A decade of inspiration: celebrating 10 years of the InspireU program
Published on: 14 December 2023
- Astrology is enjoying a major surge in popularity, particularly among young people. But reading the stars is nothing new – it's one of humanity’s oldest ways of making sense of the world. So why the sudden horoscope fever? UQ alum Dr Michelle Pfeffer has us star-struck with her knowledge on all things star signs and divinations.
- For this instalment, we sat down with Professor Tracey Bunda, a Ngugi/Wakka Wakka woman and Professor of Indigenous Education at UQ. Professor Bunda is a leading voice in Indigenous education and a passionate advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
- Many of us hesitate to seek help or testing for our hearing. Perhaps you’re afraid you’ll be told to wear hearing aids, and envision the large and bulky hearing aids you might have seen on your grandparents decades ago. What are your options?
- For this edition of UQ Mythbusters, Dr Marlize Bekker and Dr Deirdre Mikkelsen from the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability in the Faculty of Science help us get to the truth about the safety of non-stick cookware, the chemicals involved, and the best practices to ensure your cookware remains safe.
- In this edition, we catch up with the Executive Dean of the newly established Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences (HMBS), Professor Danny Liew.
- At The University of Queensland (UQ), we are proud to support and amplify the voices of women who are breaking barriers, reshaping policies and igniting movements that are transforming the world.
- We spoke to 2 alumni who are striving to improve food products and processes to ensure they are safe, high-quality, and nutritious – and to help sort out which biscuit is the best biscuit.
- You might have heard that eating too many eggs will cause high cholesterol, leading to poor health. But is there any truth to it? Our UQ experts unpack the science of eggs so you can crack on with your breakfast.
- The greatest risk factors for developing dementia – age and genetics – are beyond our control. However, studies show many health and lifestyle choices have an impact on our dementia risk.
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- The University of Queensland community is remembering the achievements of activist, academic and author, Adjunct Associate Professor Merle Thornton AM, who died on Friday 16 August, aged 93.
- As the Olympic cauldron is extinguished in Paris, to be reignited in Los Angeles in 4 years, the magic carpet ride of 19 UQ athletes comes to an end, after 16 days of triumph, heartbreak and unforgettable experiences.
- UQ's Gabi Palm and Abby Andrews have helped create a powerful legacy by winning an inaugural Olympic silver medal. UQ alum Louise Evans reports from Paris.
- UQ alum Maddison Keeney has won the silver medal in the women’s 3-metre springboard, the first Australian in history to win an individual Olympic medal in a springboard diving event.
- What’s it like to work at the world’s biggest sporting event? Louise Evans (Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) '82) who’s covering her seventh Games, takes you deep inside the Olympics for a rare look behind the scenes.
- What drives a four-time Paralympian and multiple gold medallist to continue to push his body to its limits when he’s already achieved almost everything there is to achieve in swimming?
- As an Olympian, I used to think mindset was about being harder, tougher, stronger. I used to think it was about eliminating stress and pressure. I used to think it was about setting goals and chasing them. It turns out I was way off.
- The honour of opening Australia’s medal tally on the first morning of the Paris 2014 Olympics rests on the impressive shoulders of UQ Alum Maddison Keeney. She will be competing in the synchronised 3-metre springboard diving event on day one of the Games with her synchro sister Anabelle Smith.
- The first Australian Indigenous woman to complete a university degree, Dr Margaret Valadian AO MBE, has been posthumously honoured with an Honorary Doctorate from UQ. The University will also record the late Dr Valadian’s remarkable contribution with a carving in UQ’s Great Court.
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- It’s hard to know where to begin when it comes to cutting through the nonsense and understanding the science around sugar intake. So, 'Contact' called on a UQ expert who knows her glucose from her fructose: Professor Sarah McNaughton.
- While a lot of profit stands to be made from alcohol and liquor licensing fees, we can’t ignore the harm it poses to young people.
- University of Queensland PhD student Amy Zhao has discovered that we are attracted to people who look like ourselves.
- For the first time, a person has been cryopreserved in Australia in the hope of being reanimated in the future. But the process opens a possible legal minefield, according to a UQ expert.
- After almost 4 years on our screens, it could be expected that viewer fatigue would set in and Bridgerton would slowly but surely face declining numbers. As we return to the Bridgerton-verse for season 3, however, there are a few key elements that have drawn viewers back and enticed new viewers to engage as well.
- Turning kerbside carparks into cycling lanes could improve city accessibility and liveability without affecting business revenue, UQ research has found.
- A UQ-led service improving access to technology for people with aphasia is continuing to provide life changing support, thanks to a generous donation from the Campbell family.
- Sleep wrinkles are temporary. But as your skin loses its elasticity as you age, they can set in. Here’s what you can do to minimise the chance of them forming in the first place.
- How many hydration misconceptions are you carrying around along with your designer canteen? We asked Professor Lauren Ball of UQ’s School of Public Health to set the record straight on some well-travelled ‘facts’ about drinking water.
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- Twenty fours years since the release of the ever-timely book Sister Girl, its author, Dr Jackie Huggins AM FAHA, and editor, Associate Professor Sandra Phillips, reflect on identity and reconciliation ahead of the book’s relaunch this month.
- Read more books, spend less money. Exercise more often, order Uber Eats less regularly. Decrease screen time, increase family time. Whatever your New Year’s resolution is, you’re less than 8 percent likely to stick to it...
- UQ's vision is to become a global leader in disability inclusion. Contact spoke with Accessibility and Learning Support Assistant Manager Leonie Meyn about her job to ensure that all users – whatever their ability – can access the Library’s full range of facilities and resources.
- Exploring the environmental benefits of plant-based eating, plus a UQ dietician shares their top tips for eating green.
- Emeritus Professor Roland 'Roly' Sussex weighs in on Oxford English Dictionary's Word Of The Year or “WOTY” for 2021 – “vax”.
- Meet the innovative UQ lecturer helping students learn business management in less than 60 seconds.
- Meet the UQ lecturer teaching students to develop mobile applications to help those in need.
- Claire Ashman spent 36 years cut off from the outside world in two repressive religious sects, following a strict form of Tridentine Catholicism. It was only by interrogating the status quo that she was able forge a new life for herself and her eight children.
- Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes to create a 'Contact' magazine feature article?
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- Nine University of Queensland students and community members are packing their bags after being selected to represent Australia at the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
- A UQ-led service improving access to technology for people with aphasia is continuing to provide life changing support, thanks to a generous donation from the Campbell family.
- Having sat idle and out of tune for 8 years, the familiar haunting tones of the UQ pipe organwill reverberate around the UQ Art Museum once more following the instrument’s restoration in March.
- Did you know that iconic UQ Army General Douglas MacArthur has a degree from UQ? For the first time, 'Contact' reveals the full correspondence between MacArthur and then-UQ Chancellor Forgan Smith in the lead up to MacArthur's honorary doctorate conferral.
- When Don Barrett retired from teaching just shy of his 89th birthday in 2018, he was Queensland’s oldest practising teacher. He taught Latin for more than half a century at both high school and university level. But who is Don when he isn't transcribing Latin phrases in history books?
- Ahead of the 2024 Rodney Wylie Eminent Visiting Fellowship Lecture Series in Australia, 'Contact' sat down with the French politician and former EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier to talk about Brexit, diplomacy, and his unusual approach to building unity.
- In this edition of The Real YouQ, 'Contact' catches up with audiology research leader and the new Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, Professor Louise Hickson AM.
- UQ Vice-Chancellor and President's 2024 International Women's Day message.
- In this edition of The Real YouQ, we catch up with UQ's very own Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Deborah Terry AC, who was named as a Companion of the Order of Australia in this year's Australia Day Honours list and whose tenure as UQ's Vice-Chancellor has been extended for 5 years.
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- While a lot of profit stands to be made from alcohol and liquor licensing fees, we can’t ignore the harm it poses to young people.
- For the first time, a person has been cryopreserved in Australia in the hope of being reanimated in the future. But the process opens a possible legal minefield, according to a UQ expert.
- After almost 4 years on our screens, it could be expected that viewer fatigue would set in and Bridgerton would slowly but surely face declining numbers. As we return to the Bridgerton-verse for season 3, however, there are a few key elements that have drawn viewers back and enticed new viewers to engage as well.
- In this edition of the Real YouQ, 'Contact' catches up with Jess Pattison – a UQ alum and co-founder of agricultural venture studio Dirt Lab.
- Sleep wrinkles are temporary. But as your skin loses its elasticity as you age, they can set in. Here’s what you can do to minimise the chance of them forming in the first place.
- How many hydration misconceptions are you carrying around along with your designer canteen? We asked Professor Lauren Ball of UQ’s School of Public Health to set the record straight on some well-travelled ‘facts’ about drinking water.
- For decades, some sports have fostered a win-at-all-costs culture, with concussion often an afterthought. But there are signs that attitude is changing.
- Recent high-profile incidents of gender-based violence have once again raised calls for the issue to be treated as a national crisis. So, as tens of thousands of Australians rallied in cities and towns across the country, 'Contact' asked UQ experts: what can actually be done to end gendered violence?
- Romance and fantasy have long been bedfellows, but thanks to BookTok, 'romantasy' is trending – online, in bookshops and on bestseller lists.
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- What’s it like to work at the world’s biggest sporting event? Louise Evans (Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) '82) who’s covering her seventh Games, takes you deep inside the Olympics for a rare look behind the scenes.
- At the Olympic Games, 4 is the loneliest number. Missing the medals by one place is one of the toughest experiences of the Games, but 20-year-old Lizzy Dekkers handled that situation with substantial grace in the 200 metres butterfly final.
- Business student Tom Neill has anchored the Australian men’s 4x200 metres freestyle relay team to the bronze medal at the Paris Olympics. He was handed the responsibility of securing a medal in the final leg and becomes the first UQ athlete to win a medal in Paris.
- Sevens rugby can be a cruel master as the Australian women discovered when a last-moment 80-metre runaway try allowed the USA to snatch the Olympic bronze medal.
- What drives a four-time Paralympian and multiple gold medallist to continue to push his body to its limits when he’s already achieved almost everything there is to achieve in swimming?
- Three’s company for UQ Hockey Club stars Tatum Stewart, Claire Colwill and Rebecca Greiner, who will fly the University flag at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
- As an Olympian, I used to think mindset was about being harder, tougher, stronger. I used to think it was about eliminating stress and pressure. I used to think it was about setting goals and chasing them. It turns out I was way off.
- UQ exercise physiologist and sport scientist Associate Professor Emma Beckman will head to Paris with Paralympics Australia as part of a small group of experts doing on-the-ground sport intelligence data-gathering.
- Three years after a young Lizzy Dekkers missed the Tokyo Olympic team in the cruellest circumstances, she will arrive at the Paris Games as a leading medal contender in the 200 metres butterfly.
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- The UQ community is celebrating a half-century of graduations, music, concerts, exams, lectures, protests and exhibitions in Mayne Hall.
- The story of UQ jacarandas is the story of Ernest Walter Bick, the man who raised and planted more than 130 jacarandas across the St Lucia campus in the 1940s.
- Researchers from UQ and QUT have traced the unique evolution of Brisbane’s punks and goths, and their role in shaping the city’s ‘alternative’ identity.
- To celebrate Grandparent's Day (29 October 2023), we asked you – our alumni and community audience – to share your thoughts on the importance of the grandchild-grandparent relationship in your own lives. And boy, did you deliver!
- At just 10 years old, Elijah Richardson has made some serious waves in ocean conservation. Here at UQ, we were thrilled to hear that Elijah was recently interviewed for the ABC television series, War On Waste.
- The latest UQ Talks panel discuss the fundamentals of why our brains make the decisions they do and offer insights into how to make better choices.
- Meet the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger and UQ graduate walking the Thin Green Line in honour of fallen rangers.
- How does it feel to have no home? What does it look like from ‘outside the inside’? And how do people cope? Engage with how housing instability impacts health and wellbeing, from the point of view of those actually living it in Brisbane, at Health Home Hope – a photographic exhibition on housing instability and health.
- For as long as she can remember, Emerald Gaydon has set her eyes on the stars on her quest to become an astronaut. On a recent adventure to the Himalayas, she felt so close she could almost touch them.
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Connecting you with news from UQ's Indigenous community
About Contact magazine
Contact magazine is your pocket guide to navigating our changing world. Landing in email inboxes monthly, with added special editions covering timely topics, our features keep you informed and entertained. Contact brings together the best insights from UQ’s alumni, researchers and community, connecting our global network of ChangeMakers through storytelling.
Before becoming a digital-only publication, Contact was a print magazine. Visit our digital archive to explore print editions from the magazine's early years.