The Centre for Regional Economies and Supply Chains (CRESC) is proud to include over 50 researchers and RHD students within our Centre membership.
Our Centre includes Full, Associate and Affiliate members.
Through our extensive membership base, CRESC offers research expertise and academic excellence across our three key research theme areas:
- Regional and Rural Economies
- Tourism Development
- Supply and Value Chains
CRESC welcomes expressions of interest in membership.
CRESC members
Dr. Quamrul Alam is a Professor of International Business and Strategy at Central Queensland University. Before joining Central Queensland University, Professor Quamrul Alam worked at Monash University, La Trobe University, and Victoria University of Australia. Professor Quamrul Alam has a strong research and project management background. He has published over 50 journal articles, presented over 100 conference papers and reports, six books, and 28 book chapters. Prof Alam chaired many sessions in international business, the Academy of Management, and public management and governance conferences. Professor Alam has supervised 24 PhD research topics including public governance, regulatory governance, public sector leadership, public-private partnership, economic geography and international business, and local government and disaster management. Professor Alam conducted training programs on leadership and governance, and capacity building in the public sector organisation for public servants from Bangladesh, India, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. These programs were funded by the Australia Leaderships Awards Program, UNDP, and the Bangladesh Government. Professor Alam received over A$3 million in grants. Professor Alam’s research articles have been published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, Public Administration and Development, Administration and Society, Public Management Review, Journal of Local Government Studies, International Review of Administrative Sciences, International Journal of Public Administration Thunderbird Journal of Business Review, European Journal of Management, Journal of Management History, South Asia, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Business Ethics. Professor Alam has co-edited a special issue of Public Administration and Development in 2021. Professor Alam conducted training programs on leadership and governance, and capacity building for public servants from Bangladesh, India, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. These programs were funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), World Bank, and UNDP. Professor Alam works with various ethnic community organisations in Australia. He has researched the settlement of the South Sudanese refugees living in Victoria. The focus of his research is on how financial distress and social isolation affect their integration into Australian society. He also works with the third-gender community organisation and rural-level women's microenterprise association in Bangladesh.
Contact Prof Quamrul Alam
Digital transformation of food supply chains, collaboration, climate change, Industry 4.0, supply chain risk and resilience.
Imran has extensive experience of working with a range of stakeholders and has led several externally funded projects in the agribusiness sector.
Contact Dr Imran Ali
View Imran's ResearchGate profile
Research focuses include environmental economics, water economics and water policy, efficiency and productivity analysis, regional economics and local government, agricultural and resource economics.
Contact Dr Jay Ananda
Professor Hurriyet Babacan
Professor Hurriyet’s research expertise lies in economic and policy development. Professor Babacan's research focuses on sustainability and resilience, social and economic transitions and policy mechanisms. Her recent research focus has included workforce, circular economy, drought resilience, net zero economic transitions governance, supply chains, disaster resilience, digital connectivity and infrastructure development , and regional development. Her work has been recognised with numerous awards including the Order of Australia. She is listed in the top 100 influential people in Northern Queensland. She is the Chair of Regional Development Australia, Tropical North.
Contact Prof Hurryet Babacan
Jeremy is a transdisciplinary environmental economist, with strong research interests in natural resource management and geographic information systems. He applies non-market valuation techniques (e.g. choice modelling) to the study of environmental assets, ecosystem services and biodiversity.
Other research interests include assessment of socio-cultural, economic and environmental impacts in the Great Barrier Reef region, agricultural economics and food supply chain in relation with on-going projects for RECoE (Rural Economies Centre of Excellence) and the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science .
Contact Dr Jeremy De Valck
View Jeremy's Scopus listing
Dr Imam's research interests include: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and data mining applied in various fields including computational finance, business analytics, and industry 4.0 technologies. Additionally, he has interests and track records in leadership, sustainability, higher education, corporate governance, digital marketing, and technology adoption and innovation.
He has a track record in supervision of RHD students across multiple areas of business and computer science, and an emerging profile of publications in top quality journals across disciplines.
Contact Dr Tasadduq Imam
View Tasdduq's ResearchGate profile
Associate Professor Huong Le
Contact Associate Professor Huong Le
Research and teaching experience in environmental chemistry, applied economics, soil conservation and sustainable regenerative agriculture in Australia and overseas. Currently, she has been working on various carbon standards and economically viable carbon crediting methods and schemes, and regional development.
Contact Dr Kalpana Pudasaini
Research focus: supply and value chain analysis, rural and regional economics, and regional development. In the past, Dr Rahman has engaged in various research projects including optimization, forecasting, cost estimation and sustainable energy. Currently, he is working on a CRC funded project on economic models for agriculture supply chains with a focus on developing and testing collaborative business models for the horticulture industry in regional Australia.
Contact Dr Azad Rahman
View Azad's ResearchGate profile
Dr Zillur Rahman
Contact Dr Zillur Rahman
Professor John Rolfe is a resource economist in the School of Business and Law at CQUniversity at Rockhampton, and a fellow in the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He has a number of research interests, but specialises in non-market valuation, regional development, and environmental, resource and agricultural economic issues.
John is the Independent Chair of the Gladstone Healthy Harbour Partnership Independent Science Panel, the Independent Chair (Acting) of the Great Barrier Reef Independent Science Panel, a member of the Independent Expert Panel for the Great Barrier Reef, and on the Editorial Board for the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Contact Professor John Rolfe
Jaba Sarker is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre of Regional Economics and Supply Chain at Central Queensland University’s North Rockhampton Campus. She has completed her PhD from Central Queensland University, Australia. She has over 15 years of experience in teaching and research. Prior to joining CQUniversity, she worked as an Associate Professor at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Bangladesh. Her teaching portfolio includes Agricultural Economics, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Econometrics, and Research Methodology. Jaba specialises in agricultural and environmental economics and her research interests focus on Rural Water Resource Management, Applied Economics, Productivity and Efficiency Analysis, Choice Modelling, Best Worst Scaling Method, Contingent Valuation, Supply Chain Management, and APSIM modelling. She has been involved in several research projects in Australia, and Bangladesh. Over her career, she has published several high-impact journal articles.
Contact Dr Jaba Rani Sarker
View Jaba's other profiles below:
Research expertise in various economics approaches and tools (economic impact assessment; non market valuation techniques: i.e. choice modelling, contingent valuation method, qualitative and quantitative surveys; experimental economics; input output method). She also has extensive teaching experience in economics (i.e. Environmental Economics, Economics for Business, Property Economics, Macroeconomics and Microeconomics) and statistics.
Contact Dr Galina Williams
Dr. Prikshat Verma is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Business & Law at CQU, with more than twenty years of academic experience including teaching, research and program management and coordination in UK, Australia, UAE and India. His major areas of research interest are AI-augmented management/HRM, Responsible AI, Future of Work & its Implications for Management, Graduate Work-Readiness, Leadership, and IHRM in Developing & Emerging Markets. Dr Verma has published his research in reputed high-ranked journals such as Human Resource Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Technological Forecasting and Change, Personnel Review, International Journal of Manpower and Journal of Business Research. Additionally, he has secured a diverse range of research funding from Australia, the UK, Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and Middle Eastern countries, attracting approximately $500,000 in research grants to date.
Contact Dr Priskshat Verma
View Priskshat's other profiles below:
Research interests: human resource management (HRM) innovation, volunteer management, and addressing HRM challenges in regional Australia. She currently supervises multiple Research Higher Degree students and leads a stakeholder engagement project with Foodbank Australia, funded by Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre.
Contact Dr Upamali Amarakoon
Research focus: the intersection between digital technologies, innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, projects, and supply chains.
Previous professional experience has seen Tage responsible for innovation and business development; operations and supply chain management; project and program management; technology and engineering management.
Contact Dr Tage Andersson
Dr Ban has published research journal papers that are associated with eco‐tourism, sustainable tourism, food waste management, environmentally friendly management, and consumer behaviours in Australia. She has closely liaised with Australian or Korean governments, Australian Regional and Local Councils, and international academia.
She has dealt with a wide range of marketing issues regarding clients, stakeholders, and professionals in the hospitality, event management, and/or tourism industries.
Contact Dr Janice Ban
Associate Professor Asit Bhattacharyya
Contact Associate Professor Asit Bhattacharyya
Dr Ellem is an experienced Registered Nurse and Specialist Breast Cancer Care Nurse who has always been dedicated to nursing and community support in regional, rural and remote areas. Having grown up in rural QLD, Pammie understands firsthand issues and strengths created by the tyranny of distance. Pammie has experience in rural family support and telehealth which compliment service delivery to isolated communities of which she is a strong advocate. Additionally, Pammie engages clinicians in research, enabling fellow clinicians to become involved in research and higher education.
Contact Dr Pammie Ellem
Associate Professor Nicole Flint
Research aims: developing efficient and effective monitoring, assessment and management programs for freshwater and marine species and ecosystems, including through the development of environmental indicators. Nicole is particularly interested in the diverse waterways and land uses of regional and rural Australia's catchments, rivers, estuaries, and coastal zones.
Nicole has successfully secured, led, and delivered research contracts for a wide range of industry, government and non-government clients, and supervises Ph.D. and Masters by Research students in the fields of aquatic ecology, water quality and economics.
Contact Associate Professor Nicole Flint
Research interests include responsible leadership, leadership practices and employee outcomes in organisations, presenteeism, strategic HRM, climate change and complex modelling using structural equation modelling.
Contact Dr Amlan Haque
Dr Rahat’s research interests are in machine learning, time-series analysis, renewable energy, regional studies, and supply chain.
Contact Dr Rahat Hossain
Dr Mohammad Mehedi Hasan
Dr. Hasan is actively engaged in diverse research areas, including optimization, forecasting, the circular bio-economy, and sustainable energy. His ongoing projects reflect his dedication to addressing critical challenges in these fields, focusing on workforce trends, waste reduction strategies, and supply chain sustainability.
Contact Dr Mohammad Mehedi Hassan
Dr Johnson is a leader in strategic thinking, skilled in getting to the core of complex problems to devise programs and practical business solutions. He is focused on delivering mutually beneficial outcomes for stakeholders across a range of commercial and education settings.
Contact Dr Malcolm Johnson
Dr Kansal has completed or is working on grants in food waste, sustainability, CSR, scholarship and learning and teaching. She has expertise in research design, qualitative analysis using Nvivo and also moderate quantitative analytical skills.
Contact Dr Monika Kansal
Current research interests: high performance work systems, decent work, gig economy, leadership, offshoring, sustainable supply chain management, international business and HR analytics.
Contact Dr Sardana Khan
Research background in regional development, with expertise in regional policy, regional business and innovation, collaborative platforms and (environmental) sustainability issues. She has also led or supported various research projects dealing with climate change, agricultural supply chains and Indigenous issues.
Professor Kinnear's current research focus areas include: Regional Growth, Development and Planning; Stakeholder relationships; and Research Training.
Contact Professor Susan Kinnear
View Susan's ResearchGate profile
Dr Li's research interests include: gambling and addictive behaviours; marketing and advertising; affect and emotion; attention and perception; ethnicity and culture; and tourism and hospitality.
Contact Dr En Li
Contact Dr Jingduan Li
Research interests include digital finance and digital health., open banking, fintech, regtech, blockchain, financial planning, sustainable energy, supply chain and financial services regulation.
Contact Dr Angelique McInnes
Research focus: applied health economics, tourism economics, global health supply chains, economies of Asia-Pacific and developing countries, international trade in goods and services, and Australia-India trade relations. Anita also has extensive teaching experience in undergraduate and post graduate economics i.e., Macroeconomics and Microeconomics, Public Finance, Public Policy, Economics of Asia-Pacific, Economics of Regional Development, Economics of Developing Countries, Economics for Business, and Ecommerce Economics.
Contact Dr Anita Medhekar
Contact Dr Ashkan Memari
Research interests include tourist behaviour, marine tourism, tourism sustainability and humour research.
Contact Dr Anja Pabel
View Anja's ResearchGate profile and Scopus listing
Professor Bruce Prideaux
Contact Professor Bruce Prideaux
Dr Mamunur Rashid is a senior lecturer in ICT at the School of Engineering and Technology, CQUniversity, Melbourne Campus. He is an established researcher in cybersecurity, data mining, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, and supply chain security areas. He has won over $1.5m in external research funding including prestigious national grant: NHMRC Ideas Grant as an investigator. His publications have appeared in prestigious computer science journals, including IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Processing, and mainstream IEEE conferences. He has also been a reviewer for top international conferences and journals, including Future Generation Computer Systems and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.
Contact Dr MD Mamunur Rashid
View Dr Rashid's profiles below:
Contact Dr Fariza Sabrina
Associate Professor Garrick Small
My research background covers several areas of Property Economics, particularly the interaction between particular cultures and cultural changes with property usage and markets. I have also contributed to a better understanding of the impacts of currently topical environmental concerns and property utilisation and markets. These areas include the role of property financing in the behaviour of the community regarding property investment and affordability.
Contact Associate Professor Garrick Small
Research interests: finance and investment, financial reporting quality, corporate governance, executive compensation, market efficiency, and sustainable investing.
Contact: [email protected]
Research interests focus on tourism in agricultural regions, specifically food and agri-tourism, regional tourism development and issues related to sustainable tourism in natural areas. Michelle’s research reflects her passion for regional tourism issues and applied research that provides industry and community outcomes.
Contact: [email protected]
Research interests: passenger behaviours applied across several domains including airport shopping behaviours, airline choice behaviours and passenger satisfaction. Dr Tseng is a transport economist with skills in econometric modelling and forecasting, project and performance evaluation, benchmarking, and operations research. She brings advanced statistical skillsets and high-level transport data analysis capability having worked on numerous research projects.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact Professor Kerry Walsh
Research interests: organizational rhetoric and discourse. She has experience in discourse analysis and ethnography of communication.
Contact: [email protected]
Contact Dr Thakur Bhattarai
Dr Trang Nguyen
Dr Trang Nguyen is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the School of Business and Law, CQ University. Her research is interdisciplinary, situated between Economics, Applied Linguistics, Education, and Sociology. She is keen to explore multiple issues related to human behaviours under social and structural conditions, which range across these four research fields. Trang is recently interested in horticultural food waste, agricultural supply chain management and collaboration, and digital literacy. She has developed a high level of expertise in the use of a range of research methods, and especially have advanced skills in qualitative research.
Contact Dr Trang Nguyen
View Trang's Google Scholar Profile
Dr Rajapaksa's research interest includes non-market valuation, climate change, environmental behaviour, agricultural economics and supply chain analysis.
Contact:[email protected]
View Darshana's ResearchGate profile
Associate Professor Nicholas Smoll
Research interests: investment prioritisation, project and program evaluation, bio-economic modelling, investment analysis, economic development and analysis of environmental and productivity trade-offs. She has worked extensively with a range of stakeholders and led a number of externally funded research projects. Recent research has focused on working in multidisciplinary teams to further understand achieving efficient natural resource management improvements from agricultural industries.
Contact: [email protected]
View Megan's ResearchGate profile
Professor Stephen Xu
Research and teaching interests: innovation and entrepreneurship. She also has experience in supervising PhD students and contributing to Doctoral level courses on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Mixed Methods and Qualitative Research Design.
Contact: [email protected]
CRESC membership
Members of CRESC include researchers, academic staff and research students. CRESC offers three levels of membership:
- Full Membership
- Associate Membership
- Adjunct Membership
Researchers and external stakeholders working in areas relevant to CRESC research themes are welcome to submit n expression of interest in CRESC membership. To submit your expression of interest, please click on the link and complete the application form. Forward your completed form along with a brief CV to [email protected].
Please note that membership applications are reviewed on a 6-monthly basis.
Past and present research collaborations
The Centre for Regional economies and Supply Chains (CRESC) is proud to collaborate with industry partners, community stakeholders and other centres of research excellence:
- Rural Economies Centre of Excellence
- Rockhampton Regional Council
- Queensland Government Department of Agriculture and Forestry
- Growcom
- National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network (NiRAKN)
- Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO)
- Reef and Rainforest Research Centre
- Northern Institute of Charles Darwin University
- Regional Development Australia - Far North Queensland & Torres Strait
- Department of Family and Community Services (NSW)
- Fitzroy Basin Association
- Australian Coal Association Research Program
- Livingstone Shire Council
- Commonwealth Governemtn NESP Progarm
- Reef Trust
- The Office of the Great Barrier Reef
CRESC research students
CRESC hosts research students across our four theme areas: applied economics, supply chain, workforce development, human resource management and regional futures.
