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Dr. Denis Shishin,

• Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Chemistry from Moscow State University (Diploma with Honors)
• PhD in Metallurgical Engineering from University of Montreal, Canada
• 2014 - Current: Research Fellow in Pyrometallurgy Innovation Centre (PYROSEARCH) of the University of Queensland

Jason Stokes is a Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering and leads the Premium Food and Beverages Program in Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator. This program focuses on industry-driven research to enhance onshore value-adding and business growth opportunities. Jason obtained his BE (Chem) and PhD from University of Melbourne, and was a Researcher with Unilever R&D United Kingdom from 1999-2008, before joining UQ in 2008.

Jason is a recognized expert in the rheology, lubrication, structure and processing of complex fluids and soft materials, including food and beverages. He pioneered the development of rheology and soft contact tribology techniques to provide new insights into oral processing and sensory perception that includes mouthfeel, taste and flavour. His research has uncovered the physical and structural properties driving the complex sensory attributes of a wide variety of food and beverages. These are used by industry to engineer next-generation foods with improved quality and sustainability.

He served in a leadership role as Deputy Associate Dean Research in the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT (EAIT), 2020-23, with a specific focus on research training, development and well-being of emerging researchers. He has previously held other senior roles inlcude Acting Associate Dean of Research in Faculty of EAIT and Director of Research in the School of Chemical Engineering.

Some key areas of his research include:

1. Rheology, tribology, and interfacial properties of soft matter, food and beverages, including development of methods to uncover relevant material properties of food and beverages driving mouthfeel, texture and flavour. .
2. Soft materials and Soft matter such as gels, soft glasses, suspensions, microgels, emulsions and foams, with particular emphasis on using fundamental approaches to uncover structure-property relationships for complex systems.
3. Colloids and hydrocolloids such as nanocrystalline cellulose, microgels, polysaccharides, proteins and starches.
4. Development of structure-property-processing relationships for rational design of food and beverages, including dairy & plant-based and solids & liquids.
5. Aqueous lubrication, transport phenomena and flow of non-Newtonian fluids and their application across various industries (minerals, waste, foods, firefighting fluids, polishing fluids).

Professor Stokes lectures and coordinates teaching modules in the Chemical Engineering degree, with particular strengths in Fluid Mechanics and currently coordinates and lectures both Transport Phenomenon (CHEE4009) and Engineering Placement (ENGG7292) courses.

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 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.

Liguang Wang obtained his PhD from Virginia Tech (Supervisor: Roe-Hoan Yoon). His research focus is mineral processing and metal extraction for the transition to renewable energy. He was honoured with the ACARP Research and Industry Excellence Award in 2022.

More details from the lab website.

Fully funded PhD projects:

We are seeking PhD students working on sustainable production of lithium minerals, which is supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant. Each PhD scholarship includes full tuition support and stipend of $35,000 per annum. Please send your queries to liguang.wang@uq.edu.au

Educated at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Australian National University, Canberra. Career at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Universität Marburg, Germany. Professor and Chair of Organic Chemistry and Head of the Organic Chemistry Section, The University of Queensland from 1985. Emeritus professor from 2008. Chair of the National Committee for Chemistry of the Australian Academy of Science 2009-2014. Editor-in-Chief, Australian Journal of Chemistry 2008-15. Editor, Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis (Elsevier, IF 3.65) 2016-. Visiting Professor Université de Pau, France, 2011-19; Visiting Professor University of Kuwait 2014-18; Visiting Professor / Special Appointed Professor Hiroshima University 2014-18. Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Centenary Medal of the Australian Commonwealth 2003 for research in organic and physical chemistry. David Craig Medal of the Academy of Science 2014 for research in chemistry. JSPS Fellowship (Japan) 2014. Honorary doctorate, University of Pau, France, 2014. A.J. Birch Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) for ecellence in research in organic chemistry, 2014. Leighton Medal of the RACI 2018.

Research on Unusual Molecules and Reactive Intermediates: Synthesis and Reaction Mechanism. Heterocyclic chemistry. Pyrolysis reactions. Photochemistry

Research in the Wentrup group is concerned with the discovery of novel types of molecules with new and unusual bonding patterns. Such molecules are mostly highly reactive, and special methods are required both for their generation and for their detection. The group has developed these methods over many years and acquired world-class equipment for these purposes, including flash vacuum thermolysis apparatus, cryostats for matrix isolation of reaction products at cryogenic temperatures (down to 7 K), matrix and solution photochemistry equipment, infrared, UV and mass spectrometers, as well as modern computational facilities.

This research has resulted in the synthesis and characterization of many novel compounds, including extended cumulenes of the types RN=C=C=C=X, which themselves are used in the synthesis of many novel types of molecules, some of them of potential pharmaceutical interest (quinolone antibiotics; diazepines).

The research group has a world reputation in the field of carbene and nitrene chemistry, involving reactive intermediates with sextet carbon or nitrogen. These species are also very useful in synthesis, for example in the preparation of diazepines and diazepinones, a family of pharmaceutically interesting compounds. Numerous mechanistic studies and synthetic applications of ketenes have been carried out in our group.

Active collaborations are ongoing with scientists in Australia (UQ and CSIRO), China (Suzhou), France (Pau), Germany (Oldenburg), Japan (Hiroshima), Spain (Donostia - San Sebastian), and Portugal (Coimbra).

Yuan Xu completed a Bachelor of Engineering degree (Chemical and Material) from the University of Queensland in 2015. After that, he started his PhD in the research field of colloidal science, rheology and chemical engineering, supervised by Professor Jason Stokes. He has continued in UQ as postdoctoral research fellow since 2019, at which, he has contributed to multidisciplinary projects including viscoelastic lubrication of soft matter systems, and programming structural anisotropy in nanocellulose hydrogels. His research capability focuses on the area of rheology, colloidal science/ physical chemistry, material/physical science, soft matters/complex fluids, and tribology/lubrication.

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.

Xiuwen Zhou received her PhD in 2014 from the University of Geneva (Switzerland), where she worked with Prof Tomasz A. Wesolowski. Then she moved to the University of Queensland (UQ) as a visiting scholar, supported by two awarded fellowships, i.e., a Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoc Mobility fellowship (2015) and an Australia-APEC Woman in Research Fellowship (2016), hosted by Prof Ben Powell and Prof Paul Burn. She then took up a UQ Development Fellowship in 2017, working as a teaching and research fellow at UQ School of Mathematics and Physics. Later, she was awarded an Australia Research Council Discovery Early Research Award (ARC DECRA) commencing in 2019. She is currently an ARC DECRA Fellow and a UQ Amplify Fellow.