Find an expert

Denys Villa Gomez holds a joint appointment at the University of Queensland as Senior Lecturer at the School of Civil Engineering and as a Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. She obtained her PhD at the world-leading institute’s IHE-Delft/Wageningen University, The Netherlands in 2013. She applies advanced methodologies such as omics approaches and micro spectral tools to develop biotechnology processes that reduce carbon emissions and recover resources from mine waste and wastewater. She is the leader of the key area “Synbio Mining” within the recently created UQ Biosustainability Hub and chief investigator at the ARC Training Centre in Critical Resources for the Future. She has published over 40 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers cited more than 500 times, and has served as editor and reviewer for leading journals and advisory roles in industry and scientific committees (e.g. International Mine Water Association).

Teaching and Learning:

• Course coordinator and lecturer for Introduction to Environmental Engineering (CIVL2135)
• Course coordinator and lecturer for Environmental Phenomena (ENVE3160)
• Lecturer in Integrated Design for Environmental Management (CIVL4516)
• Lecturer in Sustainable Built Environment (CIVL4180)

Dr Bernardino Virdis is Senior Researcher in Environmental Biotechnology at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology (ACWEB). He completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2010 investigating energy recovery from waste materials. The approaches used in Dr Virdis’ research draw on a range of expertise including environmental microbiology, microbial ecology, chemical engineering, material science, spectroscopy, electrochemistry and microbial catalysis, which he applies to develop sustainable biotechnologies for the treatment and reuse of waste streams. Dr Virdis publishes in major outlets in environmental science and technology, including the prestigious ISME Journal, Energy and Environmental Science, ChemSusChem, Water Research, Environmental Science & Technology, and more.

Dr T. Thang Vo-Doan is a Lecturer of the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of Queensland. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Biology I, University of Freiburg, Germany (2019-2023). He was also a Research Fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore (2016-2018). He was awarded his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, NTU in 2016. He received his M.Eng. degree in Manufacturing Engineering and B.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam in 2010 and 2008 respectively. He was awarded the prestigious Human Frontier Science Program Cross-disciplinary Fellowship (2019-2022).

He directs the UQ Biorobotics lab after joining in the University of Queensland. Current research activities of the lab focus on insect-machine hybrid robots, bio-inspired robotics, insect structures and functions, biomechanics, fast lock-on tracking, and brain imaging in untethered insects.

Professor Geoff Wang received his PhD in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering from the Northeastern University, Shenyang, China in 1990. After earned about 2-year Visiting Academic experience at University of New South Wales, he joined the University of Queensland in 1996 and has been leading in the research focusing on modeling and simulation of the Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering processes, such as iron ore sintering, iron- & steel-making, sustainable energy, coalbed methane (CBM) extraction and carbon dioxide capture and utilization including CO2 -sequestration with enhanced coalbed methane (CO2-ECBM) recovery. Professor Wang’s research activity and interests are directed towards developing energy and environmental technologies. He has made significant contributions to the field of research on fluid flow, heat and mass transfer in chemical reactors, particularly gas solid reaction kinetics associated with various porous media. He has been active and completed research programs in clean energy technologies such as pulverized coal injection into blast furnaces, hydrogen production through lower emission coal combustion, and CO2 electrochemical conversion to fuel or reusable chemicals.

Professor Wang is author of a monograph entitled "Pulverized Coal Injection Technology for Blast Furnaces" and has over 100 original journal publications and about 60 refereed conference papers, included 2 patents.

Dr Yuan Wang is interested in developing advanced manufacturing solutions to promote sustainability, particularly through functional materials and devices that can benefit biomedical and renewable energy applications. He is currently an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellow in partnership with Cook Medical to develop manufacturing solutions for personalised medical devices.

As lead/solo/co-CI, Yuan has secured competitive grant funding totalling > $1.4M. His research has attracted >3700 peer citations from 79 countries. 54.5% of his papers are the global top 10% most cited papers, and 97% were published in Q1 journals including 10 in prestigious Nature-indexed journals. He has published 4 in Adv. Mater. (IF=27.4), 2 in Adv. Energy Mater. (IF=27.8), 2 in J. Am. Chem. Soc. (IF=14.5), 3 in Chem. Eng. J. (IF=13.4), Adv. Funct. Mater. (IF=18.99), ACS Nano (IF=15.8), Biomaterials (IF=12.8), Bioact. Mater. (IF=18), Addit. Manuf. (IF=10.3), Curr. Opin. Solid State Mater. Sci. (IF=12.2), Nano Energy (IF=16.8), Small (IF=13), Nano Today (IF=13.2), J. Magnes. Alloys (IF=15.8), and Acta Biomater. (IF=9.7). He also contributes to his field as a regular reviewer for leading journals such as Nat. Commun., Prog. Mater. Sci. (IF=33.6) and Adv. Mater (IF=27.4). He has been awarded several research excellence and leadership awards.

Yuan conducted his PhD at UniSQ working on thermoelectrics and graduated in 2020 with the UniSQ Research Excellence Award (supervisor: Prof Zhigang Chen). He obtained his bachelor's degree in Metallurgical Engineering from Northeastern University (China) in 2016, with his third year at UQ where he received the Dean’s Commendation for Academic Excellence Award.

Yuan is a lecturer for multiple UQ courses, where he has received high SECaT scores for his teaching quality and student engagement. He is also responsible for a variety of supervision and service duties.

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 project: We are seeking a domestic student working on sustainable production of lithium minerals, which is supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant. Web link for the scholarship: https://study.uq.edu.au/study-options/phd-mphil-professional-doctorate/projects/sustainable-beneficiation-lithium-minerals

C.M. Wang joined the School of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland (UQ) in January 2017 as the Transport and Main Roads (TMR) Chair Professor of Structural Engineering. He graduated from Monash University in Civil Engineering with a First Class Honours in 1978 and was awarded M.Eng.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the same university in 1980 and 1982, respectively. Prior to joining UQ, Professor Wang held the positions as the Director for the Engineering Science Programme and the Director for the Global Engineering Programme, at the Faculty of Engineering of the National University of Singapore. Additionally, he was the Vice-Dean of Undergraduate Programmes of NUS Faculty of Engineering and the Associate Director of the Centre for Development in Teaching and Learning, NUS. He is also the Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, Australia and was elected as Monash Civil Engineering Alumnus of the Year 2015 for his significant contributions to the engineering profession.

Professor Wang is a Chartered Structural Engineer, Fellow of Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, Member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts, Fellow of Academy of Engineering Singapore, Fellow of Institution of Engineers Singapore, Fellow of Institution of Structural Engineers and Fellow of Society of Floating Solutions (Singapore). He was the Chairman of the IStructE Singapore Regional Group and the IStructE Council Member for 12 years. He was awarded 2009 Lewis Kent Award, 2014 Keith Eaton Award and IES Outstanding Volunteer Awards 2011 and 2008 for his outstanding leadership and significant contributions to IStructE and IES. He is the Immediate Past Chairman of International Steering Committee of EASEC, Vice President of Society of Floating Solutions Singapore, member of International Advisory Committee of RILS and Senior Fellow of PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research, Hong Kong PolyU. He is founding member of International Engineering Science Consortium that comprises 9 premier universities (UC Berkeley, Cornell Univ, Univ of Toronto, Osaka University, KTH Sweden, UCL, NUS, UQ, Auckland Univ).

Professor Wang is a highly sought after keynote speaker in international conferences. He has given over 50 keynote presentations and many seminars on very large floating structures, structural modeling and analysis in many countries. He has won a number of research awards such as 2019 Nishino Medal, 2019 JN Reddy Medal and best paper awards. He has provided consulting services and served as an expert in structures and very large floating structures to many public and private organizations, including JTC Corporation, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, Housing Development Board, Defence Science and Technology Agency, Jurong Consultants, Surbana International and Singapore Cruise Centre.

Andrew Ward is an ARC Industry Fellow at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology (ACWEB), at The University of Queensland. He holds a PhD degree from the School of Chemical Engineering (The University of Adelaide) and his thesis focused on the optimisation of halophilic anaerobic digestion of algal biomass. At ACWEB projects he has worked on include Nutrient recovery via electrodialysis and Anammox for both domestic wastewater and agricultural wastewater treatment. He previously received an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to investigate the use of algae and bacterial aggregated flocs for the remediation of wastewater. Andrew has just received and ARC Industry Fellowship to investigate the use of microalgae and its role in energy and nutrient recovery from a circular economy perspective. Andrew has significant industrial experience working with large water utilities and industry partners scaling up research to pilot and demonstration scale. Andrew is currently lead investigator and manages Urban Utilities wastewater microalgae research program.

Tony is an expert mining structural geologist who applies his skills to problems of deep earth mass mining, giant open pits, near-mine exploration, and the local and regional lithostructural controls on complex metalliferous mineral deposits. As a Senior Research Fellow in mining and engineering geology at the University of Queensland, Tony’s pioneering research focussed on the geological modelling and data inputs required for planning deep cave mining operations, an area that had received little previous consideration from geologists. He led the Geology and Mass Mining Project (GMM), which examined the geoscientific inputs required for exploring, defining, establishing, and mining block and sub-level caving operations that were being developed on giant porphyry copper-gold systems and IOCG deposits. While much research was being done in Australia to explore the deep earth environment, very little was being done to model the geology of large and deep mineralized systems, and then to use the new data and models to plan and extract any large discoveries made. Tony’s pioneering work was some of the first and most comprehensive to be done in this field.

• Fellow and chartered professional (geology) of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
• Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists
• Fellow of the Geological Society
• Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists
• Member, Geological Society of Australia
• Member, Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology

Tony is presently a Principal Structural Geologist with a Brisbane-based geophysical and geological consulting group.

Prof. Wheatley is the Co-Director of the Centre for Hypersonics within the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering. He was named Australia's Research Field Leader in Aerospace and Aviation Engineering (The Australian, Sept 28, 2018) and was a recipient of a 2017 Australian Award for University Teaching – Award for Teaching Excellence .

Prof. Wheatley's research interests are in the fields of supersonic plasma flows, hypersonics and computational fluid dynamics.

Prof. Wheatley's research in supersonic plasma flows focuses on the suppression of instabilities that are detrimental to inertial confinement fusion, a process that promises carbon free energy production. In hypersonics, he focuses on extending the capability scramjets to the point where they can power launch-vehicle stages. This technology could meet the need for safer, more economical space access, which has the potential to revolutionise the space industry. Computational fluid dynamics is his primary method of investigation in these areas.

Prof. Wheatley obtained his PhD in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology in 2005. He also earned an MEngSc (Mechanical) and a BE (Mechanical and Space) from the University of Queensland (UQ). After completing his PhD in the US, Dr Wheatley spent two years as post-doctoral fellow at ETH Zurich. He was then a Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Adelaide before taking up his position at UQ in 2009.

Prof. Wheatley has expertise in the areas of:

• Simulation of hypersonic flows (DNS, LES and RANS)
• Using high fidelity numerical simulations, validated by experiments, to provide new details and understanding of scramjet flow physics
• Mixing and combustion enhancement in scramjets through fuel/flow structure interactions and novel injector design
• Analysis and simulation of plasma instabilities
• Numerical methods for magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and multi-fluid, ion-electron plasmas
• Rarefied gas dynamics
• Bluff body wake dynamics
• Aeroacoustics, particularly passive noise control for bluff bodies

Professor White is Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Engineered Quantum Systems, an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, and leads the Quantum Technology Laboratory at UQ, which he established in 1999. He is internationally recognised for research in quantum science and technology, and is interested in all aspects of quantum weirdness. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the American Physical Society, and Optica. Andrew’s research spans: quantum foundations; production, manipulation and exploitation of quantum states of light, both in conventional optics and nanophotonics; and utilising quantum technology, be it in quantum computation, quantum communication, quantum sensing, or neuromorphic computing. Details can be found at the Quantum Laboratory website.

Professor White has worked with twenty-one postdoctoral researchers since 2001, five of whom received ARC Discovery Early Career Researchers Awards whilst working in his lab, six receiving Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships subsequently and one a Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship. He has supervised more than 40 postgraduate students, who have received an array of awards including a Rhodes Scholarship, three Springer PhD thesis prizes, Australian representative at the Lindau Nobel Meeting, the only-ever runner for the Australian Institute of Physics Bragg Medal, and UQ Medals and Valedictorian, to name but a few.

Bio: Andrew was raised in a Queensland dairy town, before heading south to the big smoke of Brisbane to study chemistry, maths, physics and, during the World Expo, the effects of alcohol on uni students from around the world. Deciding he wanted to know what the cold felt like, he first moved to Canberra, then Germany—completing his PhD in quantum physics—before moving on to Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico where he quickly discovered that there is more than enough snow to hide a cactus, but not nearly enough to prevent amusing your friends when you sit down. Over the years he has conducted research on various topics including shrimp eyes, nuclear physics, optical vortices, and quantum computers. He likes quantum weirdness for its own sake, but his current research aims to explore and exploit the full range of quantum behaviours—notably entanglement—with an eye to engineering new technologies and scientific applications. He is currently Director of the Centre of Engineered Quantum Systems, an Australia-wide, 14-year long, research effort by more than 250 scientists to build quantum machines that harness the quantum world for practical applications.

Dr. Whitmire is a group leader at the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) and a senior lecturer in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Queensland (UQ). She is a leading expert in understanding how sensory information is represented along the neuraxis from the neurons in the skin that sense external stimuli to the central representation in the thalamocortical circuit. She operates at the interface of neuroscience and engineering to generate novel insights into information representation in the brain. Her laboratory uses a combination of tools to record from populations of neurons, manipulate the activity of those neurons, and model the underlying neural circuitry. Dr. Whitmire trained as a Biomedical Engineer at North Carolina State University (B. S.) and Georgia Institute of Technology/Emory Universty (Ph.D.). Following postdoctoral work at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, she established her own laboratory at The University of Queensland in 2023.

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.

Dr Felix Wiesner is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia and an Honorary Fellow in the School of Civil Engineering at The University of Queensland and works as part of the National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life. He was appointed at UQ as a Lecturer in Timber Engineering in 2019 to lead research projects focused on enhancing the fire performance of timber using treatments and modification techniques. His background is in structural fire engineering and the fire safety of timber structures, specifically engineered timber structures. His field of expertise are the critical evaluation of load bearing capacity of building elements in fire and the assessment of safety implications arising from the use of engineered timber as structural members in tall buildings or structures with extraordinary architectural features.

Dr Wiesner completed his Master of Engineering in Structural and Fire Safety Engineering at The University of Edinburgh from 2010 to 2015 before he completed his doctoral studies on the structural behaviour of cross-laminated timber in fire between 2015 and 2020. During his undergraduate and postgraduate work, he closely worked with Arup on multiple projects regarding the fire safety of timber buildings and the effect of localised fires in large open spaces. He actively participated in the European COST Action FP 1404 for the Fire Safe Use of Bio-Based Building Products between 2016 and 2019, representing the UK as a Management Committee member. He significantly contributed to the success of the Fires in Tall Timber Structures: Large-scale Tests in Support of Tall Timber Construction project at the BRE in the UK and also worked as a member of the global Fire Safe Use of Wood research collaboration.

Chamith completed his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Akron, Ohio, USA in 2014 and BSc (Hons) degree in Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering with first class honours at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka in 2007. His research interests and expertise include multidimensional signal processing, digital hardware architectures for signal processing, FPGA based system design, hardware accelerators for machine learning, and engineering education. Chamith has received a number of awards including the Outstanding Student Research Award at the University of Akron, Ohio, USA, in 2011 and he is one of the two recipients of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Pre-Doctoral Award in 2014. From 2015-2019 he was a lecturer at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Research into advanced computer architectures

John Williams, born in 1973, was awarded his Ph.D from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, in 2001. He was previously awarded undergraduate degrees in Electronic Engineering, and

Information Technology, also from QUT, in 1995. He is currently employed in the School of ITEE at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, where he holds the position of Research Fellow.

His research interests include reconfigurable computing and real-time embedded Systems, as well as 3D computer vision and imaging. He has authored 5 refereed journal publications, and more than 20 refereed conference publications, and recently edited the Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Field Programmable Technology. He has been a member of the IEEE for 8 years.

Professor David John Williams was the Initiator and Director of the Geotechnical Engineering Centre within the School of Civil Engineering at The University of Queensland, an industry-funded centre that has attracted AUD10 million in funding over the period from 2007 to 2022. He also manages the industry-sponsored Large Open Pit Project, involving 10 global mining company sponsors, with current funding of USD1 million per year. He has over 40 years of teaching, research and consulting experience, and is internationally recognised for his expertise and experience in mine waste management and mine closure, pertaining to tailings dams in particular. He was a member of Expert Panel investigating technical causes of Brumadinho tailings dam failure and is on a number of Tailings Independent Technical Review Boards, including for Escondida Copper Mine in Chile. He authored in 2009 and 2016 Tailings Management Handbook, as part of the Commonwealth Leading Practice Sustainable Development Program for the Mining Industry. He is on Working Party for the Australian National Committee for Large Dams Guidelines on Tailings Dams – Planning, Design, Construction, Operation and Closure, published in 2012, with an Addendum in 2019 and currently being updated. He initiated in 2020 and largely delivers the AusIMM Tailings Management Professional Certificate Course that has been taken by almost 1,500 Tailings Practitioners worldwide.

David received his BE (Hons I) in Civil Engineering from Monash University in 1975 and his PhD in Soil Mechanics from the University of Cambridge in 1979. His research and consulting interests include:

• Physical characterisation of mine tailings deposition, including beaching, hydraulic sorting, sedimentation, consolidation, desiccation and loading
• Store and release cover systems for potentially acid forming mine wastes
• Co-disposal of mine tailings and coarse-grained mine wastes
• Dewatering and densification of mine tailings
• Dewatering of mineral products
• Moisture movement within mine wastes
• Settlement of coarse-grained mine wastes
• Strength of coarse-grained mine wastes
• Engineered rehabilitation of mine sites
• Risk assessment and cost-effectiveness analysis of mine site rehabilitation and closure
• Long-term seepage and runoff from mine tailings storages
• Characterisation of potentially acid forming waste rock dumps
• Application of high-resolution digital stereo-photography to monitoring erosion from mine waste slopes
• Mined landform evolution and design