Find an expert

Dr Ekaterina Strounina is a Solid State NMR facility manager in the Centre for Advanced Imaging. She has been working in UQ since 2002, specializing in high-field MRI applications and solid-state NMR spectroscopy.

Professor Kris Thurecht has appointments at AIBN and UQ’s Centre for Advanced Imaging where he is the Deputy Director of Imaging Technologies. Professor Thurecht has been recognised for scientific excellence with a 2012 Queensland Young Tall Poppy Science Award and a 2010 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award for his work in developing polymer ‘theranostics’. In 2015 he was recognised by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Polymer Division through award of the David Sangster Polymer Science and Technology Award for scientific excellence for a mid-career researcher. Since obtaining his PhD in 2005, he has been the recipient of five competitive national and international fellowships, the latest being an NHMRC CDF, and prior to that award an ARC Future Fellowship. He has contributed scientific and review articles to various leading journals in his field, including invited articles in the Emerging Young Investigator issue of Chemical Communications and a Young Talent article in Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics. Professor Thurecht has been chief investigator on grants from various funding bodies, including ARC Discovery grants; ARC Linkage Grants, with both national and international companies; National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants; and funding from various cancer foundations. He is co-inventor on 8 patents. He is CI on the ARC Training Centre for Innovation in BioMedical Imaging Technology in which he is theme leader, and is Director of the ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacture of Targeted Radiopharmaceuticals.

Professor Matt Trau is currently a Professor of Chemistry at The University of Queensland (UQ); and is also Senior Group Leader and co-founder of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. Since graduating from the University of Sydney (BSc Hons I, University Medal) and the University of Melbourne (PhD in Physical Chemistry, 1993), he has held positions in industry and academia across the globe. These include a Fulbright Research Fellowship at Princeton University, USA; and a research scientist at Dow Chemical and ICI Pty Ltd. Professor Trau has been a Visiting Professor at two of the largest Cancer Research Centres in the world: The Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston (2000); and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle (2008). Professor Trau is internationally recognised for his innovative and cross-disciplinary research at the interface between chemistry, nanotechnology, biology and medicine. He has co-authored more than 290 refereed publications, many of which appear in the highest impact journals in his field, e.g., fifteen Science and Nature family publications. His major awards and honours include an ARC Laureate Fellowship, an ARC Federation Fellowship (amoungst the most prestigious scientific fellowships in Australia), a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the USA; a Queensland Young Tall Poppy Award; a UQ Foundation/Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award; a Paul Harris Fellowship; and a Pink Circle Award for breast cancer research excellence.

Dr Verdi's research is in the field of computational materials physics. Her work employs first-principles or ab initio methods, complemented by machine learning techniques, to predict and understand physical properties of materials without relying on empirical models.

She received her doctorate in Materials from the University of Oxford in 2017. After working at the University of Oxford and the University of Vienna, Dr Verdi moved to the University of Sydney in 2023 as an ARC DECRA Fellow. In the same year, she then joined UQ as a Lecturer in Condensed Matter Physics.

Her current research focuses on understanding the structural, optical and thermodynamic properties of atomic defects for applications in quantum technologies. She is also interested in studying the influence of atomic vibrations, defects, temperature and disorder on the intrinsic properties of various functional materials that can be exploited for novel technologies. Feel free to reach out to Dr Verdi if you are interested in simulating materials properties from first principles using supercomputers and exploring how this can help develop better materials.

For more information, visit the research group website.

Dr. Wang completed her MPhil study in the University of Queensland (UQ) in 2016 and PhD study in UQ in October 2020. As an early career researcher, Dr.Wang has demonstrated a high impact track record relative to opportunity with award of Dean's award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research (2016), the high proportion (41%) of first-authored publications, 28% of which in the top 10% most cited publications worldwide (Scopus 24/03/2021). She has been actively engaged in a number of professional activities in the research fields, including RHD student supervision, assessment for the master research projects (BIOX7021), talks at national and international conferences (The Australian Colloid and Interface Symposium Brisbane hub, 2021; The Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research ECR Symposium, 2021; BioNano Innovation, 2020) and conference organization (The Australian Colloid and Interface Symposium Brisbane hub, 2021).

Biography:

Professor Lianzhou Wang FAA FTSE is Australian Research Council (ARC) Australian Laureate Fellow at the School of Chemical Engineering, Director of Nanomaterials Centre (Nanomac), and Senior Group Leader of Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), The University of Queensland. He received his PhD degree from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Before joining UQ in 2004, he has worked at two leading national research institutions (NIMS and AIST) of Japan as a research fellow for five years. Since joining UQ, he has worked as ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow (2006), Senior Lecturer (2007), Associate Professor (2010), Professor (2012-now) and ARC Future Fellow (2012-16), and is now an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow at the Chemical Engineering School and AIBN.

Research:

Professor Wang's research focuses on the synthesis, characterisation and application of semiconductor nanomaterials for use in renewable energy conversion/storage systems including photocatalytsts for solar hydrogen and valuable chemical production, rechargeable batteries and low cost solar cells. In the past 20 years at UQ, as a Chief Investigator, he has attracted a large number of competitive research funds from ARC, CRC, CSIRO and industry. Prof. Wang has contributed 3 edited books, 14 edited book chapters, more than 600 journal publications (including top ranking journals such as Science, Nature Energy, Chem. Rev., Chem Soc. Rev., Nature Commmun, Angew. Chem., Adv. Mater., J. Am Chem. Soc., etc.), filed 20 patents and delivered over 130 plenary/keynote/invited presentations. His publications have received >55,000 citations with a H-index of 127 (Google Scholar). Prof. Wang is serving as Editor/Associate Editor/Editorial Board member of more than 10 international journals including Advanced Materials (Wiley Publishing group, Impact factor 32.09). He is named on the list of the Clarivate’ Highly Cited Researchers (Top 0.1% researcher in the world).

Prof. Wang has won a number of prestigious Fellowships/awards including STA Fellowship of Japan, ARC QEII Fellowship of 2006, UQ Research Excellence Award of 2008, Scopus Young Researcher Award of 2011, ARC Future Fellowship of 2012, UQ Research Supervision Award of 2018, ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship of 2019, Research Excellence Award in Chemcial Engieering of 2019, and ARC Industry Laureate Fellowship of 2024.

Prof. Wang is the elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA), the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (FTSE), Academia Europaea (MAE) and Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). On professional services, he serves as the chair of National Committee for Materials Science and Engineering, Australian Academy of Sciences, and the President of Australian Materials Research Society.

Teaching and RHD supervision activities

• Lecturer of second year undergraduate core course CHEE2003 Fluid & Particle Mechanics and fourth year engineering course CHEE4301 Nanomaterials and Their Characterisation
• Research Supervision: 45 RHDs awarded, current supervisor/co-supervisor of ~20 PhD students & 15 Postdoctoral Fellows/Research Fellows/Senior Research Fellows.

Professor Andrew Whittaker is Senior Group Leader and founder member of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN). He directs research funded through more than $61.3 million in competitive grants since 2000 and $39.7M since 2010. Professor Whittaker’s work in synthesis and characterisation of polymeric materials has underpinned major development programs in several key areas.

His work in the field of materials for photolithography has been supported by funding from leading semiconductor companies Intel, Sematech, Dow Chemical Company and DuPont. Outcomes include novel high-index resists for 193 nm immersion lithography, new concepts for design of non-chemically amplified resists for EUV lithography, novel approaches to healing roughness in IC features and block copolymer self-assembly.

In the field of biomaterials science and nanomedicine, Professor Whittaker has established a network of international scientists under the theme “Bringing Materials to Life”. He is active in developing novel imaging agents for MRI, and has introduced a new class of 19F polymeric agents. He leads research into responsive polymers for nanomedicine and for device manufacture. His work on polymeric hydrogels including transport properties is highly cited.

Finally, Professor Whittaker is an expert in the fundamentals of diffusion process in complex solids and has an international reputation in the field of NMR and MRI of polymeric systems.

International links

Professor Whittaker is a member of numerous international committees of governing bodies in polymer science and technology, and is involved in organising major international conferences. He is currently president of the Pacific Polymer Federation. He actively collaborates with scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA; Institute of Nano Science and Technology, Mohali, India; Gebze Technical University, Turkey; Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan; Jilin University, Hubei University, the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST, CAS), SUSTech and Shanghai University, China; the University of Nottingham, UK; IMEC, DuPont Electronics and Imaging, USA. He has held visiting professor positions at NCNST, INSA Lyon and NIT, was DICE Chair at the University of Nottingham, and is currently visiting professor at Hubei University.

I have a multidisciplinary background in chemical and civil engineering, chemistry and materials science. Currently, I am the UQ leader of the National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life, based at USC. I apply my expertise to understand the effects of fungal decay and moisture intrusion in timber connections, as well as the improvement of the fire performance of timber. I supervise 6 PhD students.

Professor Chengzhong (Michael) Yu is an internationally recognised expert in materials science. He is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow; a referee for more than 50 international journals; and a reviewer for the ARC and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

International links

Professor Yu has collaborations with scientists in chemistry, material science and chemical engineering from the US, Japan, Scotland, Sweden, France and China. Through these collaborations, more than 30 international journal papers have been published.