Centre Achievements

Three big wins for Centre researchers

16 May 2023

The Life Course Centre congratulates three researchers from The University of Queensland who have recently secured new funding – a huge boost to the ongoing important research of the Centre.


Associate Professor Abdullah Mamun

The implementation of a life course approach in antenatal and postnatal care settings in Nepal

Abdullah Mamun, Chief Investigator (UQ)

Chief Investigator, Abdullah Mamun, has been awarded $2.6 million from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Research Council of Norway, through the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD). Recognised as an international leader in areas of life course epidemiology, Mamun has been awarded funding to research the implementation of a life course approach in antenatal and postnatal care settings in Nepal. His previous research has made significant contributions to understanding the critical stages of life and early life determinants of health. The GACD connects national and international funding agencies, including the NHMRC to build collaboration across a wide pool of global expertise in priority research areas. 

Professor Cameron Parsell

Research evidence in the not-for-profit sector and consumer-driven change

Chief Investigator, Cameron Parsell, has secured $1,089,296 in funding (the largest amount awarded, Australia-wide!) for his fellowship to work with Micah Projects on the project: Research evidence in the not-for-profit sector and consumer-driven change. This project has three aims: first, to further build research literacy within the not-for-profit human service sector; second, to contribute new knowledge about how human service sector clients can shape the nature of the services they rely upon; and third, develop a framework for human service clients, human service practitioners, and government stakeholders to more actively and collaboratively engage in social policy development. The project expects to generate new knowledge to underpin consumer led and transformations in the human service sector. Expected outcomes of the project include a greater understanding of how not-for-profit organisations can bring together their clients and governments to collaboratively solve social problems. 

Cameron Parsell, Chief Investigator (UQ)

Dr Azhar Potia

Preventing the “attendance cliff” in the transition from primary to secondary school amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students

Life Course Centre Research Fellow, Azhar Potia, has secured an Australian Research Council (ARC) Early Career Industry Fellowship that supports successful educational pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. In collaboration with Indigenous communities, the Former Origin Greats (FOGS) Achieving Results Through Indigenous (ARTIE) Academy and the Queensland Department of Education, the fellowship aims to develop strategies to prevent the steep drop in attendance rates (an attendance cliff) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as they transition from primary to secondary school. The fellowship seeks to generate effective culturally embedded support strategies to avert this attendance cliff.

Azhar Potia, Research Fellow (UQ)