Fiona Scotney (née Bell) is an education professional. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland (2005), as well as a Graduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching (Secondary) (2006) and a Master of Arts (English Studies) (2009) from the University of Southern Queensland. Scotney returned to the University of Queensland to complete her PhD in 2014 with a thesis titled, The new Australian poets: networks and the Generation of 68. She has worked as a secondary teacher and a university tutor, and between 2022 to 2025, she was the Director of the Tuckwell Scholarship Program at the Australian National University (ANU).

Robert John Riddel was born on 21 March 1945. He began his architectural studies in Brisbane in 1964 at the Central Technical College (now Queensland University of Technology) while working at Conrad and Gargett. After gaining experience with several diverse Australian architects and firms, he moved to London in 1970 to study at the Royal College of Art, where he explored innovative design concepts such as compact living and flat-pack furniture. He later completed further studies at the Architectural Association and worked with various UK practices before returning to Australia in the late 1970s, where he developed an interest in heritage architecture.

In 1982, Riddel founded Riddel Architecture, a Brisbane-based practice specialising in the adaptive reuse and conservation of culturally significant buildings. Notable projects include work on the Spring Hill Baths, Brisbane and Rockhampton Customs Houses, and Glengallan Homestead. He earned a PhD from the University of Queensland in 2008 for his thesis titled, RS (Robin) Dods 1868-1920 : the life and work of a significant Australian architect. Riddel's firm later merged with Conrad Gargett, where he became a principal and led key conservation efforts, including for Parliament House and the Queensland Cultural Centre. Riddel retired in 2018 and resides in Europe.

Civil and military engineer William James Reinhold was born on 6 November 1889 in Brisbane. After graduating from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) in 1916, he was selected with nine other Australian engineering graduates to serve with the Royal Engineers in World War One. After the war he returned to Queensland, serving simultaneously as Northern Engineer of the Public Estate Improvement Branch of the Department of Public Lands from July 1919 and the first Supervising Engineer for the Main Roads Board in North Queensland. In 1923, Reinhold commenced practice as a consulting engineer, his work closely linked with the Main Roads Board and many local authorities. In 1943 he directed construction of the 110km Bulldog-Wau Road over the Owen Stanley Range, described by the late General Sir Thomas Blamey as one of the greatest feats in army engineering history. Built between January and August 1943 under extremely difficult conditions, this road construction was described in detail by Reinhold in the John Thomson Lecture for 1945. Colonel Reinhold was awarded a military OBE for his work in New Guinea. After being invalided out of the army in 1944, Reinhold returned to private practice where, in the post-war years, the backlog in water supply and sewerage schemes in country towns and the demand for improved roads ensured a continual supply of work. Reinhold died in 1966.

Peter Robertson Gargett was born on 10 October 1932 in Brisbane. His father was the prominent architect Thomas Brenan (Bren) Femister Gargett. After graduating with a degree in architecture from the University of Queensland, Peter joined his father's firm—then known as AH Conrad & TBF Gargett—in 1957. Influenced by his father and guided early in his career by Lou Hailey, Peter made significant contributions to Queensland's architectural landscape. His work included key projects such as the Commonwealth Bank Building at King George Square, the SGIO Building (now Suncorp Plaza), and the conservation of Parliament House. Following his father's death in 1975, Peter helped lead the firm alongside Bill Conrad and others, eventually becoming chairman and managing director. He served as national president of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects from 1996 to 1997 and was made a Life Fellow in recognition of his contributions to the profession. Peter retired in 1998 and died on 19 May 2014. He was married to Christine (Chris) Jennings from 1965.

William (Bill) Arnold Henry Conrad was born on 13 April 1930 in New Farm, Brisbane. His father, prominent architect Arnold Henry Conrad (1887-1979), designed the Hamilton home in which Bill grew up. Bill trained as a pilot and earned his RAAF 'Wings' in 1952 while serving with No. 23 Squadron of the Citizen Air Force. After completing an architecture degree at the University of Queensland, he joined his father's firm—then known as AH Conrad & TBF Gargett—in 1956. His father's business partner was Thomas Brenan Femister Gargett. Bill became a director in 1965. Following the retirement of his father and the death of Brenan Gargett in the mid-1970s, Bill and Peter Gargett assumed leadership of the firm. Under Bill's direction, the practice helped shape Brisbane's skyline through a range of commercial high-rise projects from the 1960s to 1980s. A key focus of his work was hospital design. Major health projects carried out during his tenure included Royal Brisbane Hospital Block 7 and Gold Coast Hospital Tower Block projects during the 1970s. Bill retired from practice in 1994. He was married to Janet Conrad (1937-2021), who worked alongside him at Conrad Gargett as a landscape architect for many years. Bill died on 11 July 2024.

Catherine Bateson was born Helen Catherine Campbell on 25 July 1960 in Sydney to Louise Campbell, a New Zealand-born journalist, and Ronald Campbell, an Australian writer. She grew up in Brisbane where her mother owned a second-hand bookstore called Lloyd's Bookshop. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Queensland in 1983, Bateson moved to Melbourne and later to country Victoria.

Douglas Blackmur was born on 4 February 1944. He received a Master of Literary Studies from the University of Queensland in 1975. Just over a decade later, in 1986, Blackmur received his PhD from UQ for his thesis on industrial relations in Queensland from 1946 to 1952, supervised by Denis Murphy. His book on strikes in 1993 made a significant contribution to international literature on strikes. He has gone on to publish in a variety of disciplines and held a professorship at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.

Virginia Gwendolen Thorley, a leading figure in the breastfeeding movement in Australia, was born on 16 August 1942 and grew up in Townsville, Queensland. Her interest in breastfeeding began with the birth of her first baby in 1965. She has been active in the movement since 1966 after qualifying as a breastfeeding counsellor with the Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia (now the Australian Breastfeeding Association) and the La Leche League International (LLL). Recognised as Queensland's first breastfeeding counsellor, she was among the inaugural cohort to certify with the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners (IBCLC) in 1985. Thorley studied at the University of Queensland, earning a Bachelor of Arts (1979), Diploma in Education (1988), Master of Arts (2000), and PhD (2007). Her MA and PhD theses were cultural histories of the history of medicine. In 2008, she became one of the first Fellows of the International Lactation Consultant Association (FILCA). She is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland. She has published several books, including Successful breastfeeding (1974) and Feeding your baby and child : a guide for Australian parents (1992), originally published under the title Feeding your baby and young child in Australia.

Ray Sumner, born Catherine Ray Martin on 21 March 1944, grew up in Townsville, Queensland. She attended the University College of Townsville (now James Cook University) on a partial scholarship from the Department of Education, designed to address a shortage of teachers. As part of the scholarship's terms, she spent a year at a teachers' training college in Brisbane before returning to Townsville to teach high school for at least two years. She taught German, geography, maths and English, saving her earnings to travel Europe for several years. Upon returning to Townsville, she completed her studies at night while teaching during the day, earning a degree in Geography in 1972 and a Master of Geography in 1975.

After working in various locations along Australia's east coast, including at the University of Newcastle, Sumner received a scholarship from the National Museum in Victoria to research German naturalist Amalie Dietrich in 1980. This research became the foundation of her PhD (1986) in the Department of History at The University of Queensland, under the supervision of John Moses.

As a geography professor, Sumner specialised in the social and environmental impacts of science and technology, as well as the built environment and history of tropical Queensland. She held a teaching and research position at the Queensland University of Technology before relocating to the United States when her engineer husband was offered a job at the California Institute of Technology. In the U.S., she held teaching and research positions in geography at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and Long Beach City College, where she worked for about twenty years. She was also involved with a local branch of the Society of Women Geographers and the California Geographical Society. Now retired, she continues to reside in the United States.

Donald John Tugby, born 27 July 1920, was an anthropologist who taught anthropology at the University of Queensland from 1958 to 1986. Prior to that he had held a position as an ethnologist at the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne. He received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne, a PhD from the Australian National University and a Diploma of Psychology from the University of Queensland (1973). He introduced statistics to archaeology and initiated extensive archaeological fieldwork on North Stradbroke Island. He conducted research relating to peoples in Indonesia, Malaysia and Dutch New Guinea. He was particularly interested in the Mandailing (also known as Mandailing Batak) people of Sumatra, and published the results of his research in a book Cultural change and identity : Mandailing immigrants in Western Malaysia (1977). He was also a member of the UQ choir and an advisor on world music. He was married to Elise Tugby, a geography lecturer at the University of Queensland. Tugby died on 7 September 2015 in Brisbane.