From Participation to Partnership in Community Engaged Research
Workshop Overview
This session brings together a group of experienced practitioners from the University of Queensland for a dynamic showcase and panel discussion on community engaged research.
Through practitioner presentations, interview style conversations, and an open Q&A panel, participants will explore real world approaches to building meaningful partnerships between researchers, clinicians, and communities.
Speaker
Jo Maxwell
Jo is the Manager, Consumer and Community Engagement for the Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Queensland. In this role, she focuses on building cultures where community partnership is embedded in research practice, governance, and strategy. She works alongside researchers, clinicians, patient advocates, and community members to create environments of trust, reciprocity, and shared decision-making. Her work has a strong commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander engagement, rural and regional communities, and groups whose voices have historically been overlooked. Before moving into research engagement, Jo worked in rehabilitation, non-profit disability organisations, Bupa aged care, and national quality improvement manager with The Stroke Foundation. These experiences have shaped her systems-thinking approach: real improvement happens when data, lived experience and clinical insight are brought together.
Jonathan Quicke
Jonathan is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Musculoskeletal and Orthopaedic Research at the STARS Education and Research Alliance. "STARS" is the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service specialist public health facility in Brisbane and the "Alliance" is between the University of Queensland (UQ) and Metro North Health in Queensland, Australia. He is also Impactful Clinical Trials Co-Lead for the UQ Centre for Innovation in Pain and Health Research (CIPHER). His boundary-spanning physiotherapy career has involved clinical, academic, conjoint, policy and professional body roles. He is passionate about championing the consumer voice in research and currently lead a James Lind Alliance Research Priority Setting Partnership in shoulder osteoarthritis.
Reema Naresh
As a community development and engagement professional, I am passionate about creating positive change and empowering individuals to reach their full potential. My expertise includes engagement, training facilitation, workshop creation, project coordination, event coordination and organization, and public speaking. I am experienced in consumer and community engagement, working closely with individuals and groups to identify needs, develop strategies, and implement solutions that meet their unique needs. I have worked extensively with health consumers by facilitating their partnership with health services to create meaningful systems change. I am skilled at delivering impactful workshops and presentations that inspire and motivate audiences, host programs and panels, MC and a conference speaker. I am skilled at curating and bringing together impactful and meaningful events in the research space and community.
Dr Heena Akbar
Dr Heena is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Queensland, and an internationally recognised Pacific community researcher specialising in advocacy, public health, and Indigenous and First Nations health. She leads internationally impactful translational diabetes research informed by community participatory action research, co-design, and Indigenous methodologies. Her work has shaped health policy reform, strengthened equitable health systems, and improved outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and First Nations communities, including Māori and Pasifika populations, across Australia and global settings. Dr Akbar provides national and international leadership in diabetes prevention and management, clinical diabetes care, and community-led diabetes education, embedding cultural safety, Indigenous ways of knowing, and community governance. Her leadership advances scalable, community-governed models of care, ensuring research and clinical innovation translate into sustained, culturally responsive health system change nationally and internationally.
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