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Dr Fang You
Dr

Fang You

Email: 
Phone: 
+61 7 344 36128

Overview

Background

I have over 10 years of research and work experience in the field of mining land rehabilitation, acquiring a total of>3.5 million in fund support from the Australian government, research council and mining companies. My extensive experience in industrial engagement, field trial design and application also increased my growth as the leader in sustainable mining waste management.

I am an Advanced Queensland research fellow in the leading global research group of Ecological Engineering of Mine Wastes at the Sustainable Mineral Institute (SMI). My research interest is investigating important molecular and cellular processes in eukaryotes that first arose in bacteria and archaea, and microbial metabolic activities control numerous geochemical cycles in soil formation for sustainable mineral waste management. I have intensive work experience on multiple representative mining wastes, including Cu-Au, Pb-Zn, Iron ore, Uranium mine waste rock and bauxite tailings and residues.

My research strength lies in my multidisciplinary work and research program spans the interface between environmental microbiology, geochemistry, and plants. My expertise includes 1) mineral characterization, 2) soil and rhizosphere element cycling, 3) next-generation sequencing and online-controlled bioreactor techniques. Through the integrated application of environmental 'omics approaches, stable isotope analysis and imaging would give new insights into the fundamental element cycling processes of mined land mining wastes, and upon which I could develop novel biotechnology and methodology to prime sustainable mined land management and bioinoculum product with the field validated designated performance.

Availability

Dr Fang You is:
Not available for supervision

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Land Resource Science, Beijing Normal University (北京师范大学)
  • Masters (Research) of Human & Environmental Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Doctor of Philosophy of Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland

Research interests

  • Microbiological and geochemcial processes that control bioactive minerals in the mined enviroment

  • Terrestrical and endosphere diazotroph phylogeny and symbiosis between Australian native plants and mined soil bacterium

  • Acidogenic processes driven resource recovery in mined waste

Research impacts

Despite main involvement in projects with confidentiality requirements and long-term field trials, I have 30+ publications, and 95% of my papers feature in the highest impact journals (Q1) in multidisciplinary fields of mineral chemistry, environmental science and microbiology, soil ecology and plant science. To date, these papers have been cited over 673 times and have an H-index of 14. Of my publications, 82.4% are in the top 10% of journals (Elsevier's SciVal). I also actively engage in a diverse range of research themes and serve as the first responding author for >60% of peer-reviewed papers resulting from multiple projects.

In addition to academic excellence, my research brings practical benefits to improve mining industry sustainability. I have established links with key industry partner organisation and government, including Rio Tinto, Queensland Alumina Limited, Energy Resource Australia and Queensland Government. One of her highlights translational research is the co-invention of the world-first, cost-effective and field operable technology as stated in the patent “Treatment of bauxite residues” (WO2022099360), which is also featured in the “Sustainable Bauxite Residue Management Guidance” released by International Aluminium Institute (April 2022), Nature Research (https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-021-00429-4), and mining industry media (https://aluminium.org.au/news/red-mud-dam-research-uq-partnership/;html; https://www.mining.com/technology-to-transform-bauxite-red-mud-into-fertile-soil-almost-a-reality/). This technology is currently being commercialised by UniQuest Pty Ltd throughout the world and is expected to bring significant changes to bauxite treatment in Australia and globally. In addition, her research findings about keystone underground indicative fungi and bacteria colonizing Uranium mined site have contributed to the formulation of rehabilitation strategy using understorey plant for Energy Resource Australia.

Works

Search Professor Fang You’s works on UQ eSpace

41 works between 2010 and 2025

41 - 41 of 41 works

2010

Journal Article

Emergy-based ecological economic characteristics in Guizhou Province

Yi, Dinghong, Wen, Lizhang, Xiao, Qiang, Hu, Dan, Li, Feng and You, Fang (2010). Emergy-based ecological economic characteristics in Guizhou Province. Shengtai Xuebao/ Acta Ecologica Sinica, 30 (20), 5635-5645.

Emergy-based ecological economic characteristics in Guizhou Province

Funding

Current funding

  • 2024 - 2027
    Mineral Biosequestration of Organic Carbon in Early Pedogenesis of Tailings
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2024 - 2025
    Developing scaling-up process to produce haloalkaliphilic bacteria inoculum for industry-deployment to treat alkaline wastes from refining alumina
    Australia's Economic Accelerator Seed Grants
    Open grant
  • 2023 - 2027
    Field trial for in-situ eco-engineering bauxite tailings into soil for ecological rehabilitation at Weipa
    Technological Resources Pty Limited
    Open grant

Past funding

  • 2021 - 2022
    UQ AWARE - Fang You
    UQ Amplify Women's Academic Research Equity
    Open grant
  • 2020 - 2023
    Developing marine bacteria biotechnology for red mud rehabilitation and rare-earth recovery
    Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowships
    Open grant
  • 2012
    Engineering biochars for restoring and sustaining soil-plant systems - From mined land to crop fields
    UWA-UQ Bilateral Research Collaboration Award
    Open grant

Supervision

Availability

Dr Fang You is:
Not available for supervision

Supervision history

Current supervision

Completed supervision

Media

Enquiries

For media enquiries about Dr Fang You's areas of expertise, story ideas and help finding experts, contact our Media team:

communications@uq.edu.au