Dr Sally Staton is a Senior Research Fellow in the Science of Learning Research Centre at the Queensland Brain Institute, UQ. Dr Staton has a strong commitment to research that can inform and ensure positive early life experience for all children. Her research focuses on the role of early education and care settings in supporting young children's immediate and on-going social-emotional, cognitive and physical development. Dr Staton's research spans a range of study designs and methodologies, including evaluation studies in educational settings (applying randomised control trial and quasi-experimental designs), longitudinal studies tracking large child cohorts (>2000 children), standard observation techniques (in vivo and video), survey and individualised standard child assessment (using educational and psychological measures), as well as studies employing physiological (cortisol, actigraphy, heart rate variability) and qualitative (child, educator and parent interviews, socio-metric) designs. She has a particular expertise in the development, application and interpretation of observational measurement for educational practices and teacher-child interactions in education contexts, including early childhood settings. Dr Staton has a strong track record in research translation and community engagement, including delivery of reports for government and non-government organisations, professional development packages for early childhood professionals and teachers, presentations, workshops, videos and articles for parents, government regulatory officers and the early childhood sector. In 2016, she was named among Queensland's Young Tall Poppy Scientists for her contribution to science translation and engagement. In 2019 her succesful research partnerships with industry and government was acknowledged in a Partners in Research Excellence Award from UQ.

Dr Laetitia Coles is a Research Fellow within the Science of Learning Lab at the Queensland Brain Institute, led by Laureate Prof Karen Thorpe. As a mixed-methods applied sociologist, she leads the Workforces component of the Thriving Queensland Kids Brain Builders Initiative (https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain-builders) in support of the generation, translation, and application of knowledge from neurosciences into policy and practice, as well as leading the award-winning project entitled Families in Focus: Amplifying the voices of children with disability and their families (https://child-health-research.centre.uq.edu.au/event/5632/families-focus), in collaboration with Queensland Children's Hospital. She is committed to undertaking research that helps improve understandings of children's care environments, with a specific focus on supporting those who care for and educate children. Dr Coles' experience in multi-disciplinary research and in industry engagement underpins her strong track record in knowledge and research translation through both traditional and non-traditional research outputs.

Dr Coles completed her PhD in Sociology in 2020, looking at long work hours and fathers' engagement with children and caregiving – particularly focusing on the factors that facilitate participation in caregiving.

Peter is a Research Fellow in Applied Statistics at the Science of Learning Research Centre, Queensland Brain Institute. His research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that enable or limit children's life chances. He plays a crucial role in designing well-structured studies, analysing data, and interpreting results to provide valid and reliable conclusions on how to improve children's opportunities and outcomes.

As an applied statistician, Peter collaborates with an inter-disciplinary team to integrate statistical analyses with qualitative research and contextual knowledge. He brings expertise in identifying and analysing key factors and variables that influence children's life chances. Further, he develops research methodologies, including sampling strategies, data collection methods, and statistical analyses of small- and large-scale data, to understand the complex interplay of factors that contribute to children's opportunities and outcomes. He distills the link between experiences and children's life chances using an array of statistical methods, including longitudinal and multilevel modelling, measurement and psychometrics, causal inference, data science, structural equation modelling, and data visualization. Additionally, he has expertise in uncovering the mediating and moderating factors that influence the relationship between early life experiences and later life chances. By leveraging expertise in statistical analysis and research methodology, Peter's work provides evidence-based insights into the mechanisms that shape children's life chances. This evidence informs research, policy, and interventions aimed at improving children's opportunities and outcomes.

I am a recipient of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Early Career Industry Fellowship 2023 and currently a Research Fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI-UQ) and Life Course Centre (LCC-UQ). I previously held a post-doctoral research fellow position (2019-2022) at the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR). I am a behavioural economist with a strong background in conducting economic, natural experiments (program and policy) and randomised control trial (RCT) evaluations. My research focuses on improving educational and well-being outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) students, and I work closely and collaborate with social organisations to achieve these goals.

My research is grounded in prior experience living and working in regional and remote Indigenous communities in Far North Queensland (Aurukun, Cairns and Hope Vale), where I worked as a program designer and coach addressing community-based financial literacy. This gave me first-hand experience of the community strengths but also systemic barriers to health, education and social inclusion faced by First Nations peoples as specified in the Closing the Gap reform targets. This experience shaped my subsequent research agenda. I am applying my training in behavioural economics to improve student learning and redress social inequity. My focus is education as a mechanism to disrupt disadvantage. I apply experimental design methodologies to identify intervention points across the education pathway where support programs can best enable positive education outcomes. I have an 8-year track record of engagements with industry organisations in designing and evaluating education programs to support First Nations students.

These industry engagements have contributed to my receiving the ARC Industry Fellowship that supports successful educational pathways for First Nation students. The fellowship aims to develop strategies to prevent the steep drop in educational outcomes and disengagement of First Nations students as they transition from primary to secondary school. In collaboration with Indigenous communities, Former Origin Greats (FOGS) Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education (ARTIE) Academy and the Queensland Department of Education (DoE), the fellowship seeks to generate effective culturally embedded support strategies to avert this steep drop.

UQ Researchers profile

Dr Emma Cooke is a sociologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Kids Sleep Research Group at UQ's Child Health Research Centre (CHRC). Dr Cooke works with interdisciplinary teams to research the lived experiences of children, educators and families and is particularly interested in sleep, gender, wellbeing, and inequality. Her current research focuses on families’ experiences of having a child or sibling with sleep difficulties and a neurodisability (e.g., Down syndrome). She has expertise in qualitative research, DRAWing (Departing Radically in Academic Writing), and knowledge translation.

As a Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, she has researched educators’ experiences of using Information and Communication Technologies in education settings, and is currently researching technology use around bedtime in children with a neurodisability. When she was based in the Child Development, Education and Care Group at ISSR she worked on the Evaluation of the Queensland KindyLinQ Pilot Program and a range of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) research projects.

In her PhD thesis, Dr Cooke utilised a crystallization methodological framework to gain multifaceted insights into children’s rights, early childhood discourses, and children’s relaxation and unrestful experiences in ECEC. She has extensive experience interviewing children and adults across a range of contexts, and uses different qualitative analysis methodologies, including thematic analysis, discourse analysis, and creative analytical practices. An active member of the DRAW (Departing Radically in Academic Writing) Group, Dr Cooke’s recent academic work is written creatively for impact.