Meet our research students.

Prior to starting her PhD, she completed a Bachelor of Agricultural Science and Master of Teaching, before working as an Adoption Officer in the sugarcane industry. Molly is currently completing her PhD studying the nature of agricultural industry school partnerships in Gippsland, Victoria, as part of the RACE-Gippsland project. During her PhD she will be investigating Food and Fibre Industry School Partnerships and Social Entrepreneurship programs.

Tanya Nagle has worked in agriculture research, extension and education for over 20 years. This work has taken her from North Queensland to the North Island of New Zealand and back to Brisbane where she works for AgForce Queensland as the General Manager, Media and Community Engagement. While managing and implementing AgForce’s School to Industry Partnership Program, Tanya became increasingly aware of the limited knowledge and inclusion of agriculture in primary school classroom teaching. Her PhD research and thesis ‘Queensland Primary School Teachers and their understanding of agriculture: a case study’ aims to improve food and fibre production knowledge and appreciation of the importance of agriculture to Australia in primary school teachers in Queensland. The project will provide an evidence base for future expenditure from stakeholders in food and fibre education in Australia.

Michael Thomson’s career began as a rural journalist, starting as a cadet reporter in Sydney for NSW’s The Land newspaper, and progressed to roles including Fairfax Agricultural Media’s national political reporter based at Parliament House, Canberra, and national online editor for Fairfax’s FarmOnline group of news sites. Prior to joining CQUniversity in 2016, Michael worked as a senior consultant for Australia’s largest agribusiness public relations agency and a number of industry partners. He is undertaking a Masters of Research investigating the potential for creative non-fiction storytelling techniques to be incorporated within agricultural extension frameworks in order to motivate more farmers to adopt improved practices and technologies. He hopes this research will complement his current work as communications and stakeholder engagement for the university’s agriculture, science and environment research teams.

Patricia Menchon is an Agricultural Engineer and has a Master's in Animal Production. She is an assistant professor in Introduction to Production Systems and in Beef Cattle Production at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the National University of Mar del Plata (FCA-UNMdP), Argentina. She also held the position of Secretary of Extension and Technology Transfer until she began her PhD studies at CQU. New technological tools requires new knowledge and skills to encourage the next generation workforce to the agribusiness sector. Her PhD aims to link producers, industry, educators, students and researchers to promote the adoption of automatic registration of phenotypic data in beef cattle systems through extension and training programs.