Current Role – Chief Scientific Officer (Water Quality), Office of the Great Barrier Reef and World Heritage, Queensland Government
I’m Dr. Shaneel Chandra – a scientist, strategist, and systems thinker committed to protecting the Great Barrier Reef and the systems that support it. As the Chief Scientific Officer (Water Quality) in the Queensland Government, I lead with a focus on evidence, curiosity, and outcomes that make a real difference.
My career spans research, government leadership, and deep engagement with industry and community stakeholders. I’ve worked on everything from fixing nutrient modelling overestimations to tracking down the source of persistent environmental issues – even building a lab climate simulator when existing tools weren’t enough.
At my core, I’m driven by science and grounded in integrity. I don’t chase recognition – I chase understanding. For me, real solutions come from going beyond the surface and into the systems that shape our environment.
Click here for a video that will explain what my website is about.
Substantive Role – Senior Lecturer, College of Science and Sustainability, CQUniversity
Research team
At CQU, my team comprises of chemists and agriculture experts here at CQU and diverse collaborators worldwide, for example, in Fiji, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States who are undertaking research endeavours on electrochemical and analytical chemistry platforms. We are always keen to work on new projects though, so please do reach out if you are interested.
Sensors
My interests are in the analytical measurement, monitoring and methods development. With the aid of rapidly-sensing nanosensors that we design in our projects, our pet targets are ultra-trace species in particularly challenging matrices where significant interference or fouling of sensors occurs. As exemplified in the following project descriptions, we have a varied project base and are continually keeping abreast of the published literature to design innovating sensing solutions for challenging analyses. I am also very happy to work with other experts in the field with who I share supervision, publications and research collaborations. Our excellent facilities at the University mean that we have space and capability to host visiting scholars and researchers or students to further their research.
Links
Please do keep visiting this page to find out collaboration and postgraduate research opportunities, or do get in touch with me if you have an idea we can contribute towards. To see examples of latest electrochemistry and analytical chemistry work in our group or events, click here. To see publications on smartprobes or nanosensors from our team, click on Publications. Prospective postgraduate students seeking potential projects for their candidature in our labs can click here. To see Shaneel’s university link, click here. For LinkedIn direction, click here. For ResearchGate, click here. Prospective PhD candidates are encouraged to consult the research project pages before emailing Shaneel.