, Clinical Research Nurse 
Project: Thoracic Research 
Email:  lung_research@health.qld.gov.au 

Peter Vardon, Clinical Research Nurse 
Project: Smoking Cessation 
Email: maxup@health.qld.gov.au 

Rina Waller, Clinical Research Nurse 
Project: Smoking Cessation 
Email: maxup@health.qld.gov.au 

Dr Victor Gallegos Rejas, Research Officer 
Project: Smoking Cessation 
Phone: +61 7 3443 3530 
Email: v.gallegosrejas@uq.edu.au 

Dr Hollie Bendotti, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Email: h.bendotti@uq.edu.au

Laboratory team and researchers  

Phone: +61 7 3139 4110 
Email: uqtrc@uq.edu.au 

Dr Kelly Chee, Postdoctoral Research Scientist 
Email: t.chee@uq.edu.au 

Caeli Zahra, Research Assistant 
Email: c.zahra@uq.edu.au 

Yanni Ong, Research Assistant 
Email: yanni.ong@uq.edu.au 

Edward Stephens, PhD Candidate  
Project: Biomarkers of lung cancer in people who have never smoked 
Email: edward.stephens@student.uq.edu.au 

Jazmin Mireya Guayco Sigcha, PhD Candidate  
Project: Blood Biomarkers in Lung Cancer screening
Email: jazmin.guaycosigcha@student.uq.edu.au

Dr Edwina Duhig, MPhil
Project: Microenvironment in Lung Diseases including non-small cell carcinoma
Email: e.duhig1@uq.edu.au

Janet Shaw, PhD Candidate
Project: COPD
Email: janet.shaw@uqconnect.edu.au

Nikita Patel
Project: Bone Density

Cindy Fu, Honours Student
Email: d.fu1@student.uq.edu.au

For a computer scientist to develop the app

Name: Developing a chat bot for smoking cessation

Duration: 3 years

Value: UQ PhD stipend

Smoking is a significant cause of disease and mortality globally.  Helping smokers to quit is challenging.  New technology, such as smartphone apps, could complement existing smoking cessation services but the optimal design, development and clinical impact of such systems remains uncertain and an emerging research area.  An app that provides tailored rather than generic support to smokers, akin to counselling, may be beneficial.

Researchers from Queensland Health, University of Queensland and CSIRO are seeking a PhD candidate to conduct research into the development and testing of a conversation agent (or chat-bot) that will give individualised smoking cessation counselling and expert advice to smokers.

The ideal candidate will be keen to build bridges between computer science and health outcomes. They will possess a strong background in either computer science or linguistic studies. Knowledge of natural language processing, machine learning, computational logic would be looked upon favourably as well as a strong command of colloquial English.

This project has NHMRC funding. The research will be conducted under the supervision of Dr. Henry Marshall (Henry.Marshall@health.qld.gov.au) and Dr. David Ireland (d.ireland@csiro.au).

For further information contact Dr. David Ireland.

For a social scientist to run the pilot testing side

Name: Testing a chat bot for smoking cessation

Duration: 3 years

Value: UQ PhD stipend

Smoking is a significant cause of disease and mortality globally.  Helping smokers to quit is challenging.  New technology, such as smartphone apps, could complement existing smoking cessation services but the optimal design, development and clinical impact of such systems remains uncertain and is an emerging research area.  An app that provides tailored rather than generic support to smokers, akin to counselling, may be beneficial.

We are looking for a qualified and enthusiastic PhD student with a behavioural change/psychology/social science or public health background to test and refine a prototype smoking cessation app in a clinical testing amongst consumers, patients and clinical experts in smoking cessation. 

This project has NHMRC funding and involves collaboration between computer science, behavior change psychology and clinical medicine. 

For further information contact Dr. Henry Marshall (Henry.Marshall@health.qld.gov.au)

See website for more details: https://graduate-school.uq.edu.au/phd-scholarships-health

For a clinical or biomedical scientist

Name: Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer is the major cause of cancer deaths and for the first time, there are starting to be reductions in lung cancer mortality from early detection/screening and effective systemic treatments.

We are undertaking and international CT lung cancer screening trial across Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Spain.

We are looking for a qualified and enthusiastic PhD student with background in health, medicine or nursing, to participate in the screening study, to research implementation and barriers to uptake of this technology.

This project has NHMRC funding and involves collaboration between science, imaging, AI, nursing, health service delivery and clinical medicine.

A PhD scholarship is available for the successful applicant.

Please contact Professor Kwun Fong to discuss this opportunity kwun.fong@health.qld.gov.au

For a clinical or biomedical scientist

Name: Lung Cancer Biomarkers

Duration: 3 years

Value: UQ PhD stipend

Lung cancer is the major cause of cancer deaths and for the first time, there are starting to be reductions in lung cancer mortality from early detection/screening and effective systemic treatments

A major development has been the ability to use modern next gen sequencing and other ultra sensitive eg PCR techniques to identify tumour biomarkers in blood (liquid biomarkers) for the purpose of diagnosis, response prediction, monitoring and prognostication. 

We are undertaking several clinical trials to determine the clinical validity and clinical utility for high priority lung cancer biomarker panels.

We are looking for a qualified and enthusiastic PhD student with background in health, medicine, surgery or nursing, to participate in these biomarker research projects, to test the value of these new next gen tests for optimising cancer detection and care

This project has NHMRC funding and involves collaboration between clinical medicine and surgery, molecular and sequencing experts, nursing and oncology.

Two PhD scholarships are available for successful applicants.

Please contact Professor Kwun Fong to discuss this opportunity kwun.fong@health.qld.gov.au

UQ Summer or Winter Research Program projects

The UQ Research Program provides UQ students with an opportunity to gain research experience working alongside some of the university’s leading academics and researchers.

Participation is open to undergraduate students, including honours, who have completed at least one year of study at the time of application and Masters by coursework students. 

Program details

Applications for the Winter 2026 Scholarships will open Monday 23 March 2026 and close at 11:59pm Sunday 12 April 2026.

Research projects will run for 4 weeks between 29 June–24 July 2026..  

All successful scholars will receive a $2,000 scholarship.

Eligibility

To qualify you must be enrolled at UQ at the time of application and maintain ongoing enrolment in a program at UQ for the entirety of the research program.

How to apply

For more details about the program including how to apply go the UQ Research Experience page.

Available projects

Projects for the Winter 2026 program will be published by Monday 23 March 2026.