Matthew Dargusch

Professor Dargusch is currently the Associate Dean (Research) of UQ's Engineering Faculty and the Chief Technology Officer of the Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC). He was the Director and lead CI of the ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacturing of Medical Devices, and a CI in the ARC Research Hub for Transforming Australia’s Manufacturing Industry through High-Value Additive Manufacturing. He led an advanced manufacturing program at DMTC from 2008 and has mentored individuals across academia and industry, supervising 40 postgraduate projects to completion, with 8 current students. His former PhD students now hold senior industry roles, and others have become successful academics, including ARC DECRA and Future Fellows and Professors. Matt Dargusch is a Professor in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering within the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering where he was previously the Director of Research and Co-Director of the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Processing (AMPAM). Further information about AMPAM can be found on the Centre’s website: http://ampam.mechmining.uq.edu.au/

Prof. Dargusch completed his PhD in 1998 and in the same year he published his first journal paper which ahs been cited more than 1000 times. He has a strong background in working on industry-outcome focussed research. After completing his PhD, he worked in manufacturing and product development in industry before moving being appointed as Program Manager for both the Aerospace and Industry Best Practice Program Manager with the CAST CRC. During his time as program manager the best practice program received a number of awards from the Cooperative Research Centres Association for delivering industry outcomes. Professor Dargusch’s work has been recognised by the star award from the CRC Association for the impact that his work has had in industry. In 2007 Professor Dargusch was a critical member of the successful bid team for a Defence Future Capability Technology Centre (DFCTC) which became the Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) with partners such as BAE Systems, Thales and many SMEs. In 2008, Professor Dargusch became the Chief Technology Officer for the DMTC, a position which he currently still holds. He has led an advanced manufacturing program at DMTC from 2008 and has mentored individuals across academia and industry, supervising 40 postgraduate projects to completion, with 8 current students. His former PhD students now hold senior industry roles, and others have become successful academics, including ARC DECRA and Future Fellows and Professors.

CI Dargusch is recognised as an international expert in materials and manufacturing with over 20 years of research leadership. He is currently Editor of Progress in Materials Science (I.F. 33.6) with two recent Science papers. He was also the lead CI and Director of the very successful ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacturing of Medical Devices. He received a 2020 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning at the Australian Awards for University Teaching, and he is currently the Associate Dean (Research) of UQ's EAIT Faculty.

The impact of CI Dargusch’s work and contribution to the field of advanced manufacturing has been recognised with the Thatcher Brothers Prize from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in the UK, The Anders Gustaf Ekberg Prize in 2019, the Technology Award from The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society in 2017, and two papers published in Science and leading manufacturing journals (Int J Mach Tools Manuf (2009) 49, 561-568 and Int J Mach Tools Manuf (2011) 51, 500-511), Additive Manufacturing (Addit Manuf (2022) 59, 103176 and Addit Manuf (2022) 55, 102887); Acta Biomaterialia and Electochemica Acta. He currently has 12 Highly Cited Papers, including one first-author paper in Advanced Science (Adv Sci (2020) 7:18, 2001362) and a corresponding author paper published in Advanced Materials (Impact Factor 32.09) (Adv Mat (2022) 34:41, 2204508), a paper in Progress in Materials Science (Impact Factor 48.16) (Prog Mater Sci (2021) 121, 100840). One of his highly cited papers is the second most cited article in Acta Materialia (Acta Mater (2019) 168, 261-274) published in that year. His high quality work in additive manufacturing has also been published in Nature Communications (Nat Comm (2022) 13:1, 4660) and as corresponding author of a highly cited article published in Science. The impact of his work in advanced manufacturing was recognised by the Star Award from the Cooperative Research Association in 2010 and the “Aerospace Australia Industry SME Innovation Award” in 2010.

CI Dargusch has more than 400 publications with a total citation count of 28254 and h-index of 84 (Google Scholar 11/2024). He has been recognised as one of Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2020, 2023, and 2024. His publications have a Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) of 2.32 (SciVal, 11/2024). He has 12 Highly Cited Papers (papers in the top 1% citation percentile worldwide) (WoS 11/2024). 33% of his publications are in the top 10% citation percentile worldwide, and 55.7% of his publications are in the top 10% journals.

He consistently publishes in high-quality journals in fields directly relevant to the field of this application including Materials Science, Manufacturing, and Energy Materials. He has 50 high-quality publications in the field of metal additive manufacturing alone including 1 in Science (IF=47.73), 1 in Nature Communications (IF=14.7), and 10 in Additive Manufacturing (IF=10.3). He also has a strong track record in energy materials including another article published in Science, 2 in Energy and Environmental Science (IF=32.4), 4 in Advanced Materials (IF=27.4), 2 in Advanced Energy Materials (IF=27.8), 5 Nano Energy (IF=16.8), 1 in Progress in Materials Science (IF=33.6), and 1 in Advanced Science (IF=15.1). His strong background in all three fields provide a solid foundation for this project. Other prestigious journals where he has published include Adv Funct Mater, Acta Mater, Acta Biomater, Biomaterials, Int J Mach Tools Manuf, and Scr Mater.

Prof Dargusch has been successful in obtaining over $10 million in competitive and industry grant funding since 2018 and an additional $2.95 million through the Queensland Government’s Innovation Projects Fund since 2006. He is also a chief investigator on 6 x ARC LPs, 3 x ARC DPs, 2 x ARC ITRH and 7 x ARC LIEF grants and lead investigator on 1 DEST (now DIISR) International Science Linkages Program – Australia-China Special Fund Grant. He was awarded a Smart Future Fund RPP grant of $405,000 as lead investigator for a project focussed on the “Development of Next Generation Endovascular Grafts”(2012-2015). Most recently Professor Dargusch was successful as a CI on a $ 50 Million MRFF Artificial Heart Frontiers Program grant. He has a wide range of industry funded research projects with partners such as Cook Medical, Stryker, Airbus, Boeing and Baosteel.

Prof Dargusch’s ability to transfer research outcomes to industry is provided by the case study on titanium technology submitted by Prof Dargusch as lead investigator to the Excellence in Innovation for Australia trial in 2012. The submission was rated A for outstanding impacts in terms of reach and significance.

Prof. Dargusch’s primary research interests are associated with addressing the major technical challenges facing Australian metal manufacturers in order to assist them to participate more effectively in global supply chains and the development of improved medical devices. His aim is to use his research to impact the ability of Australian companies, to develop and integrate advanced manufacturing technologies particularly in the production of high value components for Aircraft, Maritime and Medical Device applications.