Child Health Research Summer and Winter Research Projects

Hours of engagement and delivery mode: 
Project available remotely or through a hybrid arrangement. Hours of engagement (up to 20 hours per week) negotiable, except meeting times with supervisor must be Monday, Tuesday or Thursday. Supervisor unavailable 29 June to 3 July, 2026.

The project:
The objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of diverse non-pharmacological interventions in reducing medical procedural anxiety in pre-school children (2 to 5 years), middle childhood (6 to 12 years) and adolescence (13 to 18 years), as well as reducing the costs to the health service. We are in the process of conducting a systematic review and a network meta-analysis (NMA) to compare the efficacy of various outcome indicators.

Learning outcomes and deliverables:

Scholars will gain skills in undertaking systematic review and network analysis according to Preferred Reporting Items for PRISMA for Network Meta-Analyses (PRISMA-NMA), GRADE analysis, manuscript preparation for peer-reviewed publication.

Duration of project: 4 weeks from 29 June to 24 July 2026
Hours of engagement: 20 – 36 hrs per week
Location: Child Health Research Centre, Centre for Children's Health Research Building, South Brisbane and Queensland Children’s Hospital
Delivery: The project would be predominantly on-site, with a hybrid arrangement available if necessary.

Any on-site work is based at the Child Health Research Centre (CHRC), at the Centre for Children’s Health Research, South Brisbane.

The project:
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are crucial for informing the treatment of critically ill children, yet existing evidence is constrained by small sample sizes, single-centre studies, and limited global representation. This scoping review explores the progress and challenges of conducting paediatric intensive care RCTs over the past 12 years. This project aims to compare PICU trials conducted in the past 12 years to earlier trials to identify methodological trends, areas of progress and persistent gaps in undertaking PICU trials. The project also aims to outline progress and international collaboration efforts to develop a publicly accessible database of published PICU trials to inform future research in paediatric critical care. The student will build on work currently undertaken with key activities including reviewing existing published paediatric clinical trials, extracting and collating relevant data, and assisting with the analysis and reporting of results. This study will provide the most comprehensive update in over a decade on the state of PICU RCTs, highlighting methodological trends, progress, and persistent gaps that impact evidence-based care for critically ill children. By developing and maintaining a publicly accessible global database of PICU trials, this study will lay the foundation for stronger international collaboration and more robust future research.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:

The student will,

• Gain experience in literature/data extraction, collation, and descriptive data analysis.
• Improve knowledge of paediatric critical care trial methods and outcome measures.
• Contribute to research with international relevance.

Suitable for:

This project would be most suitable for students studying biomedical science or public health.

Primary Supervisor:
Dr Trish Gilholm

Please contact Dr Gilholm before submitting your application at: 

Dr Trish Gilholm Research Fellow
Child Health Research Centre
p.gilholm@uq.edu.au

Hours of engagement and delivery mode:
Duration of project: 4 weeks from 29 June to 24 July 2026
Delivery mode: In person (opportunity for some flexible hours), Centre for Children’s Health Research (South Brisbane)

The project:
With bushfires becoming more frequent in Australia, there is an urgent need for public health resources to minimise the negative health impacts of exposure. Consumers have identified they want a practical kit to manage smoke exposure in their homes. This project aims to develop a practical bushfire smoke response kit to help communities and families prepare for and manage bushfire smoke events. The project will involve researching, identifying, and developing appropriate evidence-based resources to include in the kit, as well as selecting key communities in which to pilot and evaluate its effectiveness.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:
Through this work, the student will gain experience in applied public health research, including literature review, resource development, community needs assessment, and program planning and evaluation. The student will present the proposed resources and kit framework to the wider team and outline recommended next steps in a concise final presentation.

Suitable for:
This project is ideal for a student interested in public health, environmental health, and science translation. No prior experience is required, but the student must be enthusiastic, have strong communication skills, and be willing to work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary team.

Primary Supervisor:
Dr Dwan Vilcins

Further information:
Dr Dwan Vilcins
d.vilcins@uq.edu.au

Hours of engagement and delivery mode:

Duration of project: 4 weeks from 29 June to 24 July 2026
Hours of engagement: 20 – 36 hrs per week
Delivery Mode: In person
Location: Child Health Research Centre, South Brisbane.

Description:
Bushfires and their associated health impacts are a significant national concern. The EMBER Study is a holistic investigation of bushfire smoke exposure in vulnerable populations, examining multiple stages of the exposure–disease continuum. Its overarching aim is to generate evidence that informs public health recommendations and identifies practical intervention points to reduce the adverse health effects of bushfire smoke. The EMBER project focuses on two key groups at increased risk of exposure: firefighters and households located near hazard reduction burn sites. The study integrates environmental monitoring with health assessments, including air quality measurement, biological sampling (urine), and field-based lung function testing. Through this multidisciplinary approach, EMBER seeks to improve understanding of real-world smoke exposure and support strategies to better protect communities during bushfire events.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:
Students involved in this project will gain hands-on experience across the full research cycle, including fieldwork preparation, participant engagement, biological sample collection, lung function testing, data entry, and post-fieldwork processes. There is also potential for involvement in basic data analysis and interpretation. This project provides valuable exposure to real-world, field-based public health and environmental health research.

Suitable for:
This project is ideal for a student interested in public health, environmental health, or epidemiology. No prior experience is required, but the student must be enthusiastic, have strong communication skills, and be willing to work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary team.

Primary Suprervisor:
Dr Dwan Vilcins

For more information

Students can contact Dr Vilcins at d.vilcins@uq.edu.au before application

For the Winter program, students will be engaged for 4 weeks only.
Engagement: 36 hrs per week. 29 June – 24 July 2026.
Delivery: Onsite.
 

The project:
Acquired brain injury (ABI) is a common and often devastating diagnosis for a child and family, impacting 1-2% of young Australians. It can have life-long neurological and psychological sequelae, including motor, cognitive and behavioural problems that impair learning and later job opportunities. Rehabilitation interventions are time- and resource-intensive with significant healthcare and family out-of-pocket expenses. Brain injuries are heterogeneous so that outcomes and response to interventions vary widely depending on the affected brain region/s (e.g. right motor cortex, thalamic, or brain stem injury can all cause left-sided weakness) which are likely to respond very differently to therapy. For these reasons, the choosing a therapeutic intervention that is tailored to the individual child is paramount. In order to achieve these, it is important to establish a methodological and clinical framework to understand the effects of the injury on the brain and not just behaviour so that we can get the most effective treatment for the “right” child at the “right” time. Understanding brain-behavioural correlations in childhood ABI through brain connectivity analyses offers real potential to do this especially if this can be done easily in the clinic. MRI is the standard way to examine brain connectivity. Repeated MRIs, however, are expensive and often poorly tolerated in young people, especially after a brain injury. Newer point-of care techniques that can provide brain-based recovery/reorganisation information in addition to traditional neuropsychological assessments are needed. These could include high density electroencephalography (HD EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). This overall project aims to investigate the fundamental relationships between brain connectivity and common symptoms and behaviours that arise following ABI in children and youth during recovery. Using brain connectivity techniques, we will examine the relationship between brain connectivity and symptom/behaviour changes (i.e. brain-behaviour correlations) present in childhood ABI and establish identifiable brain-based markers of ABI recovery.

The student in the winter project will be involved in the preprocessing/analysis of HD EEG and fNIRS data from ABI and healthy control participants.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables: 
Learning outcomes include,

• Understand how clinical research is conducted within a tertiary education and hospital environment.  
• Assist in the conduction of HD-EEG and fNIRS assessments.
• Conduct preprocessing and analysis of HD-EEG and fNIRS data Students may also be asked to present their learnings via oral presentation to the CHRC group at the end of their project.

Who should apply?
This project is open to applications from students with a background in health and would suit students interested in neuroscience.

Primary Supervisor:
Dr Nathan Delang, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Acquired Brain Injury in Children (ABiC) Group, Child Health Research Centre.

Further information: 
Please reach out to Nathan with any questions (n.delang@uq.edu.au).
 

Hours of engagement and delivery mode:
For the Winter program, students will be engaged for 4 weeks only.
Engagement: 36 hrs per week. 29 June – 24 July 2026.
Delivery: Onsite and/or Hybrid.

The project:
This project examines how genetic vulnerability for reproductive disorders (e.g., endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids) and mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, ADHD) interacts with pubertal development to influence mental health outcomes in early adolescence. Puberty represents a key biological transition, particularly for girls, and may alter how inherited risk for both reproductive and psychological conditions are expressed. The aim of the project is to investigate whether genetic vulnerability is more strongly associated with depressive, anxiety, or ADHD symptoms following menarche and whether these patterns differ by sex. We hypothesise that inherited risk for reproductive disorders and mental health conditions may become more strongly linked to psychological symptoms after the onset of puberty. Students will work with existing datasets containing measures of pubertal development, menstrual characteristics, mental health symptoms, and genetic risk indicators. The project will involve data cleaning, variable preparation, descriptive analyses, and regression modelling to explore associations between genetic vulnerability and pubertal stage.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables: 

• Clean, manage, and prepare complex health and genetics datasets for statistical analysis
• Understand and apply measures of genetic vulnerability in developmental research
• Examine relationships between pubertal development, reproductive health, and mental health outcomes
• Conduct and interpret regression analyses
• Translate statistical results into clear, meaningful scientific conclusions suitable for academic reporting

Students may also be asked to present their learnings via oral presentation to the CHRC group at the end of their project.

Who should apply?
This project is suitable for undergraduate students with an interest in psychology, neuroscience, public health, women’s health, genetics, data science, or pre-medical studies.

Applicants should have:

• Basic knowledge of statistics
• Some experience with data analysis software (e.g., R) preferred but not essential

Primary Supervisor:
Dr. Sushma Marla, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Child and Youth Mental Health Group, Child Health Research Centre

Further Information:
Please reach out to Sushma with any questions (s.marla@uq.edu.au).

For the Winter program, students will be engaged for 4 weeks only.
Engagement: 36 hrs per week. 29 June – 24 July 2026.
Delivery: Onsite and/or Hybrid

The project:
Around 50% of individuals with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and concussion do not receive the effective care they need, despite strong evidence-based recommendations for improving their outcomes. Untreated persisting post-concussion symptoms can have serious effects on work, school and mental wellbeing. Our team has developed the MRFF-funded ANZ CPG (anzconcussionguidelines.com) which have been endorsed by multiple organisations across Australia. These guidelines help to debunk several myths in mTBI management (e.g., cocoon therapy) and strongly recommend strategies now known to be crucial for optimising outcomes. Failure to implement these clinical guideline recommendations can lead to poor patient outcomes, inconsistent care, health service inefficiencies, and loss of patient trust. However, patients, especially in regional and rural areas, face significant barriers to accessing necessary care. Our goal is to enhance access to care and improve outcomes through a new model of patient-driven care that effectively implements the ANZ CPG.
The student in the summer project will be involved in informing this new model of care for a larger MRFF funded research project.
Activities will include: 

• Qualitative analysis for a concussion research project focused on improving concussion care through stakeholder co-design
• Structured non-participant observational analysis and coding of audio-video recordings of co-design sessions
• A framework-based thematic analysis to evaluate participation dynamics and co-design processes

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:
Learning outcomes include, 

• Understand how concussion care is implemented within Australia - Assist with a multidisciplinary team of concussion experts in a large-scale research project
• Upskill in website content generation and upkeep
• Students may also be asked to present their learnings via oral presentation to the CHRC group at the end of their project.

Who should apply?
This project is open to applications from students with a background in health and would suit students interested in neuroscience and/or implementation science.

Primary supervisor:
Dr Lizzy Haines, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Acquired Brain Injury in Children (ABiC) Group, Child Health Research Centre.

For further information, please reach out to Lizzy with any questions (l.haines@uq.edu.au).

The student will be engaged for 20-36 hours per week over the 4-week Winter Research Program (29 June – 24 July 2026).

Delivery: The project would be predominantly on-site, with a hybrid arrangement available if necessary. 
Any on-site work is based at the Child Health Research Centre (CHRC), at the Centre for Children’s Health Research, South Brisbane.

The project:
Successful evidence-based healthcare hinges on translating improved treatments and models of care, tested predominantly through randomised controlled trials (RCTs), into widespread clinical practice. However, the implementation of new evidence is often suboptimal resulting in slow or limited delivery of health innovations to the people who need them most. Evidence synthesis and implementation are critical cogs in a learning health system engine. The field of implementation science endeavours to produce and apply research methods that bridge the gap between evidence-based knowledge and real-world practice. There are a range of implementation science theories, models and frameworks (TMFs) that facilitate research translation and can be embedded into trial design (strategies that support the intervention delivery) and/or outcomes (measuring the implementation effect).

PICU research has historically been challenged by low sample sizes, slow adoption of innovative approaches, and limited generalisability due to localised evidence generation. Implementation science has potential to add value across the PICU clinical trial pipeline from research prioritisation, intervention design, evaluation and translation. The way in which implementation science theories, models and frameworks have been applied to PICU trials to date is unknown.

By searching across all trials held within the PICUtrials database, the aims of this project are to:

1. Summarise and evaluated the characteristics, contexts and methods of implementation science theories models and frameworks used in PICUtrials.
2. Appraise the quality of implementation reporting in PICUtrials
3. Use these findings to discuss the recommendations for the future conduct and reporting of implementation science in PICUtrials.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:
The student will work in collaboration with the PICU and Implementation science team. The expected outcome is the completion of a robust literature review with a co-authored review article submitted for publication +/- a conference abstract submission for presentation.

The scholar will gain skills in literature searching using novel search algorithms (Python software), critical appraisal of literature, understanding of trial architecture and design, awareness of implementation science theories, models and frameworks in the context of clinical trials, data collection and collation methods using Covidence software, data analysis, writing and presentation skills in collaboration with an experienced researchers team, mentoring from experts in PICU and Implementation science.  

Who should apply?
This project would be most suitable for students with a background in medicine, health or behavioural sciences, scholars interested in a future PhD in implementation science or clinical trials.

Primary Supervisor
Profesor Kristen Gibbons.
If you would like to apply, please contact Professor Kristen Gibbons.

Prof Kristen Gibbons
Group Lead
Child Health Research Centre
k.gibbons@uq.edu.au 

This project will be offered during the Winter program for 4 weeks (29 June - 24 July). Students will be engaged for 36 hours per week, in line with program requirements. The project will be delivered on-site in person at the St Lucia campus.

The project:
The research project involves assessing and evaluating methods for trustworthy artificial intelligence in paediatric intensive care. This includes conducting a structured review of approaches to explainability, uncertainty estimation, and safe implementation of machine learning in critical care. The project will also examine and benchmark relevant open-source datasets and analytical pipelines to support early model development and translation planning.

Expected learning outcomes and deliverables:
Students will gain an understanding of trustworthy artificial intelligence in paediatric intensive care, including explainability, uncertainty estimation and safe implementation of machine learning in critical care settings. They will develop skills in conducting structured literature reviews, critically appraising research, benchmarking open-source datasets, and evaluating analytical pipelines. Students will also gain experience working collaboratively within a multidisciplinary team, engaging with clinical and technical perspectives.

By the end of the project, students will be expected to contribute to a structured review summary, assist with dataset and pipeline benchmarking, and prepare a brief written report and oral presentation outlining their findings. There may also be opportunities to contribute to conference abstracts or publications arising from the project.

Who should apply?
This project is suitable for students in their 3rd or 4th year, or Honours students, with a background in computer science, data science, biomedical engineering, statistics, health sciences, or a related discipline.

We are seeking students with strong analytical and critical thinking skills, an interest in applied artificial intelligence, AI in healthcare, and the ability to work both independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team. Experience with programming (e.g. Python or R), data analysis, or machine learning will be highly regarded but is not essential. Strong written and verbal communication skills are desirable.

Primary supervisor:
Dr Moloud Abdar

For further information about the project, please contact the Children's Intensive Care Research Program (ChIRP) team via the Child Health Research Centre.
Program details are available at:
https://child-health-research.centre.uq.edu.au/research/childrens-intensive-care
Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact the supervisor prior to submitting an application to discuss their interest and suitability for the project.