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Professor Michael Monteiro has established an international reputation in the field of 'living' radical polymerization to create complex polymer architectures. He is now building designer polymers for various biomedical applications, including vaccines, drug delivery and stem cells. He is dedicated to translating research into commercial outcomes, with 7 PCT and provisional patents since 2005 and start-up company DendriMed Pty Ltd. He was awarded an ARC QEII Fellowship in 2004 and an ARC Future Fellowship in 2009. He has attracted ARC and NHMRC grants; and Queensland State Government funding in excess of $7 million.

International links

Professor Monteiro has built a strong collaboration with Professor Virgil Percec from the University of Pennsylvania to develop and understand the new SET-LRP. He has developed a collaboration with Professor Rachel O'Reilly from the University of Warwick to develop nanoreactors that mimic enzyme activity. In collaboration with Professor Eugenia Kumacheva from the University of Toronto, they developed temperature responsive micron-sized particles from encapsulation of cells.

Megan O’Mara is a Professor and Group Leader at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), UQ. Her group uses multiscale modelling techniques to understand how changes in the biochemical environment of the cell membranes alters membrane properties and modulates the function of membrane proteins. She has research interests in multidrug resistance, computational drug design and delivery, biopolymers, and personalized medicine. Megan completed her PhD in biophysics at the Australian National University in 2005 before moving to the University of Calgary, Canada, to take up a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2009, she returned to Australia to join University of Queensland’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences as a UQ Postdoctoral Fellow, before commencing an ARC DECRA in 2012 where she continued her computational work on membrane protein dynamics. In 2015, Megan joined the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University in 2015 as Rita Cornforth Fellow and Senior Lecturer. In 2019 she was promoted to Associate Professor and was Associate Director (Education) of the Research School of Chemistry ANU in 2019-2021. In April 2022 she relocated to AIBN.

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. For more information, visit the research group website.

She received her doctorate 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. She is an associate investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC).

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.

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).

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 nanotechnology, chemistry and materials science. He is the author of over 400 scientific publications with over 36,000 citations. He has received National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership (L3) and Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship.

His research interest includes functional nanomaterials and their applications in healthcare, agriculture, and energy storage. He is working with industrial partners to provide innovative solutions for challenging problems in our society.