Research Bites is your research news digest which aims to capture the diverse research happening in our faculty, collated from various media outlets. In this edition…
Congratulations to this wonderful research team: Dr Geberew Mekonnen, Dr Leo Lin, Mladen Zecevic, Assoc Prof Duane Aslett, and Dr Douglas Allan. Their ๐ ๐บ๐๐พ๐๐ ๐ป๐๐๐ ๐ผ๐๐บ๐๐๐พ๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐พ๐ฝ: ๐ข๐๐๐ป๐บ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐ฟ๐๐๐๐บ๐๐๐๐ ๐บ๐๐ฝ ๐ฆ๐ ๐๐ป๐บ๐ ๐ญ๐บ๐๐๐๐๐’ ๐ฅ๐บ๐ ๐๐พ ๐ญ๐บ๐๐๐บ๐๐๐๐พ๐ ๐ณ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ค๐ฝ๐๐ผ๐บ๐๐๐๐: ๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐บ๐๐๐๐ ๐ข๐๐๐๐๐๐ผ๐๐๐๐พ๐๐ผ๐-๐ฑ๐พ๐ ๐บ๐๐พ๐ฝ ๐ข๐๐๐๐พ is out now.
Congratulations to the School of Psychology Alumni Fiona O’Connor who recently published her research with Dr Nicola Ivory: Financial Literacy and Gambling Behaviour: A Systematic Review. You can read more here.
Dr Nicole Sugden | School of Psychology | is excited to be part of a multidisciplinary project at CSU on Cognitive Remediation Therapy. You can read more here.
The new second edition of the Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence is out now. Professor Patrick Walsh | AGSPS | was invited by his good friend, colleague, and editor, Loch Johnson to write a chapter on the Five Eyes.
Dr Nicola Thomas | School of Business| is excited to share that the paper “Paws and Pedagogy: Using Pet Photos in a Learning Managment System to Enhance Student Engagement” co-authored with Wayne Geerling has been accepted by the Journal for Economic Educators. A great collaborative L&T research piece.
Congratulations Prof Zahid Islam who was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales (FRSN).
Founded in 1821, the The Royal Society of NSW is one of Australiaโs oldest and most respected institutions, dedicated to advancing knowledge through science, evidence, and reason. The Society brings together scholars, professionals, and leaders from across disciplines who share a commitment to rigorous inquiry, open dialogue, and the pursuit of ideas that shape a better future. Read more here.
Assoc Prof Cliff Lewis and his colleagues published an important paper this month. Their study focuses on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people in India , the country Cliff was born in and a country we do not often see featured in published research. You can access their paper on Science Direct.
Congratulations to Dr Virgina Small | Lecturer in the School of Policing Studies | on the publication of her book Holding the Blue Line in Australia. Her book offers a timely and incisive analysis of how mainstream and social media shape public perceptions of policing in New South Wales. By unpacking the mediaโs influence on political responsiveness and public understanding, her research provides critical insights with global relevance. Well done on this important achievement!
Dr Gea Rahman | SoCME | and colleagues had the privilege of presenting on โAI in Agriculture: Transforming the Future of Farmingโ at a prestigious event organised by the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) Agriculture Centre (SAC), Dhaka, Bangladesh: https://www.sac.org.bd/.
Their paper explored how AI and Machine Learning are revolutionising crop yield prediction, weed management, smart irrigation, and seed purity paving the way for more sustainable and data-driven farming across South Asia.
Special thanks to everyone who co-authored and supported the development of ADeepWeeD, an adaptive deep learning framework for weed species classification.
In Dr Michael Bewong‘s | SoCME | latest research, Michael and his colleagues found that graph-based semantic structures can significantly boost the relevance of recommendation systems. By learning two-part rules that combine network structure with benign public attribute data (like job titles or affiliations), their research can generate more precise graph embeddings, leading to smarter, more accurate recommendations. This work was presented by his collaborator and colleague Sibo Zhao at the just ended ECML-PKDD 2025 conference (ERA/CORE A, 24% acceptance rate). Their paper, โRAE: A Rule-Driven Approach for Attribute Embedding in Property Graph Recommendationโ is now available as a preprint here.
In the Conversation, Dr Linda Peach | School of Psychology, presents her collaborative research: From the manosphere to tradwives – why are young women embracing traditional gender roles?
You can also listen to Linda’s conversation with ABC Radio NSW here (timestamp 2:01)
Dr Leo Lin (School of Policing Studies) was honoured to be invited speaker at the Social Sciences Week – Translational Criminology Seminar Series, hosted by the Crime & Security Science Research Group at the University of Technology Sydney. He explored the rising risks of AI-driven deepfakes and cryptocrime, sharing insights from major cases, such as the Arup fraud and the Bybit hack.
Professor Manoranjan Paul | SoCME | recently published his research with colleagues from various institutions in the prestigious IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computational Intelligence journal where they developed an efficient and lightweight point cloud learning network termed PillarCoder using a new attention map.
Dr Geberew Mekonnen (Centre for Law and Justice) and Dr Leo Lin (School of Policing Studies) shared their current research in the Euro Crim 2025 conference in Athens, Greece, hosted by the European Society of Criminology (ESC). It was an incredible opportunity to present two papers “๐๐ช๐ต๐ช๐จ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐-๐๐ณ๐ช๐ท๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐๐ฏ๐ญ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ฎ๐ด ๐ช๐ฏ ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ณ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ข๐ฏ ๐๐ช๐จ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐๐ฅ๐ถ๐ค๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ: ๐๐ฏ๐ด๐ต๐ช๐ต๐ถ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ญ ๐๐ต๐ณ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐จ๐ช๐ฆ๐ด ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ถ๐ค๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ช๐ด๐ช๐ฏ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ฏ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ๐ค๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐บ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ค๐ณ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐๐ณ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ” and “๐๐ณ๐จ๐ข๐ฏ๐ช๐ด๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐๐ณ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ข๐ญ ๐๐ฐ๐ญ๐ช๐ต๐ช๐ค๐ข๐ญ ๐๐บ๐ฏ๐ข๐ฎ๐ช๐ค๐ด: ๐๐น๐ข๐ฎ๐ช๐ฏ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ข๐ค๐ต๐ฐ๐ณ๐ด ๐๐ณ๐ช๐ท๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฆ ๐๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐๐ณ๐ข๐ถ๐ฅ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ต ๐๐ด๐ช๐ข” and engage with brilliant minds in criminology.
Celebrating Assoc Prof Cliff Lewis‘ recent success as visiting researcher at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria | Read more here.
Professor Ashad Kabir | SoCME | has been honoured by being invited as a Distinguished Speaker at the International Congress on Artificial Intelligence (ICAI).
Prof Zahid Islam, along with co-Authors, Assoc Prof Rafiqul Islam, Dr Arash Mahboubi, and Jannatul Ferdous | SoCME, are thrilled to share that their paper โA Novel Technique for Ransomware Detection Using Image-Based Dynamic Features and Transfer Learning to Address Dataset Limitationsโ is now published.
Wonderful news for the editorial board of Journal of Agriculture, as Professor Lihong Zheng | SoCME joins the board. Lihong looks forward to contributing to the journalโs continued success and supporting the publication of high-quality research in the field.
